Ultimate SharePoint Guide

Basic Questions

What is Microsoft SharePoint?

The definition of SharePoint can vary, depending on who you ask. This is because organisations each have their own preference of how they use the product. However, most commonly, SharePoint can be described as a collaboration and document management platform.

Developed by Microsoft and launched in 2001, SharePoint can be deployable onto a company’s network or through the Cloud, is highly configurable and provides a variety of tools for enterprises looking to manage their own security, information and data.

Microsoft SharePoint has three options – SharePoint Server, SharePoint Online and SharePoint Hybrid. The main difference between these three options is where the product is installed and maintained.

Although SharePoint has been a market leader in the enterprise collaboration software market for many years, there are some strong SharePoint alternatives that are starting to materialise.

What is SharePoint Online?

SharePoint Online is installed and managed on a hosted server in Microsoft datacentres and accessed over the Internet, also known as the Cloud. SharePoint Online is included within Office 365 Business Premium, Office 364 Business Essentials, Office 365 Enterprise E3, SharePoint Online Plan 1 and SharePoint Online Plan 2.

What is SharePoint Server?

SharePoint Server is installed and maintained on your company’s network infrastructure. Instead of using the SharePoint features and applications through the Internet (Cloud), they are accessible over your local network instead. Whereas SharePoint Online is licensed on a per-user basis, SharePoint server intranet sites are licensed using a Server/CAL (Client Access License) model.

What is SharePoint Hybrid?

SharePoint Hybrid is a combination of SharePoint Online and SharePoint Server.

What are the SharePoint features?

Take a look at the features that are available for SharePoint Online and SharePoint Server. According to the Microsoft website, the main features of SharePoint Online include file sharing and storage, external sharing, content management, team sites, intranets, mobile apps, work automation, and discovery search.

If you’re looking to get the benefits of hosting your solution in the Cloud, but want the extra level of security and improved performance that on-premise offers (such as IP restrictions and choosing the location of your servers), there’s Private Cloud, which is offered by Clinked – an alternative solution to SharePoint.

How is SharePoint commonly used?

SharePoint can be used by different organizations within different industries for different purposes. For instance, common uses can be using SharePoint as an intranet, extranet, document management solution, public-facing website or collaboration solution.

With concerns surrounding high costs, low user adoption and extensive implementation procedures; organizations need to make sure they do their research before deploying the solution, rather than choosing it based on the fact it’s called SharePoint, as there may be more suitable alternatives available.

Why use SharePoint for document management?

A popular use of SharePoint is for document management. SharePoint allows you to create document libraries so that users can upload and tag documents so you can search for files based on tags and keywords in the future. Administrators can also control user access to documents.

Whilst SharePoint has a comprehensive list of features that are ideal for document management, such as approvals and access control – it lacks an unlimited file upload size, which may be disconcerting for larger enterprises that need that extra flexibility.

Where to get started with SharePoint?

You can get started with SharePoint by creating Sites, Lists and Libraries before adding members to join.

What is a SharePoint Site?

A SharePoint Site is a collaboration platform for a group of members needing to regularly share content with each other. The group will have access to the stored files and folders, tasks lists and calendar. Sites are made up of Lists and Libraries.

What is a SharePoint List?

SharePoint Lists are used to store almost everything that you create in SharePoint, for example, client or project lists.

What is a SharePoint Library?

SharePoint Libraries are used to store files, folders and other content (so Libraries are technically also Lists). You can have a Library for each client.

Who uses SharePoint?

There are different types of companies who use SharePoint, but you will mainly find that it’s used by everyone – from small businesses with less than 50 employees to large enterprises with thousands.

However, with SharePoint, a common issue and occurs is scalability versus performance. In the past, when an enterprise continues to use SharePoint over a number of years, with the content database increasing in size – the performance of the platform decreases as a result, with backups and restoration becoming unmanageable. This is where it could be appropriate to have a look at some alternative solutions before committing to SharePoint.

What is the meaning of SharePoint?

According to the Microsoft SharePoint website, this is how the company describes the product: “Organisations use SharePoint to create websites. You can use it as a secure place to store, organise, share and access information from any device. All you need is a web browser, such as Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer, Chrome or Firefox.” The point of SharePoint is to improve the way in which employees, within an enterprise, collaborate; through automated workflows, document collaboration and communication functionalities.

Sharepoint Versions

What is a SharePoint Content Type?

With SharePoint, a Content Type is not the same as a file type. A SharePoint Content Type is a reusable group of settings for a category of your content. In short, Content Types make it easier to set up and organise your categories of information.

What is a SharePoint List?

As previously noted, SharePoint Lists are used to store almost everything that you create in SharePoint, for example, client or project lists. Lists hold your collections of data in an organised and easily accessible way, similarly to simple databases and spreadsheets.

What is a SharePoint Web Page?

SharePoint Web Parts are customisable components that show information within a SharePoint site. They can be placed in certain areas of a page known as Web Part Zones. Web Parts can display data from sources such as Lists, Search Results and Forms.

What is a SharePoint Site Collection?

With Sites, there are Site Collections and Subsites. A Site Collection is the root that contains the Subsites. For example, ‘company.sharepoint.com‘ is the Site Collection and ‘company.sharepoint.com/marketing‘ is the Subsite.

What is a Workspace in SharePoint?

A SharePoint Workspace is a Site that you create for your team members and employees. The Workspace includes collaboration features for working together on documents or for managing resources. A Workspace contains lists of information, such as related documents, team members and links.

What is a SharePoint Workflow?

Workflows let you automate your work processes within your SharePoint platform. The point of SharePoint Workflows is to improve the efficiency of getting approvals and feedback. Workflows let you request approvals, track issues, gather feedback and signatures.

What is a SharePoint Page?

A SharePoint Page is not the same as a Subsite. A Page is an area within your SharePoint Subsite (for example, ‘company.sharepoint.com/marketing‘) that displays content to users, including Lists, Libraries, Web Parts, text, images, and hyperlinks. The creator of the Page can choose to arrange and organise the content in whichever way they would prefer.

Sharepoint Issues

Why is SharePoint slow?

As your SharePoint platform grows larger and more complex, the performance can be negatively affected. This can be due to a number of reasons, such as the structural navigation, a large amount of content being stored (including images and videos) or too many requests.

Why is SharePoint user adoption so low?

SharePoint is a complex platform and so it won’t be as simple as setting up an account, inviting members and starting to collaborate right away. According to a recent report from AIIM, 40% of organizations said their SharePoint implementations aren’t successful, with 67% naming the cause as inadequate user training, 66% said it’s too difficult to use and 64% report that lack of support from senior management is the reason that their deployments have failed.

Sharepoint Versions

What is Microsoft SharePoint 2016?

Microsoft SharePoint 2016 is the newest release of the on-premises version of SharePoint and was released in May 2016. SharePoint 2016 On-Premises followed on from SharePoint 2013 On-Premises, with key improvements including Hybrid mode, improved mobile navigation and larger file size support.

What is Microsoft SharePoint Online?

Microsoft SharePoint Online is the cloud-based version of SharePoint On-Premises. SharePoint Online was first released in February 2013. Initially, SharePoint Online offered users the same features as its On-Premises version; but over time, Microsoft has introduced online-only features to encourage businesses to move to the cloud. Those features were a more modern interface, Libraries, custom Lists and Pages.

What is Microsoft SharePoint 2013?

SharePoint 2013 On-Premises is a customisable collaboration platform that was released by Microsoft in October 2012. SharePoint 2013 On-Premises followed on from SharePoint 2010 On-Premises, with new features including ‘Facebook-like news feeds’, native support for Android/iOS mobile/tablet devices and Community Sites.

What is Microsoft SharePoint 2010?

SharePoint Server 2010 is a collaboration platform developed by Microsoft that is closely integrated with Microsoft Office and Active Directory. Notable features of SharePoint Server 2010 include improved navigation, content permissions controls, search function and collaboration tools (co-authoring, meeting scheduling, wiki pages).

What is Office 365?

Office 365 combines the Microsoft Office desktop suite (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Access) with Microsoft’s cloud-based communication and collaboration solutions (Exchange, OneDrive, SharePoint, Skype for Business and Yammer) on a per-user pricing basis.

Is SharePoint the same as Office 365?

SharePoint is not the same as Office 365. SharePoint is a single application that is included in the Office 365 bundles. Office 365 includes the Microsoft Office desktop suite (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Access) with cloud-based communication and collaboration solutions (Exchange, OneDrive, SharePoint, Skype for Business and Yammer).