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Welcome back to to my series on the basics of SharePoint. Before we could get into any nuts and bolts of SharePoint (all the uber geek fun stuff) we had to first cover what SharePoint is. Now we're ready to dive into how to create content in SharePoint. (Notice I said create content, not any form of structure.) We have to crawl before we can walk, right? Then we can move on for the super users on how to create structure, the things that hold the content. So far in this series:
Before you get bored to death, let’s jump in and take a look. For all the tasks below, I will do my best to show how to do it in SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint 2013 as there are differences between the versions. For demonstration purposes I will be using Internet Explorer browser.
Let’s define a few things (if you know this stuff already, feel free to jump ahead to the steps below):
1) What are the different types of content we can create? Well that depends on the structure you create them, but you can create things like:
Document libraries (there are different types for different purposes) store documents (files). They can technically just about any type of file you want (certain types are excluded like .exe).
Lists don’t store documents per say, they store list-style data like Excel or Access. Each list item is a line item or record of data. Obviously there are more types of content, and how you do it depends on the level of customization in your SharePoint sites. But for our purposes, we’re going to assume everything is default, and I will walk you through the basic more commonly used content repositories.
2) What are views? Views are the way that a user (such as yourself) sees and interacts with the content in a list or library. The list or library is basically an unordered, unstructured pile of content. A view defines how you see that data, like what columns of metadata are visible, how the content is sorted, filtered, grouped, limited, organized and displayed. Every list or library has a view by default. There are 2 types of views – system views and personal views. System views are ones created and maintained by administrators and you as a non-admin can only use them. However, any user can create a personal view, and only he/she will be able to see that view. For example an administrator or site owner will create a library for you, and populate it with a set of documents, say 500 of them. You only care about the documents that you upload, and the thought of trolling through hundreds of documents to find what you want is no bueno. So you can create a personal view to filter the list of visible documents to the ones you created. We’ll talk about views in more detail in the next installment, so stay tuned!
3) What does “check out” or “check in” mean? SharePoint can allow documents (files) to be checked out or checked in. This is a mechanism where it locks the file to exclusively only be updated by the person who checked it out, so no one else can change it. Once complete, the user checks in the file to save changes and let others edit the document again. This can be desired in certain cases, but in general this feature should be used with care.
4) What’s a file version? SharePoint allows for files to be versioned, in major and minor revisions. In SharePoint 2010, for every version SharePoint will store an entire of the document per version. In SharePoint 2013, only the delta changes are stored per version. Minor versions are like .1, .2, etc. where major versions are 1.0, 2.0, etc. Versions can be viewed, compared and restored individually, and can store comments about that version. They can also be used to control visibility (anyone can only see a major version, but must have higher rights to see the minor versions).
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s start creating some content.
Use this method when you need to start with a new blank document, or if an administrator has created a custom document template for you to use, and you want to create a new document from that template.
Use this method when you need to start with an existing document from your computer hard drive.
NOTE: If the library is a Picture library, the steps are similar but a little different:
Use this method when you need to edit the properties of a file that has already been uploaded into a SharePoint library.
Use this method when you need to create a new item. The steps are different for a calendar, so I list those separately.
Use this method when you need to create a new item on a calendar list.
Let’s see how the same tasks change with SharePoint 2013.
Use this method when you need to create a new item on a calendar list. The steps for adding items to a calendar are the same in 2010 and 2013.
Well if you’ve made it this far, congratulations! I hope you have found these steps helpful for working with content in SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint 2013.
Trackback from C5 Insight Blogs - Business Strategy, SharePoint, Dynamics CRM, Salesforce.com, Collaboration and Relationship Management Everywhere you look on the internet these days, you see Best of 2014 lists. And rightfully so – as we prepare to embark on 2015, it’s natural to gaze back across our most recent journey around the sun. In the spirit of helping you navigate through the... ...
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