Microsoft’s SharePoint is a collaborative tool that is used by numerous organizations around the work to create aesthetically pleasing sites that are easy to use and understand.
With SharePoint 2019, this information can be access anywhere anytime due to its cloud storage availability. All you need is a web browser, an Office 365 account and access rights to the SharePoint site.
SharePoint application is a member of the Microsoft 365 suite of applications, which is a cloud-based application that is managed by Microsoft. There is also the on-premise version for organizations that would prefer to manage the application themselves.
Some of these features include workflow automation, seamless integration with numerous applications such as OneDrive, access rights management and document libraries.
On-premise is when a software application is physically located in an organization while a cloud solution is when the software application is located in a data center that is managed by a vendor.
SharePoint has numerous features that can help users improve their collaborative efforts such as versioning, co-authoring, security , and integration with other 0365 applications.
So how does SharePoint work?
There are some standard apps that come with SharePoint and some of those apps are:
- SharePoint Online home page: To create a new SharePoint 2019 site, the user can go to Outlook and right click on groups in the left side navigation pane. After including some basic information such as the site name, site description and users the SharePoint site would be created. The created site comes with a home page that is created based on a predefined template, though this can always be changed to suit the users needs. This home page comes fully equipped with web parts, which are like a dashboard on frequently used parts of the site. As with most things in SharePoint the Home page is fully customizable to suit the end users needs.
- Forms : A form is used to capture information on a singular entity. An example of a SharePoint form is a form that can be used to request for a new SharePoint site . The form would have fields for No., Username, Request Date, Site Name, Site Description, Site Address, Site Admin Name, Site Owner Name, Site Type and Status.
- Lists : A list is used to display information on all the entities in a single view . It can be used to gather information on various subjects depending on the users needs. An example of a SharePoint list is a list of SharePoint site requests. Once the SharePoint site request is submitted, it is stored in a SharePoint site request list. This list would show all the submitted site requests in a single view. This list would be used by the SharePoint support team to keep track of the SharePoint site requests that have been made by the end users.
Are there different types of SharePoint sites ?
There are numerous types of SharePoint sites and some of them are :
- Communication sites : just as the name implies, a communication site is used t0 communicate information between people. It can be used to share project updates, documents, reports and other information.
- Publishing sites : publishing sites are more formal sites that are used to share information organization wide. It is usually used as the company’s intranet and are created using predefined site templates.
