Microsoft SharePoint is a powerful collaboration and document management platform widely used by organizations of all sizes. Whether you're a professional stepping into a new role or a manager or department lead that is looking to enhance your or your team’s productivity, understanding the key concepts and fundamentals of SharePoint is essential.
KnowledgeWave offers a variety of training options, including OnDemand video-based training, private live webinars, and live hands-on options. All our training is tailored to different SharePoint user personas. These personas include SharePoint Site User, SharePoint Site Owner, and SharePoint Site Visitor. It is important to recognize that how people interact with SharePoint can vary based on their job roles. Companies are increasingly realizing the importance of training to bridge the knowledge gap and ensure that users across all job roles understand the full potential of SharePoint. By providing new SharePoint users, regardless of their persona, with training that covers key concepts and fundamentals, organizations can empower them to succeed on the platform. This, in turn, leads to improved efficiencies and increased productivity for the entire organization.
Our SharePoint training for beginners touches on the following core areas:
What is SharePoint?
SharePoint is a web-based platform that enables users to create, organize, share, and collaborate on various types of content, such as documents, lists, tasks, and calendars. It serves as a centralized hub, fostering collaboration and streamlining business processes within an organization. Our training helps users better visualize SharePoint and how they might use it. These days most of our clients are using Microsoft 365, so a core concept we are sure to address is the differences between OneDrive for Business and SharePoint.
Sites and Site Collections
At the heart of SharePoint lies the concept of sites and site collections. A site is a specific location within SharePoint that contains related content and serves as a workspace for teams or projects. Site collections act as containers that host multiple sites, enabling better organization and management of content. As part of Microsoft 365, if a client is using Microsoft Teams, we address the correlation between SharePoint and Microsoft Teams.
Lists and Libraries
Lists and libraries are fundamental components of SharePoint. Lists allow users to create and manage structured data, such as contacts, tasks, or issues, while libraries provide a space for storing and managing files, including documents, images, and videos. SharePoint offers a wide range of pre-built list and library templates, making it easy to get started. We show how you can create a list from an Excel file, the power of creating different list and library views, and even how these can display on the Microsoft Teams file tab.
Document Management
When people think of SharePoint, they most often first think of SharePoint for document management. SharePoint excels at document management, providing robust features such as versioning, metadata, and check-in/check-out controls. Versioning allows users to track changes made to documents over time, ensuring a complete audit trail. No more saving files with the version in the file name. Metadata enhances document discoverability by allowing the addition of descriptive information, tags, and properties to files. This fundamental knowledge is helpful for consideration around automation using content types and document sets.
Collaboration and Communication
This is the number one reason our clients are reaching out to KnowledgeWave. SharePoint promotes collaboration and communication by offering features such as document co-authoring, comments, and notifications. Multiple users can work simultaneously on a document, making real-time changes and updates. Comments facilitate discussions, while notifications ensure team members stay informed about important updates and changes. Notifications are the simplest of all workflows, and so many people are amazed when they learn about this feature. A core element of our KnowledgeWave methodology is that we inform users that, for the most part, they can work as they always have, but they can benefit from these features if their content is stored in SharePoint. Files in SharePoint can still be accessed through File Explorer, a user's desktop apps, and even Microsoft Teams. When this "clicks" for users, it becomes an "aha" moment and often leads to tipping points that boost SharePoint adoption.
Workflows and Automation
SharePoint's built-in workflows enable organizations to automate and streamline business processes. Workflows automate tasks, such as document approval, review cycles, or content publishing, ensuring smooth and efficient operations. SharePoint also integrates seamlessly with other Microsoft products, such as Power Automate (previously known as Microsoft Flow), further enhancing automation capabilities. This topic is usually the most difficult for a new SharePoint user to grasp, so KnowledgeWave keeps it simple for beginners with a review of the built-in automation and more for a democratic approach, showing users what they can do to help them envision what might work for their list and library content. Don’t worry, we do offer more advanced training for those Site Owners that need to do things like connect a Microsoft Form to a SharePoint list.
While this blog post primarily focuses on SharePoint Training for Beginners, it's important to note that KnowledgeWave also offers comprehensive training for SharePoint administrators and IT professionals. Our training programs cater to a wide range of roles and skill levels, ensuring that individuals at all proficiency levels can benefit from our expertise. Whether you're a beginner seeking key concepts and fundamentals or an IT administrator looking to enhance your SharePoint skills, we have the training solutions you need. Feel free to reach out to us for all your SharePoint training requirements and let our experts guide you toward success.
