What is SharePoint?
Microsoft SharePoint (SP) is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) web application, primarily used for intranet purposes.
This is different than internet.
- Internet: The web as you know it.
- Intranet: The internal network of an organization or similar.
Each SP instance/site is configured differently depending on what it is being used for. This document primarily focuses on the restricted iSchool SP site.
The root of iSchool’s SP intranet is: https://uwnetid.sharepoint.com/sites/ischoolnew
Check with your supervisor as to how to navigate to your team’s SP site. It should be in the primary top menu, under the “restricted” tab in the root site, under the “information technology” section. This is part of how the access control makes sure people only have authentication for what they need.
Navigating your team’s subsite
When you navigate to your restricted site from the above mentioned menu, you will be taken to the subsite’s landing page. This site is created by your team to categorize commonly or frequently used items.
Then, from your subsite, if you navigate to “site content” in the secondary top menu, you can then see your team’s document libraries.
Document libraries are folders that define access control, with each library having a different group of people who can use it. Your supervisor should be the main source of information as to what groups of people are allowed to access each library.
Your SP site, or any document library within, is intended to only be shared as designed. It is not designed to be shared with people outside your team.
How to access SharePoint
There are multiple ways to access documents stored on SP.
You can access them through navigating as explained above (in the webapp). This is ideal for any computer or operating system, as things like Microsoft Word can function as platform-agnostic webapps in any browser.
However, this is not ideal for any document that needs to be edited in a desktop application installed on your computer, because you would have to download it and upload it manually. Of course, you might be able to write a script to automate that, but not everyone has those skills.
Microsoft Windows and MacOS
In this case, iSchool recommends that you install Microsoft OneDrive (Microsoft Windows and Mac computers), and then navigate to the SharePoint folder your documents are in. Then you can click “add shortcut to OneDrive”.
Protip: Every time you add a shortcut to your OneDrive, it is simply added to the top folder/level of your OneDrive. This can clutter it up very quickly, and be confusing. The way to avoid this is to organize your OneDrive so that the structure replicates the SharePoint layout
.
Linux
Linux does not have an official GUI OneDrive client. However, there is a Free Open-Source solution for using OneDrive and SP. It’s repository, and other details (like how to use) can be found here, if you would like to utilize it: https://github.com/abraunegg/onedrive
The installation guide can be found here, with relevant instructions. a little command line knowledge might be needed depending on the install method you choose and distribution: https://github.com/abraunegg/onedrive/blob/master/docs/install.md
Collaboration
Because of the way the SP site is structured, it is not intended for ad-hoc collaboration. Ad-hoc collaboration is collaborating with random people instead of your team.
As previously mentioned, each document library is already shared with a particular group of people. Therefore to collaborate with the respective people, you simply need to place the document in wherever your team decides inside the previously mentioned document library.
To share with people outside of the already predetermined users, you have three options.
- If read-only access is sufficient, it is simplest to email the document itself (not a link, the actual file) as an attachment in whatever method is suitable.
- To edit collaboratively with a single individual, you could move the document to your Personal OneDrive (or other version control solution, such as GitHub) and share it from there.
- To edit collaboratively with a group of people, work with your supervisor and IT to create a new document library that is shared with the desired users. Another version control system, again such as Gitub, could also be used here if your supervisor or IT personnel are unavailable, or if you would like more granular control.
Intended use of SharePoint
Any organization documents that should be retained, even past your employment, should be placed on SP. Do not go uploading random notes, memes, or other such nonsense. Although your meme taste is excellent according to you and you only, we don’t need that taking up space in SP. Please share them via other methods.
Any documents such as your personal notes or files are better suited for your own OneDrive, SSD, or other cloud/physical storage solution. This is because all files related to your account like these will be removed when you leave UW.
Identifying SharePoint collaborators
To clearly identify who a document library is shared with, it is generally a two part process. This is because the iSchool leverages your role and not your identity, whereby even if a person leaves and a new person takes over then the document will still be shared with the same roles.
Example: If you are familiar with the communications platform platform Discord, it would be like if when a member left a server, their roles would stay and be transferred to a new member filling the same position.
To identify collaborators:
If you navigate to “site settings”, and then “library settings”, and then “more library settings”, and then “permissions for this document library”, you will see groups of users that start with “uw_ischool”.
These are collections of role-based access controls to the document libraries and other SharePoint features.
To see the individuals in these roles, you have to go to a different website, “groups.uw.edu”, and search for this particular group name.
Go to “find group”, and then enter the ID from your library permissions into the “find by id” box.
After you search, click over to the “membership” tab, and you should be able to see the group members.
