Managing Documents with SharePoint

How-To Guide

Managing your Documents with SharePoint and OneDrive – How-To Guide

This guide accompanies the Managing your Documents with SharePoint and OneDrive training

session. It covers the main points of the training session in a step-by-step “How To” manner. You

can use this guide as an aid when completing workbook tasks during the session, or as a reference

source after you have completed the training.

All resources used in the training session, including this guide, are available on the IT Training website:

http://study.cardiffmet.ac.uk/Help/Training/

A Note on Conventions:

Menus and menu options appear in bold italics. E.g. Site Actions Site Settings means choose the Site Actions menu then the Site Settings option.

SharePoint features appear in bold. E.g. “Choose Team Site from the list…” Hints, tips or asides appear within a box. E.g.

TIP: Hints, tips and asides will appear in boxes like this!

ContentsNavigating SharePoint...........................................................................................................................3

Searching SharePoint.............................................................................................................................4

Saving to SharePoint..............................................................................................................................5

Through the Browser.........................................................................................................................5

Uploading Multiple Documents.............................................................................................................6

Using Explorer View...........................................................................................................................8

Saving from an Application to a Team Site Document Library...........................................................9

Problematic Files.................................................................................................................................10

Restore a Deleted item........................................................................................................................11

Document Collaboration.....................................................................................................................12

Document Properties..........................................................................................................................12

Check Out a Document........................................................................................................................13

Version History....................................................................................................................................15

Alert Me...............................................................................................................................................16

Send To................................................................................................................................................17

© 2017 Cardiff Metropolitan University 2

Managing your Documents with SharePoint and OneDrive – How-To Guide

Navigating SharePointPortal NavigationTop-level menus provide access to the main areas of SharePoint.

Breadcrumb trails show you where you are and allow you to move back to previous pages.

Team Site Navigation

The Quick Launch task pane appears on the left hand side of most team sites. It provides links to sub-sites and document libraries

The Team Site Navigator is usually located on the right hand side of most team sites. It provides another method of navigating between sites.

Searching SharePoint The search facility can used to search for documents or web pages, enter what you are looking for in the search box located at the top right of most pages.

© 2017 Cardiff Metropolitan University 3

Managing your Documents with SharePoint and OneDrive – How-To Guide

Your search can be refined by using the filters available on the left of the Site Search Results Page.

© 2017 Cardiff Metropolitan University 4

Managing your Documents with SharePoint and OneDrive – How-To Guide

Saving to SharePointThere are three ways to save to SharePoint: through the web browser, by using Windows Explorer and by saving directly from applications. This section of the guide examines each method.

Through the BrowserTo upload a single document:

1. Navigate to the document library you wish to upload a document to.

2. Under Library Tools on the ribbon select the Documents tab.3. Click the Upload Document button.

© 2017 Cardiff Metropolitan University 5

Managing your Documents with SharePoint and OneDrive – How-To Guide

4. Click the Browse button.

5. Navigate to the file you wish to upload (e.g. from your local hard disk or USB pen drive). Select the document from its location and click Open.

6. Click OK, the document will upload.

Uploading Multiple Documents

To upload multiple documents through the browser:

1. Click on the pull down arrow on the Upload Document button (Documents tab) and choose

Upload Multiple Documents.

© 2017 Cardiff Metropolitan University 6

Managing your Documents with SharePoint and OneDrive – How-To Guide

2. You can drag ‘n drop files into the dialogue window or select the Browse for files instead option.

Browsing for Files

TIP: Hold down the control key (Ctrl) to choose multiple documents.

© 2017 Cardiff Metropolitan University 7

1. Navigate to the folder where the files reside by clicking on the locations in the left pane

2. Choose the files you wish to upload

3. Click Open

Managing your Documents with SharePoint and OneDrive – How-To Guide

Using Explorer ViewWindows Explorer can be used with SharePoint to upload and manipulate (delete, rename etc.) files.

1. On the Library tab under the Connect & Export group select Open with Explorer. 2. Click on the Allow button on the window that may appear.

3. It is now possible to rename, delete, drag ‘n drop and copy and paste files as you would

normally in Windows Explorer.

To copy files using drag ‘n drop:

i. Open with Explorer, then drag the window to one side of the screen – this will be your destination.

ii. Leave that window open. Use the Start button in Windows to navigate to Computer.

iii. Find and select your source files then drag them to the destination window.

Right-click on a file to get access to the usual set of file options, e.g. rename or copy & paste.

© 2017 Cardiff Metropolitan University 8

Managing your Documents with SharePoint and OneDrive – How-To Guide

Saving from an Application to a Team Site Document LibraryOffice applications, such as PowerPoint and Word, are integrated with SharePoint, making it easy to save files directly to SharePoint libraries:

1. File Save As2. Choose SharePoint then select from the list of recently accessed libraries

If the library is not listed, or you are using a different application (e.g. Photoshop), you are able to save directly to a team site document library by creating a link to the library in the form of a Windows Favorite (Windows 7) or Quick Access link (Windows 10).

1. In Internet Explorer, navigate to the library you wish to save to.

2. Open the library in Explorer view (see page 8)

3. Right-click on Favorites/Quick Access in the navigation pane on the left, then choose Add current location to Favorites/Pin current folder to Quick access

© 2017 Cardiff Metropolitan University 9

Managing your Documents with SharePoint and OneDrive – How-To Guide

4. You will now be able to save directly to that library by selecting the location from the list in the left hand pane (under the Favorites/Quick access section) of the save dialogue.

© 2017 Cardiff Metropolitan University 10

Managing your Documents with SharePoint and OneDrive – How-To Guide

Problematic FilesSharePoint is intended, primarily, to work with Office files: Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations. It is also capable of storing a wide array of other files, including PDFs, HTML, text files, XML data and images of all types. There are a few exceptions, however. SharePoint will not accept:

Access databases Program files (executables) Internet shortcuts (.lnk files).

Additionally, SharePoint will not accept file names that are over 128 characters long or that contain certain characters, the most common culprits are:

Ampersand (&) Tilda (~) Hash sign (#) Colon (:) Quotation (“) Full list available at http://tinyurl.com/Invalid-SP

TIP: If you experience problems copying files to SharePoint, remember to check: the file type is valid the file name is less than 128 characters long. there are no invalid characters in the file name.

© 2017 Cardiff Metropolitan University 11

Managing your Documents with SharePoint and OneDrive – How-To Guide

Restore a Deleted item SharePoint team sites have a Recycle Bin just like Windows; any items that are deleted will be stored here for 180 days before permanent deletion. Until that time an item can be restored. The Recycle Bin is located at the bottom left of the screen.

To restore a document tick the box next to the item you wish to recover and select Restore Selection.

Confirm you wish to restore the file; the file will be restored to its original location.

© 2017 Cardiff Metropolitan University 12

Managing your Documents with SharePoint and OneDrive – How-To Guide

© 2017 Cardiff Metropolitan University 13

Managing your Documents with SharePoint and OneDrive – How-To Guide

Document CollaborationThere are a number of document collaboration tools available when working with files stored in SharePoint document libraries.

To use these options click the drop down menu next to the name of the document. (You will also find these commands on the ribbon, if you prefer)

HINT: This menu will only appear if you hover your mouse over the name of the file.

Document Properties

Edit Properties enables you to modify the properties of the file. This may include items such as title, keywords and expiration date.

© 2017 Cardiff Metropolitan University 14

Managing your Documents with SharePoint and OneDrive – How-To Guide

© 2017 Cardiff Metropolitan University 15

Managing your Documents with SharePoint and OneDrive – How-To Guide

Check Out a Document

Checking out a document makes others aware that you are editing it and prevents them from making any changes.

When the document is checked out the name of the person who’s using it will appear in the checked out to column.

© 2017 Cardiff Metropolitan University 16

Managing your Documents with SharePoint and OneDrive – How-To Guide

Check In a Document

Once you have finished editing a document it needs to be checked in. Until the document is checked back in no changes can be seen by other users; they will see a read-only version of the document as it was before it was checked out.

When a document is checked in, make sure that you do not retain your check out.

Select No and give a brief description of the changes made.

Click OK to confirm.

© 2017 Cardiff Metropolitan University 17

Managing your Documents with SharePoint and OneDrive – How-To Guide

Version History

You can view and restore previous versions of a document by selecting Version History from the document drop down menu.

The version number, date and time the version was last modified and the person who last modified the document are displayed:

Hover over the date and time and click on the drop down menu to access the options to view, restore or delete that version.

© 2017 Cardiff Metropolitan University 18

Managing your Documents with SharePoint and OneDrive – How-To Guide

Alert Me

Alerts can be setup to inform you when a document or document library has been changed.

You can choose who to send alerts to by using the global address book to search for people; this would normally be done if a group of people are working on a document or a range of documents in a library.

HINT: The ability to send alerts to multiple people is only available to team site administrators.

The frequency of alerts can be specified:

TIP: Be careful specifying “Anything Changes” this will bombard specified users with email for every single change made to the document, no matter how small.

© 2017 Cardiff Metropolitan University 19

Managing your Documents with SharePoint and OneDrive – How-To Guide

The timing of the alert can also be set; immediately, daily or weekly.

TIP: Send a summary rather than immediate notification to stop unnecessary emails going to your group.

Send To

Send to enables a link to the document be sent by email or a copy of the document to be downloaded for offline viewing.

E-mail a Link opens your email program and inserts a link directly to the document.

Download a copy lets you download a copy. This can be useful if you taking the document offline, for example a presentation that needs to be run on a computer that doesn’t have web access.

© 2017 Cardiff Metropolitan University 20