SharePoint

SharePoint is a secure place to store, organize, share, and access information from any device. Primarily people use it to create modern-looking sites to communicate with others for initiatives or to store completed documents that the University needs to retain.

The University recommends in the vast majority of cases that you actually create a Teams site rather than a SharePoint site. Creating a Microsoft Team also automatically creates a SharePoint site, allowing you to customise the SharePoint site to improve appearance while people can choose to access information using Microsoft Teams or through the SharePoint web links to get to the same information. It's a more flexible approach than just a SharePoint site.

SharePoint at the University is not customised from the standard Microsoft SharePoint service. You should search online for guides and training as they will be entirely relevant for use at the University. The only difference is the creation of a SharePoint site using the instructions below (although remember we recommend you should be creating a Microsoft Teams site instead). 

Document Management 

Document Management in the context of SharePoint is the core processes around the creation, modification, publishing, and disposal of formal documents. Formal documents are documents that are broadly available to University Staff, contain important information, and have a long lifespan. 

Organisational Group Internal Portal

This is a location where an individual business unit or team can provide key content to assist in the productivity of their team. This may be through quick links, commonly used documents, descriptions of core processes, and general team updates and news. The Internal portal acts as a mini-personalised Intranet tailored to the individual teams.  

Organisational Group External Portal 

This is like the Internal Portal but directed to users outside of the organisational group but still within the University. This acts as a way of providing relevant information to the wider University, primarily on the interactions with the team. Examples are how to guides, frequently-asked questions, and process guides.  

• A replacement for the existing Intranet. This includes creating departmental-based intranet sites. The current Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) based Intranet is the strategic platform for Intranet capabilities. 
• A platform to develop applications or workflows beyond supporting the supported SharePoint use cases (for example a workflow for approving a document to be published is fine but a workflow automating a business process is not). 
• A Public Website, as SharePoint doesn’t contain all the appropriate controls to secure and manage Public Websites. Adobe Experience manager (AEM) is the approved platform for hosting Public Websites. 
• A personal storage location for content, OneDrive for Business is used for personal storage. 
• Short-lived content (e.g. project collateral) is better suited to Teams where various content types and conversations can be grouped together. The entire Team is then deleted at end of its useful life.

1. In the Microsoft Teams desktop application, go to the top left and select the MyHub application.
2. Select Start a request from the top menu.
3. Select Create New Workspace.
4. Select SharePoint Online then Next.
   
5. On the next page, enter the Request summary, detailing to the approver what the site is for and the Site collection title.
6. In most cases, you will want to leave the Template as Communication site, which provides a mix of graphics and contents.
7. Do not tick Enable hub site (unless you know what you're doing).
   
8. Choose the Communication site design. Topic is the recommended choice. This can be changed in future. Click Next.
9. On the next page choose the Primary and additional site collection administrators. There should be at least two people to ensure that the site can be accessed and managed if someone leaves the University.
10. For collection contacts, choose the primary site collection administrator and one of the additional site collection administrators.
11. Choose a department.
12. Answer the metadata questions.
13. Choose the web site address you want. Anything that is already in use will be unavailable to you.
14. Click Submit.
15. The request will now go to SharePoint administrators for approval. Once they approve the request you will receive an email from myHub with the title Welcome to your new Microsoft 365 workspace. 
16. Click on the link in the email to open your new site.
    

Share this site with others

This is the critical part and where so many people get it wrong. SharePoint has 3 groups for you to use:

• Owners - there should be at least 2, but not too many. These people control access to the site and totally rule the roost.
• Members - people who can create new pages, edit content and keep it up-to-date.
• Visitors - they should only be able to view the site, not edit it or do anything else.

1. Click on Add owners, members, and visitors under the Share this site with others Next steps section.
2. Click on Share site
   

Setting up site members

Type the name of the people you want and choose Edit from the drop down below their name - this adds them to the Members group. You should not include large groups of people in this list for security reasons.

Setting up site visitors

This is where the most common mistake is made. People will often choose the Everyone except external users group. This group includes all Staff members and students and is normally a lot wider than you want to share your content with.

The University has a number of groups that are provided from HR and automatically updated that should normally be used instead.

All staff members: select all these groups - Employee.psrwi, Contractor.psrwi, uniservices_emp.psrwi

Senior students: Postgraduate.psrwi, Doctoralstudent.psrwi

1. Remove the tick from Send email.
2. Click Add.

It is important to the University that we manage our information correctly. This means ensuring that everyone (staff and students) follow the rules and guidance regarding the disposal of University Records. 

Prior to deleting anything from SharePoint you need to follow these guidelines:

Disposal of University Records Guidelines