SharePoint 101Best Practices for Beginners

Theresa Eller | sharepointmadam@gmail.com | @SharePointMadam

sharepointmadam.blogspot.com | www.slideshare.net/sharepointmadam

About Me

• Business Systems Analyst at MD Anderson Cancer Center• Create no-code solutions using

SharePoint 2013 on-premises, InfoPath, and Nintex Workflows

• Microsoft Office Specialist certified in SharePoint 2013

• Frequent speaker and blogger in the international SharePoint community

Proud dog mom to Shay & Cookie

Community Involvement

• SharePoint Saturday is a FREE one-day

event featuring sessions from

SharePoint MVPs and professionals

around the world

• SharePoint Saturday Paris 2015

• Find me at these locations

• SharePoint Saturday Houston(April 9 at UH main campus)

• SQL Saturday Houston(May 14 at San Jacinto College South)

• sharepointmadam.blogspot.com

• Video featured on Webucator’s

YouTube channel

• @SharePointMadam

Secrets for a Better SharePoint Experience

1. Use a supported browser

2. Work around IE11 known issues

3. Turn on Compatibility View

4. Do the math with permissions groups

5. Adding Active Directory (AD) groups

6. Remove stored SharePoint credentials

7. SharePoint 2013 + Office 2013

8. File names & prohibited characters

9. Folders vs. Metadata

10. Excel incompatible features

11. Enable Export to Excel

12. Import a spreadsheet

13. Unlock a locked file (maybe)

14. Calendar overlay

15. Connect a SharePoint calendar to Outlook

16. Green asterisk

17. Color block indicator

18. Document preview

19. Co-authoring documents

20. Versioning

21. Prepare for the List View Threshold

22. Changing views in web parts

23. Drag and drop up to 100 files

24. Windows explorer

25. Recycle bin

26. Proximity operator: NEAR

27. Proximity operator: ONEAR

28. About Me & Ask Me About are searchable

29. View all your Tasks on MySite

30. Software Boundaries & Limits

Browsers

Supported Browsers

Browser Compatibility Browsers Not Recommended

Certain web browsers could cause some SharePoint 2013 functionality to bedowngraded, limited, or available only through alternative steps.

Versions 8, 10, 1132-bit

Latest Released VersionPC or Mac

Work Around IE11 Known Issues

Known Errors

• JSON error

• Excel Online toolbar inactivity

Solution

• Place InfoPath form in InfoPath Form Web Part

• Emulate IE10• Press F12 for Developer Tools

• Change the Emulation (or Document Mode) to 10

Turn on Compatibility View

• Web Part properties cannot be modified

Permissions

Do the Math with Permissions Groups

200 employees

10 SharePoint sites

2000 assignments

200 employees

x 1 SharePoint group

200 assignments

1 SharePoint group

X 10 SharePoint sites

10 assignments

200 10 = 210 assignments

Adding Active Directory (AD) Groups

AD Groups

• Active Directory or Security groups

• Can be used to grant permissions in SharePoint

• Typically maintained by Active Directory team

• SharePoint Admin may be able to view but not edit

Emailed-Enabled Security Groups

• Active Directory group that can also be used as a distribution list for email (Outlook)

• Can be used to grant permissions in SharePoint

• Can be owned by someone outside of AD team to add and remove members

Remove Stored Credentials

• Every time you change your password, go into the Credential Manager(a.k.a. Windows Vault) and remove your stored SharePoint credentials• Avoids the repeated prompt for

credentials when accessing SharePoint after a password change

• May also unlock a locked file

The Office Suite

SharePoint 2013 + Office Suite 2013

• Use the Office Suite version that corresponds to your SharePoint version

• Don’t have multiple versions of Office products• e.g., Office 2013 with Visio 2010

• Use the 32-bit version of Office unless you have a valid reason for using 64-bit (e.g., Power BI processing power)

• Otherwise…• Error may appear

• Files may not open

• Features may be missing

Lists & Libraries

File Names & Prohibited Characters

• Limited to 255 characters• Special characters should be avoided

• e.g., Space = %20• 3 characters instead of 1• Doubled (to 6 characters) when opening

or editing a document

• You cannot• Use the period character consecutively in

the middle of a file/folder name

• Use the period character at the end of a file/folder name

• Start a file/foldername with a period character

• Using an underscore character (_) at the beginning of a file/folder name will make the file/folder hidden

Tilde (~)

Number Sign (#)

Percent (%)

Ampersand (&)

Asterisk (*)

Braces ({ })

Backslash (\\)

Colon (:)

Angle Brackets (< >)

Question Mark (?)

Slash (/)

Plus Sign (+)

Pipe (|)

Quotation Marks (“ ”)

Prohibited characters in file/folder names

Using an underscore character (_) at the beginning of a file/folder name will make the file/folder hidden

Folders vs. Metadata

Folders

• Folder names are not searchable

• Slash (/) is represented as %2F• Takes up space in URL

• Can be turned off for lists and libraries

Metadata

• Indexed metadata is searchable• Can create up to 20 indexes per

list or library

• SharePoint 2016 will automatically index more columns

• Reusable across a site collection or within a site

• Each column is metadata

Excel Incompatible Features

• Password Protection is a common unsupported feature

• Information bar with the list of unsupported features does not display when the file is loaded from a Web Part

• List originated for SP2007•

• List updated for SP2013• https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/ff595319.aspx

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms496823.aspx

Enable Export to Excel

Import a Spreadsheet

• Use a Table or Named Range to simplify data selection

Unlock a Locked File (maybe)

• Checked-in file may remain locked for up to 10 minutes

• Reasons files get locked• An attempt by another user to

open the file within 10 minutes System crashes while file is open

• File is closed unexpectedly

• Check in was not successful

• Network connection is lost while file is open

• Possible Solutions• Wait 24 hours

• Clear your browser cache and restart your browser

• Clear your cache in credential manager

• Close all instances of file type

• Kill the file type service in Task Manager

Sources listed in the Notes section

Calendar Overlay

• Assigns a different color to each calendar view

• Can display up to 10 calendar views on a single calendar

Connect a SharePoint Calendar to Outlook

Separate Calendars both viewable in Outlook

Green Asterisk

• Indicates item or file was added within the last 24 hours

*

Color Block Indicator

• Indicates Skype for Business status

Available Away Busy Do Not Disturb

Document Preview

• Hover over a Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or PDF file in the Search results to see a preview of the document

• Browse through the document without opening it

Co-Authoring Documents

•Automatically enabled if Check Out is not required

Up to 10 people can simultaneously edit a file

Versioning

• Versioning

Prepare for the List View Threshold

Possible GOOD Solutions

• Prior to hitting 5,000 items or within the exemption window• Index columns that should be

searchable

• Create views that keep the displayed number of items/files below 5,000

• Import data from another source, such as SQL

Possible TEMPORARY Solutions

• Disable throttling for the list or library• Requires PowerShell

• Increase the limit• Increases the risk of locking a table

and losing data

Changing Views in Web Parts (1 of 2)

Web Part View(Default Style)

Modify the View(Shaded Style)

Web Part View(Still Default Style)

Changing Views in Web Parts (2 of 2)

• Edit the Web Part and select Standard

• Click OK at the warning about changing the view

• To see the changed view, click OK to close the List Views window and Save the page

Drag & Drop up to 100 Files

Windows Explorer

Good Uses

• Drag and drop files into a library

• Move and copy files

Bad Uses

• Create folders• Folders are not your friend!

• Delete multiple files at once

Files are PERMANENTLY deleted in Windows Explorer

Recycle Bin

Site Level Site Collection Level

• After site level retention is met, deleted items move into the site collection recycle bin

• Default retention is half of the site level retention• E.g., 30 days at site level, then

15 days at site collection level

• Can be restored by site collection administrator

• Almost anything deleted goes into the recycle bin• List

• List Item

• Document Library

• File

• SharePoint Site (SP2013+)

• Can be restored by site owner

• Default retention is 30 days

Proximity Operator: NEAR

• Searches for expressions (words or phrases) within close proximity to each other• Default is 8 expressions

• Order of the expressions is ignored

• NEAR must be in all capital letters

• SharePoint NEAR Training

• SharePoint NEAR(2) Training• Searches for “SharePoint” within 2

expressions (words) of “Training”

Proximity Operator: ONEAR

• Searches for expressions in the order specified• SharePoint ONEAR Training

• ONEAR must be in all capital letters

• SharePoint ONEAR(2) Training• Searches for “Training” no more

than 2 expressions after “SharePoint”

MySite

About Me & Ask Me About are Searchable

• In the About me section, enter your bio

• In Ask Me About, enter topics with which you can help people• These keywords will be searchable

View All Your Tasks on MySite

• Under your photo, click Tasks

• Tasks from all SharePoint sites will appear here

• Tasks may take up to 4 hours to appear on MySite

Impress Your Boss

Software Boundaries & Limits

• Site Collections• 500,000

personal• 250,000 other

• Sites & Subsites• 250,000 per

site collection

• Web Parts• 25 per wiki or

Web Part page

• Documents• 30,000,000 per library

• Items• 30,000,000 per list

• Versions• 400,000 major• 511 minor

• File Size• 2GB (up to SP2013)• 10GB (SP 2016)

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262787.aspx

Questions?Theresa Eller | sharepointmadam@gmail.com | @SharePointMadam

sharepointmadam.blogspot.com | www.slideshare.net/sharepointmadam