You might be using SharePoint, but are you following best practices? In this introduction to SharePoint session, attendees will learn about the building blocks of SharePoint, such as: What is a list? What is a library? What is a web part? Should I view/edit documents in the browser or in the client? What is versioning? How do I check out and check in a document? Additionally, attendees will learn how to create, modify, and switch views, as well as set up and manage alerts. This session will include demos in Office 365, but the concepts apply to the latest versions of SharePoint, including SharePoint 2016.

1. SharePoint 101
Best Practices for Beginners
Theresa Eller | sharepointmadam@gmail.com | @SharePointMadam
sharepointmadam.blogspot.com | www.slideshare.net/sharepointmadam

2. Welcome to SharePoint Saturday Houston!
Thank you for being a part of the 7th Annual
SharePoint Saturday for the greater Houston area!
• Please turn off all electronic devices or set them to vibrate.
• If you must take a phone call, please do so in the hall so as not to
disturb others.
• Special thanks to our Diamond Sponsor, HSPUG

3. Thanks to all of our Sponsors!

4. Information
• Speaker presentation slides should be available from the SPSHOU
website within a week or so.
• The Houston SharePoint User Group will have its next meeting
Wednesday April 20th. Please join us at www.h-spug.org.

5. 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 and
SQL communities
Proud dog mom to Shay & Cookie

6. 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
• SQL Saturday Houston
(May 14 at San Jacinto College South Campus)
• SharePoint Saturday Atlanta
(June 11 at GSU Alpharetta Center)
• sharepointmadam.blogspot.com
• Video featured on Webucator’s
YouTube channel
• @SharePointMadam

7. 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. Document preview
17. Co-authoring documents
18. Versioning
19. Prepare for the List View Threshold
20. Changing views in web parts
21. Open vs. Closed Web Parts
22. Drag and drop up to 100 files
23. Windows explorer
24. Recycle bin
25. Proximity operator: NEAR
26. Proximity operator: ONEAR
27. About Me & Ask Me About are searchable
28. View all your Tasks on MySite
29. Software Boundaries & Limits

8. Browsers

9. Supported Browsers
Browser Compatibility Browsers Not Recommended
Certain web browsers could cause some SharePoint 2013 functionality to be
downgraded, limited, or available only through alternative steps.
Versions 8, 10, 11
32-bit
Latest Released Version
PC or Mac

10. 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

11. Turn on Compatibility View
• Web Part properties cannot be modified

12. Permissions

13. 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

14. 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

15. 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

16. The Office Suite

17. 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

18. Lists & Libraries

19. 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

20. 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

21. 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

22. Enable Export to Excel

23. Import a Spreadsheet
• Use a Table or Named Range to simplify data selection

24. 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

25. Calendar Overlay
• Assigns a different color to each calendar view
• Can display up to 10 calendar views on a single calendar

26. Connect a SharePoint Calendar to Outlook
Separate Calendars both viewable in Outlook

27. 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

28. Co-Authoring Documents
•Automatically enabled if Check Out is not required
Up to 10 people can simultaneously edit a file

29. CYA with Versioning
• Versioning

30. 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

31. Changing Views in Web Parts (1 of 2)
Web Part View
(Default Style)
Modify the View
(Shaded Style)
Web Part View
(Still Default Style)

32. 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

33. Open vs. Closed Web Parts
• Edit Page to see open web parts
on a page
• After “.aspx” in URL, type
“?contents=1” to see list of open
and closed web parts
All web parts on a page open; then the closed web parts are hidden.

34. Drag & Drop up to 100 Files

35. 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

36. 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

37. 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”

38. 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”

39. MySite

40. 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

41. 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

42. Impress Your Boss

43. 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

44. Questions?
Theresa Eller | sharepointmadam@gmail.com | @SharePointMadam
sharepointmadam.blogspot.com | www.slideshare.net/sharepointmadam