Article 11
SharePoint Online
In this Article :
- SharePoint sites in the cloud
- SharePoint Online Packages
- Setting up SharePoint Online
SharePoint in
the cloud
Y
|
ou will kill two birds with a stone in this Article . The
objective is to shed light on the very interesting topic of SharePoint branding. Since SharePoint is very popular
with the enterprise clients, they mostly like to add their own branding to the
product. There was a time when the only thing you could do “easily” was
changing the logo and the site’s title and description. Adding elements to the
page’s style was a cumbersome job. When Microsoft saw companies’ interest in
this area, they started adding some support in the product and made it easier
for the users to add branding. Still it was not where it should have been.
With SharePoint 2007, things became somewhat easier. With SharePoint 2010,
branding actually took off and we saw some great very well done sites. Now
with SharePoint 2013, we have full support in the product and branding sites
has become a lot easier now. With the increasing popularity of mobile
platforms, responsive designs have taken the top spot and are the #1
preference of the companies these days. Moreover, SharePoint is now very well
established in the cloud. SharePoint until now has
been popular as an Intranet product. Companies usually used it for team
collaboration and document management but with SharePoint online, companies
are now deploying sites that offer the same excellent look and feel that was
the trademark of HTML sites back in the day and on top of that, users get the
same excellent features that were the hallmark of SharePoint Intranet or
Extranet solutions, for example, document management,
users management, user roles, calendars, tasks management, etc. So, in this
Article , first we are going to setup a SharePoint site in the cloud. Then we
will develop a branded site for the cloud.
So, here is a brief introduction before we dive into the
details. SharePoint Online is a cloud based service that helps organizations share
and collaborate with colleagues, partners, and customers. Users can now access
internal sites, documents, and other information from anywhere. It is a common
platform that can be accessed from the home, office or a mobile device.
SharePoint Online has new innovative features. It has a
fluid interface, file sharing capabilities, higher storage limits, cloud application development model and robust
tools for administrators to more easily control the environment. Everyone
benefits from the new SharePoint Online: users, managers, developers and IT
professionals.
SharePoint Online site consists of two sites: the Team
Site and the Website. Here is some more detail:
Team Site:
The Team Site is an internal site for your team. All members of your
organization can collaborate with each. They can share documents and other
files. Other basis elements of the Team site include announcements, meetings,
tasks list and issues list, custom lists, etc.
You can create subsites from the available site templates. For example,
you can create a team blog, or a social meeting workspace to organize team
events, meetings, and so on.
Website: The
Website is where you design your public site. This is the site that is visible
to the world. This website has
everything you need to get started with designing your site. It has libraries
to store content such as images, documents, etc. that you can display on the pages
of your site.
Site Components
A site is a group of pages where users can work on
projects, store and share information. Following are some important site
objects that are frequently used in a SharePoint site.
Lists
A list is a site component that is used to store information quickly. It has CRUD functions. There are different types of lists in SharePoint, for example, a tasks list is used to store and monitor tasks, an events list is used to store events, a custom list can comprise of any number of fields that are relevant to your business.
Libraries
A library is a special type of list that stores files as
well as information about files. The two most used libraries in SharePoint are: Document library and Forms library.
As the name suggests, document library is used to store
documents. You can create folders inside a library to define a hierarchy.
Forms library is used to store electronic forms. You can store forms directly
in this library. Each form library can be associated with different content
types. You can publish InfoPath form template in a library and bind it to the
library. Users can open this template and fill out data. Saving the template
automatically generates a new xml form that is stored in the same library.
Views
Views play an important part in SharePoint. You can use views to see
items in a list or library. These views can be added to the home page of your
site so that all important information from different libraries and lists is
available on the home page of the site. Multiple views can be created for a
list or library. You can also use a web part to display a view of a list or
library on a separate page of the site.
Web Parts
A Web Part is a modular unit of content that forms a basic
building block of most pages on a site. If you have permission to edit pages,
you can use web parts to customize the site to display information from
different sources.
New interface has been reimagined. It is easy to navigate
and easy to accomplish tasks.
Site Usage
There are several other features that allow administrators
to control the site. Managing sites in SharePoint is easy because of the built-in functions
that let administrators control permissions, roles, storage, content
management, etc.
Permissions
There are different permission levels available out-of-the
box and you can create your own custom permission levels. You can assign
permissions directly to the users as well groups. Assigning permissions to the
groups make permission handling very easy. All you have to do is add or delete
users from the group. You don’t have to handle permissions individually if you
don’t want to. For granularity, you can assign permissions directly on the
files and folders and to the individual users.
Customization
Everything can be customized in SharePoint and that’s the beauty of it. You can
customize the interface, you can customize permissions, you can customize
navigation. This is the biggest advantage of SharePoint. You are not
restricted to the out-of-the-box features. SharePoint is scalable. You can add
your own custom functionality.
Figure 11-1: SharePoint 365 (branded)
home page
The page you see above is customized and contains custom
content. One new feature is drag and drop. Another one is on-hover that allows
users to see a set of rich commands and contextual information in search
results.
SkyDrive Pro is cloud storage that users can use to store documents
directly from within SharePoint.
Most important interesting new feature is new and improved
public website. There are different out-of-the-box themes available that can
quickly change the look and feel of your site. You can also create custom
themes. Even if you don’t create custom theme, you can create a new design and
create a master page to incorporate the new design and apply it to your site.
Following are a couple of themes that come with the product.
Figure 11-2: Out-of-the-box
themes
Online Packages
As of Dec 2013, the packages are as following:
Small Business
Packages
Small Business
|
Small Business Premium
|
Midsize Business
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$5.00
user/month
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$12.50
user/month
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$15.00
user/month
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|
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|
Enterprise Packages
Business-class Email
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Enterprise E1
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Enterprise E3
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$4.00
user/month
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$8.00
user/month
|
$20.00
user/month
|
|
|
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Setting up SharePoint Online
In this section, we will start from scratch and setup an
online SharePoint site.
Sign-up for a trial version on this link:
Click Free trial
link under Enterprise E3 plan and sign up.
Here is the direct link:
Trial version expires after 30 days. If you choose to keep
the site, then you have to purchase the package.
After you have signed up, you get access to the site. You
get your own URL. You can also unique URL for your site should you wish to do
so. You can purchase a domain name and link it to your SharePoint Online site.
Site URL looks like this:
You are also granted a unique email address that you use to
login to your site. Your email address looks like this:
Plan the Public Website
So, now you have a subscription, you can setup a public
website and make it available on the Internet. By default, your site is set to
Offline mode. Once you have completed the site, you can take in Online. You
can customize the website to create a professional online presence for your
business or organization.
It’s always a good idea to do some planning before you
start the work. Discipline and planning really help to keep things moving
smoothly.
The website includes several sample pages: Home, About Us,
Contact Us, Directions, and Blog. You can use these pages and just customize
the content and you are all set to go live. You can add your company name,
logo, contact information, and change color scheme. You can also create a
totally new branded site for your business. That’s our next topic in this
Article . In this section, we will use out-of-the-box components to set up a
site.
Figure 11-3: Website menu
Once you login, you
will see a global menu. As mentioned before, there are two sites created by
default, a team site and a public website. To work on the team site, you have
to select team site from the global menu. To work on the public site, you have
to select public website from the menu. Global menu looks like this:
Figure 11-4: Global menu
In the global menu, click Sites to see the two sites. Please note that depending on your
package, the interface may look different. For example, if you are using an E3
package, you will not see the two sites. You will have to create the sites
first. By default, E3 package gives you a public site. You can create more
sites separately. Click Public site to go to the public
website. Click on the Home link to
go to the home page. Then select PAGE
tab from the top. Click Edit button
from the PAGE menu. Start typing
and adding elements to the page until you are done. If you have already
designed a page using other design programs, copy the page from there and
paste it in the content area and the save and publish the page.
To read more
about SharePoint Online/to buy book, please visit following Amazon page:
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