SharePoint sites have transformed how businesses manage and share information, making it easier than ever to streamline collaboration and communication. As a cornerstone of modern workplaces, SharePoint is a centralized hub for document management, team collaboration, and seamless communication.
While SharePoint is part of the Microsoft 365 suite and comes loaded with robust features, fully leveraging its potential often requires a bit of expertise. This article walks you through a step-by-step process to create a SharePoint site, ensuring you can set up an efficient and organized workspace tailored to your team’s needs.
SharePoint Team Site, Communication Site and Hub Site
SharePoint offers different types of sites tailored to specific collaboration and communication needs. Choosing the right one ensures your team’s efforts are efficient, well-organized, and accessible.
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Team Sites: Built for Collaboration
A SharePoint team site is the ideal workspace for team members to connect, collaborate, and manage projects. It provides a centralized space for planning, tracking progress, sharing ideas, and co-authoring documents.
If your organization manages multiple projects with distinct teams, it’s wise to create a dedicated team site for each project. These sites allow scoped administrative privileges, ensuring access control for specific teams or external collaborators without impacting others. For example, a team site can enable secure co-authoring with external parties while keeping unrelated internal projects separate.
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Communication Sites: Designed for Broadcasting
Communication sites, on the other hand, are meant to showcase information to a broader audience. They’re typically managed by a few authors who share content with a larger group, such as a company portal or intranet site.
These sites serve as a polished output space where finalized content—like corporate announcements, policies, or procedural updates—is shared. For example, a public relations team may use a team site to refine brand documentation through numerous iterations and then publish the final version on a communication site for company-wide access.
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Hub Sites: Centralized Organization
A SharePoint hub site operates at a higher organizational level, acting as a centralized hub for connecting projects across different departments.
Ideal for large organizations, hub sites offer consistent navigation, unified search capabilities, and a seamless user experience. They harmonize information from various teams and departments, making it easier to synchronize projects and provide a cohesive structure for company-wide collaboration.
Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a SharePoint Site
The first step is to define the objectives of your SharePoint site before diving into the creation process. This helps you decide whether a team site or a communication site is the best fit. It’s also important to consider your primary users:
- For employees or smaller teams: A team site is ideal for fostering collaboration.
- For larger audiences: A communication site works better for broadcasting finalized content.
Before you start building, map out a high-level structure for organizing your content. A site map will guide how information is arranged and help you determine the security and permissions needed to manage and access it.
1) Choose Your SharePoint Site Architecture
A SharePoint site architecture visually represents how files are organized and categorized. You want to think about how the site will be used and how it might evolve over time. Here are some key considerations when designing a SharePoint site structure with libraries and lists:
- Clear Naming Conventions: Use descriptive and intuitive names for libraries and lists to make it easier for users to understand what each one contains. Avoid abbreviations and jargon that might confuse new users. For example, instead of naming a library "DocLib," opt for "Project Documents" or "Team Reports."
- Consistent Metadata: Consistent use of metadata across your libraries and lists will improve searchability and organization. Metadata such as categories, tags, and dates can help users quickly find the information they need.
- Folder Structure: SharePoint allows for a flat structure, however using a thoughtful folder hierarchy can help organize content logically. Balance is important to ensure there are not too many nested folders, which can make navigation cumbersome, and too few, which can create unwieldy lists.
- Permissions and Security: Define security and permissions at the outset to control access to sensitive information. SharePoint allows you to set permissions at the site, library, folder, and item levels. Ensure that users have the appropriate access to perform their tasks without compromising security.
- Templates and Customization: Leverage SharePoint templates to maintain consistency across different libraries and lists. Customize templates to fit the specific needs of your organization, ensuring a uniform look and feel.
- User Experience: Focus on creating a seamless user experience by considering the user's journey through the site. Use navigation menus and quick links to help users move effortlessly from one section to another.
- Search Optimization: Enhance the search capability by using managed properties and search scopes. This allows users to refine their searches and find relevant content more effectively. Regularly review and update the search settings to adapt to the evolving needs of the organization.
- Training and Support: Provide ongoing training and support to users to help them navigate and utilize the SharePoint site effectively. Create user guides, host training sessions, and offer a helpdesk for troubleshooting issues.
A well-thought-out architecture helps users find what they need quickly while keeping your site scalable as your organization grows.
2) Pick Your Site Components
Once your site structure is in place, you’ll want to decide which components to include to enhance functionality and collaboration. Here are some examples:
- Library: Use as a repository for documents and files your team needs to access regularly.
- List: A list helps you organize information in a tabular format. You can use lists to track tasks, manage projects, or store any data that needs to be structured and easily accessible.
- Page: Pages provide a way to present information and content in an organized manner. You can create pages to share news, reports, or any other form of content that requires a detailed layout.
3) Sign Into Microsoft 365
Use your credentials to access Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365). Use either of these URLs to access Microsoft 365.
- URL 1: https://www.office.com
4) Access SharePoint
Once logged into Microsoft 365, click on the App Launcher (the grid icon) in the top left corner and select SharePoint.
If you’re accessing SharePoint for the first time, the SharePoint Start Page will appear. This page provides a simple tour and showcases news from your sites, helping you get acquainted with the platform’s layout and updates.
5) Create a New SharePoint Site
In the header of the SharePoint Start Page, click Create site to begin setting up your new SharePoint site.
The site creation wizard will present you with a selection of templates. Based on your needs, choose either a team site or a communication site to proceed.
6) Fill in the Required Details
- Site Name: Give your site a name, such as “Brand Marketing.”
- Site Description: Provide a clear and detailed description of the site’s purpose to help users understand its function.
- Privacy Settings: Choose whether you want your site to be public (accessible by everyone) or private (restricted to a select group of people).
Once you’ve filled in the details, click Create Site to complete the process.
Next, add the name or email addresses of the team members you want to include on the site. If you’re unsure or need to finalize your team later, you can skip this step and grant them access in the future.
Click Finish to view your new SharePoint site.
7) Customize Your SharePoint Site
After creating your new SharePoint site, you’ll be redirected to the SharePoint home page.
SharePoint uses apps to add components like lists, document libraries, and pages to your site. Web parts display these components on pages, including news posts, text, quick links, image gallery, and recent documents.
To add a document library, simply click the New button and select Document library.
Select Blank library to create a new library from scratch, give it a descriptive name, and click Create.
You will automatically be navigated to your new document library to begin uploading documents and files to it.
Next, you can customize the homepage and add web parts to it by clicking Home in the left menu to navigate to the homepage.
To edit the page, click the Edit button (with the pencil icon) to open the toolbox. Here, you can add new web parts and organize them in different layouts, such as placing Quick links first, followed by News, or vice versa.
The web parts section lists the elements you can add to the site, including options like Text, Image, Quick Links, News, and more.
Once you’ve made your changes, click Save as Draft if you want to review it again later, or click Republish to push your updates live.
How to Customize a SharePoint Site
Customizing your SharePoint site enhances its functionality and allows you to tailor its appearance to match your brand’s tone.
SharePoint lets you create a custom theme that aligns with your brand’s visual identity. You can also adjust the site’s header and footer, as well as the site logo and navigation style.
Wrapping Up - An Effective Way to Create a SharePoint Site
SharePoint offers a wealth of functionality to help your business thrive. It unifies collaboration, document management, and information sharing in one secure platform.
At CrucialLogics, we help you unlock the full potential of your native Microsoft technologies. From development to deployment, we guide you in creating scalable SharePoint solutions that enhance secure collaboration.
To learn more about how SharePoint can benefit your business, speak with us today.
