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About this lesson

Explore how information has traditionally been stored and shared with others and learn how SharePoint can make this process more efficient. 

Quick reference

Why Use SharePoint?

Understand how historically information has been stored and shared within a team and explore how SharePoint can make this process more organized, efficient, and user-friendly. 

When to use

Think about the viability of using SharePoint to store and share information within your team whenever you are searching for an effective collaboration solution. 

Instructions

How Information is Shared

Historically, information has been stored and shared with others in many different ways. 

Shared Network Drives

Files and content can be stored on a company network drive. Network drives can be set up so that only specific people or groups of people can access them. A common problem with storing files in this way is that it is quite hard to standardize without strict naming convention procedures. It also doesn't allow for efficient version control. 

E-Mail

E-Mail has long been used as a quick and convenient way to share files with others via attachments. However, if we have a document to share with 30 other people in our team and those 30 people make changes to the document, things can start to go awry. Managing 30 different copies and trying to organize 30 sets of changes is not the most efficient use of our time. 

Messenger

Sharing files via a messaging system like Microsoft Teams or Slack has become increasingly popular. Not only can we share documents and files but also our desktops, whiteboards, and other content. Whilst applications like Teams are extremely helpful when it comes to daily communication and collaboration with our colleagues, they don't allow us to completely design a custom site for our team.  

Cloud Storage

We could choose to upload files to a cloud-based system like OneDrive. Files stored in the cloud are safe, secure, and very easy to share with others. OneDrive also has version control which makes it very easy to keep track of changes and roll back to previous versions if necessary. However, storing files in the cloud doesn't give us access to create a fully customized site for our team. 

Removable device

Files can also be stored on removable devices such as an external hard drive or USB stick. The only way that these files can be shared is to physically connect the external hard drive or USB to the PC. There is also a risk that an external hard drive could break or we may lose the USB stick. 

How can SharePoint Help?

SharePoint helps us work more efficiently within our team. Content becomes more accessible. A SharePoint site can be created for a specific project or team and all relevant documents, libraries, tasks, lists, calendars, and workflows are stored in one place. So, instead of switching to Outlook to view the team calendar and then opening OneDrive to browse team documents, we can store them all within the SharePoint team site. 

SharePoint team sites can also be used as team intranet sites, with webpages styled to match company branding.

One of the big advantages of using SharePoint is that it's a permission-based system. All team members are assigned to permission groups with the site owner maintaining full control over the site.

Hints & tips

  • When you create a team site in SharePoint, by default you are assigned the role of site owner. 
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  • 00:03 Before we can understand why SharePoint is so useful,
  • 00:07 it's really important to understand how we share information currently,
  • 00:11 because there are many different things that we use to share information with
  • 00:16 our coworkers, or even our clients.
  • 00:19 For example, shared network drives.
  • 00:22 So it might be that you work at an organization and you have access to
  • 00:26 something like a P drive, or an N drive, or an O drive, something like that.
  • 00:31 And that drive will allow everybody in your department or
  • 00:34 your team to access any of the files saved on that drive.
  • 00:38 And for many years prior to the onset of cloud storage,
  • 00:42 that was what people tended to do.
  • 00:44 Now, there are many advantages to saving to a shared network drive, but
  • 00:48 some of the disadvantages would be, it's quite hard to standardize.
  • 00:52 It's quite hard to get everybody to use the same naming convention for files.
  • 00:57 You don't have any version control on shared drives.
  • 01:01 And really technology has moved on quite a bit from on the shared drives and
  • 01:05 we now have better options.
  • 01:06 What about something like email?
  • 01:08 Now, email is probably the easiest way to share information with other people.
  • 01:13 We can create a new email, we can attach a file to it, and
  • 01:16 we can send it off to one or more people.
  • 01:19 Now whilst that is very quick and super convenient,
  • 01:22 the problem with email is that if you sent a file to, let's say, 30 different people.
  • 01:27 If all of those people make changes to that document and send it back to you,
  • 01:31 you're then left with a little bit of a nightmare because you have about 30 copies
  • 01:35 of this document and you have to manage all of the different copies.
  • 01:40 So email isn't the most efficient way to share documents.
  • 01:43 What about something like Messenger?
  • 01:46 We're all very much on things like Teams at the moment,
  • 01:49 particularly this past year.
  • 01:51 And if you're using something like Microsoft Teams, or
  • 01:54 maybe even something like Slack, you'll know that you can use
  • 01:57 these messaging applications to also share information with your colleagues.
  • 02:01 Now, with these applications, not only can you share files, but you can also do
  • 02:06 things like share your screen, share your desktop, share things like whiteboards.
  • 02:11 And they've become extremely popular over the last few years.
  • 02:14 And of course,
  • 02:15 another way that we can share information is to upload it into the cloud.
  • 02:19 So for example, I use Microsoft OneDrive for all of my files and
  • 02:24 I can upload them into there.
  • 02:27 I know that they're safe.
  • 02:28 I know that they're secure and it makes them very easy for
  • 02:31 me to share with other people.
  • 02:32 And then finally we might choose to share information via a removable device.
  • 02:37 So something like an external hard drive or maybe even a USB.
  • 02:42 So if I have a colleague down the hallway, I could save a file off to a USB,
  • 02:47 walk down the hallway, and then physically plug that USB into her PC,
  • 02:51 and she can then see the files.
  • 02:54 Now obviously, this isn't the most convenient and
  • 02:57 there's always the worry that you're going to lose that tiny little USB stick.
  • 03:02 So again, probably not the best method to use for long term storage of information.
  • 03:08 So how can SharePoint help us with all of this?
  • 03:11 SharePoint helps you become more efficient and it also makes content more accessible.
  • 03:18 Everything is stored in one place.
  • 03:20 So if I'm looking for a particular file,
  • 03:23 I don't need to go hunting through my emails for an attachment.
  • 03:27 I don't need to go hunting through a network drive or through cloud storage,
  • 03:32 I have all of my files that are related to a specific project or team in one place.
  • 03:37 And not only do I have all of the documents that I need,
  • 03:40 I have all of my libraries, all of my task lists, and also my calendar.
  • 03:45 I can create workflows to streamline my work.
  • 03:48 And I even might want to do something like automate the approval process for maybe
  • 03:53 a signature on a document or the process for annual leave, something like that.
  • 03:59 And I can also track tasks.
  • 04:01 And the great thing about SharePoint and
  • 04:03 one of its big advantages is that it is a permission based system.
  • 04:07 So people are assigned roles and groups, and based on the role or
  • 04:11 the group that they're assigned to,
  • 04:13 they have a certain level of permissions within the SharePoint site.
  • 04:17 If you're the administrator of the site,
  • 04:19 then you have full control over the permissions that you assign people.
  • 04:22 So we're going to go through all of this over the balance of this course.
  • 04:27 Hopefully by the end of it, you're going to feel a lot more confident and
  • 04:30 a lot more productive when working through SharePoint.
  • 04:32 And it's really going to help you de-noise your day and cut through the clutter.

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