Efficient Admin with SharePoint 2010 Gareth Johns IT Skills Development Advisor

Course Aim Explore SharePoint features and techniques that can streamline business processes and improve the way teams collaborate and communicate.

Objectives By the end of this session you should be able to: Create columns and views to help better organise document libraries. Utilise built-in SharePoint lists such as forums, wikis and project tasks to enhance communication and collaboration between team members. Customise and extend SharePoint lists to fulfil team specific needs. Use SharePoint groups to implement a security permissions structure that adheres to Cardiff Met best practice Explain how workflows can be used to automate tasks such as approval processes and team notifications.

Document Libraries Photo: The interior of the Wren Library, Cambridge, showing the limewood carvings by Grinling Gibbons. http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Portal:Library_and_information_science/Selected_picture Who can remind me what a document library is? [A store for documents. Mostly Microsoft Office documents] We’ve previously looked at how libraries can be used to store documents and some of the document management features available. E.g. checking out documents, version history and alerts. What are they? Today we’re going to look at how we can customise libraries to suit our purposes and better organise our documents.

Views Views can be created to customise how a library’s content is displayed No data is added or removed it is merely the view that is changed http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Germany-Farchant-Landscape.JPG

Views can be configured to show data in a way that is useful to you and your team Public or Private Examples: Detailed view, extra information about the documents in your library. E.g. file size, created by. Grouped view – a view of the library grouped by a specific column. My documents view – a view of a library that shows documents created by you. Recent view – documents created within the last month Private – only you can select that view. Public, any user of the library can select it. Default view for a library can be set by an administrator. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Views_from_the_Lower_Russian_Lake_near_Cooper_Landing,_Alaska.jpg

Creating a New View Main aspects* of a view: Columns: display or hide columns. Sort: library can be sorted by a primary and secondary column. Filter: only display an item if a column fulfils a criterion. Group by: group similar documents together. Will look at columns in more detail in a bit. *Pun intended.

Columns Columns enable metadata to be added to documents stored within a library Also known as properties, fields and metadata. What is metadata? Metadata – data about data National Capitol Columns – Washington D.C. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:National_Capitol_Columns_-_Washington,_D.C..jpg

Adding Columns to a Library Extra, inbuilt, columns can be added to a library Custom columns can also be created E.g. Category, Topic, Icon, Web Page, purpose Additional sources of data for searching, grouping, sorting and filtering Each column has a Type – text, number, choice etc. Provide more information about a document and its purpose to your team. Inbuilt columns – comments, owner, subject, rating 3. E.g. target audience, purpose, Expiry Date 4. Through views. Can even perform actions on documents depending on value of the metadata = workflows. 5. Different column types available. E.g. hyperlink, lookup, person or group, date/time.

Site Columns Site Columns are reusable columns that can be added to several document libraries. Columns created at a site level are also available to libraries in sites below Site Column A Site Column B Site Column D Site Column C Green are inherited columns.

Lists Lists are a collection of similar pieces of data (rows), each of which have associated properties (columns) Lists are a collection of similar pieces of data, each of which have associated properties More like a table of data: rows and columns – similar to a spreadsheet or an access database. Rows are the items in the list: e.g. individual tasks, announcements, links and in document libraries, documents. Columns are the properties: title, date modified, created by, checked out to. Also known as properties, fields and metadata – data about data Does that sound familiar? [Document library is a special form of list] Image: Cambridge University Library/Darwin Family – a table created by Charles Darwin that collated emotional responses to photos: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15600203

Default SharePoint Lists Announcements Tasks Calendar Links Discussion Board These lists are available when a site is created. Have met: announcements (a collection of announcements, columns: title, body and expiry date) and tasks (a collection of tasks , columns: e.g. title, predecessors, priority) previously. Links – a collection of hyperlinks – useful for embedding on the homepage of a site – related links. Calendar - A shared calendar for team events – can be linked to Outlook. - Discussion board – a forum to discuss issues or activities. E.g. course discussions for the IT Training site. L&IS site has an off-topic discussion board to forge a sense of community between L&IS staff.

SharePoint Lists Contacts Project Tasks Issues Extra Wiki page library* Blogs* Project Tasks Contacts list – share a contact list between team members. Especially useful for external contacts. Can be synchronised with Outlook. Good for simple management of shared contacts. More involved solution would be to use a CRM (e.g. Microsoft Dynamic CRM) Issues – can be used to track issues – similar to tasks, but relating more to specific issues rather than tasks to be undertaken. E.g. student queries, complaints, or for School of Law – a list of building faults to be remedied. Wiki page library – asterisk indicates that it’s not a traditional list – actually a collection of pages to form a user-editable knowledge base. Examples: USS Wiki for ISD, Course checklist for IT Training and Wikipedia Blogs – actually a site bundled with a collection of lists to manage blog posts, categories and comments. Sharing experiences between a team. Newscast blog on Pulse is a good example. Project Tasks – very similar to the regular task list, but also incorporates a Gantt chart view. Plan simple, informal projects.

Customising Lists Lists can be customised similarly to libraries – columns and views Customise to suit needs of the team/site Customisation: E.g. Links list – add a classification column to classify links (e.g. external, internal, news articles, research papers).

Custom Lists Lists can be created from scratch, initially contain one column - title Example - L&IS Purchasing – a purchasing request system Custom lists: Suitable for “small” data management projects – larger, more complicated data processing and storage tasks need to be approved by Information Strategy Forum and may require a different solution. Remember other database systems are already in place, e.g. the Student System Used to requisition goods for L&IS. A pre-Agresso process used to gather information for the unit administrator. Users fill in a request form, item gets added to the list, a workflow gets triggered to get approval from managers then order goes through to our unit administrator. Columns include: Requested By, Request Date, Activity Code, Suppliers Quote, Credit Card purchase, Website link, Manager for approval, Priority.

Custom Lists - examples Landlords List – a list of landlords and student accommodation Explain purpose of list – to record a list of landlords and properties available to students. Show columns: details of the landlord: name, address, telephone number etc. and details of the property. E.g. area, rent, photo a link to a map showing the property. Show portal page. Unlike other lists discussed in this session, this is actually a portal based list, available to all students, but the principle is the same.

Custom Lists – more examples International Office – Student Application Tracking IT Helpdesk & Quscient, India – New user account setup for “external” users” Procurement – Buyer’s Guide – Supplier details Welsh Translation Service – Pending translations Car pool booking - two lists –one to store requests for the pool cars and a second to store a list of approved drivers. International Office have a list for International student applications – a pre-V4 (Student System) process that stores and tracks passport details, visa details, date of the application etc. IT Helpdesk & Quscient, India - the list is used to store details of new users for our franchise partner in India. They fill in-details such as name, job title, location. Workflow alerts Helpdesk in Llandaff and a new user account, email address etc. is setup for the user Procurement – a list of suppliers. Columns include: address, category of supplier (Furniture, Computing, Office supplies etc.), contact details and supplier ID on Agresso. Welsh Translation Service - actually a heavily customised document library – Columns include: the document, desired return date, number of words, cost code, school/unit. Car parking requests Car pool booking – two lists –one to store requests for the pool cars and a second to store a list of approved drivers. Student System Account Creation - new member of staff iZone also used/may still use a list for recording and processing student enquiries.

Inherited Permissions SharePoint Permissions Permission Levels Inherited Permissions Unique Permissions Groups Permissions Levels: Define the level of access a user has to a team site, library or document Three main levels: Full Control, Contribute, Read Only Inheritance When permission inheritance is enabled, the permissions on the current site are identical to the parent site. They can only be modified by changing the parent site. Unique Permissions When permission inheritance is disabled, the site will have a unique set of permissions Groups Groups can be used to manage permissions for multiple users. New members can be added to a group to gain access to a site. Permission operations (add/remove/modify) can be applied to groups in the same way as individual users. Advantages of groups: Permissions need only be set for one entity (the group). Fewer mistakes Less time consuming Can reuse existing groups on new team sites. Recommend using groups whenever possible.

Permission Inheritance - reminder Information Services Division User Support Services IT Advisors Desktop Services Systems & Comms Server Support Green (thick) = inherited Red (thin) = unique permissions Try to avoid breaking inheritance where possible. Need to strike a balance between best practice theory and practical application. Can be quite a task to configure permissions, so need to…

Plan Plan our site structure, groups, users and permission structure for each team site.

Implement Then implement once we have a good idea of the structure. (Anyone know the reference for the images? [Prison Break – Season 1 – Wentworth Miller character planned his escape by tattooing plans for the jail over his torso – don’t need that level of planning!) Implement

Planning Permissions Plan your team site structure and identify where unique permissions are needed. Plan your groups – For each site with unique permissions create an Owners and Members group. (Unless other groups can be reused) Assign users to each group Decide permissions for each site More details in How-To guide Tree diagram is a useful method for doing this. Two groups for each site that has unique permissions – one Owners group, one Members groups. (Unless other groups can be reused). Navigate through the tree and decide who needs to be a member of each group – might be based on a brief or organisational structure chart. Decide who needs to be an administrator. May be able to delegate responsibilities further down the tree. Decide whether each group requires Full Control or Read-only and whether any other groups need permissions:

School of Law Permission Structure Key Green (thick) line = inherited permissions Red (thin) line = unique permissions Use the ink tool to complete this.

Site Permissions – Gang Violence Gang Violence Research Team – Site Permissions Full Control:  Contribute:   Read:

Site Permissions – Mephedrone Sales Mephedrone Sales Research – Site Permissions Full Control:  Contribute:   Read:

Implementing Permissions Create your team sites Create groups Add users to groups Grant permissions at each level of the site More details in How-To guide

Permissions – Best Practice Summary Plan your permission structure then implement Use groups Create groups that reflect the structure of your site Create two groups for each site; a Members group and an Owners group. Avoid breaking inheritance where possible - simpler use individual permissions only for outlying cases.

Workflows Workflows A series of tasks that can be applied to a list or library Allows something to “done” with the contents of a list or library the automated movement of documents or items through a sequence of actions or tasks that are related to a business process (Microsoft Help) http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/sharepoint-server-help/introduction-to-workflows-HA010154424.aspx “Allows something to be done (actioned) to list or library items” Actions include: send an email, set a value in a list, create a new list value, do a calculation, collect data from a user Can also be conditional on certain values. E.g. if a list item equals a certain value then do something. Workflows can only be created by members of ISD. The idea of teaching about them is for you to recognise where they might be useful, identify the general steps needed for the workflow, then we can create one for you.

Workflows – Real Life Example – L&IS Purchasing Classic “manager approval” workflow User adds item to list – a purchase request Workflow emails Manager for approval. Sets Status to “requested”. If granted, then sets Status to “approved” and emails administrator to begin the order. Order placed using Agresso Finance Administrator updates list with Order Number Workflow emails User with Order Number Line manager sets status to approved. Tracy puts order on Agresso. Order number into list. Sets status to complete. Workflow emails user back with Agresso order number. List items are orange. Conditions are purple. Actions are green.

Workflow – Real Life Example – LSC New Applicant International Office and London School of Commerce. Workflow for a new student application to LSC. LSC actions are in blue. International Office actions are in grey. Workflow actions are in white. Use ZoomIT to zoom onto areas of the workflow. ------------------------------------------------ LSC create new application – using a custom list Appears in Cardiff Met view with status set to new. Alerted by email – part of workflow. Cardiff Met then use details to create record on V4, get student number. IO input Stud num into the list and other details Status is set to complete/refused etc. or more information required. Workflow email to LSC LSC add the extra details Status to pending. Pending view for Cardiff Met.

Recap You should now be able to: Create columns and views to help better organise document libraries. Utilise built-in SharePoint lists such as forums, wikis and project tasks to enhance communication and collaboration between team members. Customise and extend SharePoint lists to fulfil team specific needs. Use SharePoint groups to implement a security permissions structure that adheres to Cardiff Met best practice Explain how workflows can be used to automate tasks such as approval processes and team notifications.

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Additional Information Session hand outs and other resources available at: study.cardiffmet.ac.uk/Help/Training/ Upcoming training sessions: Administering your SharePoint Team Site 4th Nov, 09:30 – 12:30 Presenting with Prezi 13th Nov, 09:30 – 13:00 Communicating Effectively with Outlook 24th Nov, 09:30 – 12:30

Contact Us training@cardiffmet.ac.uk 029 2041 7000 7000 Live Chat available on Help Centre. Visit the IT Advisors in the Learning Centres. Visit an IT Advisor in the Learning Centres