As a continuation from the SharePoint Intranet Introduction, you may have been assigned the task of moving your department's internal content from framingham.edu or MyFramingham into the SharePoint intranet. This article contains information covered during the live sessions held in October through November.
Please note, our current go live date is March 1st. Our readiness review period will go December through February. Once your site is completed, please reach out to ITS to perform the review. Please have your site ready and reach out to ITS no later than February 1st. Once you are ready for ITS to perform the readiness review, put in a ticket using this service.
If you do not have access to your department's SharePoint site, please reach out using this service.
This article contains the following topics:
- Managing content
- Uploading assets
- Creating documents
- Editing your department's home page
- Creating new site pages
- Without Top Border
- With Top Border
- Building your new page
- Creating and customizing sections
- Adding web parts
- Moving sections or web parts
- Editing your department's site navigation
- Restoring to a previous version
- Previewing your site in a mobile view
- How to get more help
In addition to the content provided in the text below, the following resources are attached to this article.
- "SharePoint Site Building"- PowerPoint presentation from the live training sessions
- "Procedure- SharePoint- Preparing to Move Assets"- documentation to move internal assets out of framingham.edu and MyFramingham. This document was also provided in the Introduction Article.
- "Home Page Layout"- Picture of the department template layout with web part descriptions
With the framingham.edu redesign project, all assets (documents, images, links) geared to existing students and faculty and staff will need to be migrated to your department's SharePoint Intranet site. As brought up in the introduction article, ITS has created documentation that will allow you to obtain your internal content from Framingham.edu. Please complete the document in the attachments labeled "Procedure- SharePoint- Preparing to Move Assets". This will allow you to easily upload your internal files into SharePoint, where you will be able to quickly integrate into your department's site. You can also create documents within your SharePoint site.
Uploading Assets
To upload your assets that you have prepared using the attachment "Procedure- SharePoint- Preparing to Move Assets", please follow these instructions:
- When you are in your department's SharePoint intranet page, click on the settings icon at the top of the page and click Site Contents
- Once you are in you site contents, click Documents
- When you are in Documents, click Upload and then click Folder
- Locate the folder labeled "SharePoint" on your computer and upload
Creating New Documents
In addition to uploading content, you can also create Microsoft documents within SharePoint. You will only create documents with this method if you intend the document to be published to internal audiences.
- When you are in your department's SharePoint intranet page, click on the settings icon at the top of the page and click Site Contents
- Once you are in you site contents, click Documents
- Once you are in Documents, click New and select one of the Microsoft products
If you don't have access to your site already, please contact ITS. Once you have access, you will have the ability to edit your department's home page. Please note, your current homepage reflects our department template. We are aiming to maintain a consistent look and feel across department home pages to ensure a cohesive intranet experience. Before receiving access to your site, ITS will set up your home page with the department template. You will only be responsible for editing the existing web parts that are in place.
To begin editing, click the Edit button towards the top right of the screen.
Your home page consists of the following web parts, which are the building blocks to your departments SharePoint site:
- Text
- Adds paragraphs and tables to your page. Formatting options like styles, bullets, indentations, highlighting, and links are available.
- Hero
- A great way to bring focus and visual interest to your page. Use compelling images, text, and links to draw attention to each
- Quick Links
- "Pins" items to your page for easy access.
- Events
- Allows you to add and display upcoming events on your page. You can even include a map with location, online meeting information, and more.
- People
- Displays a selected group of people and their profiles on your page. It can be used for contact information, team information, presenters, and more.
Depending on the needs for your site, you can remove certain web parts like the Events or People web part. Additionally, if your department does not have a public facing office, you may remove the text web part that displays contact information, and utilize that space for more quick links or a different web part,
An additional point to keep in mind is accessibility. Please follow this Microsoft article that gives some pointers about keeping your page accessible.
In the attachments of this article, you can find an image of the department template with descriptions of the web parts.
If you would like to watch video instructions for editing your home page, please see this video.
Once you have finished editing your department's home page, you may decide that you want to create additional pages for specific topics. For example, you could create a specific page that lists the members of your teams, or you could create new pages for specific resources or services. There are multiple methods for creating new pages. If you would like your page to be completely blank, you would follow the instruction for "Without Top Border". If you want your page to have a top border with an image and a title, you would follow "With Top Border". This is your preference how you want to set up your pages.
Without Top Border
To begin creating new pages, you will want to copy an existing site page. This is to keep the site formatting the same. Please follow these instructions for creating a new site page:
- When you are in your department's SharePoint intranet page, click on the settings icon at the top of the page and click Site Contents
- Click Site Pages
- This will bring you to your Site Pages Library. Find an existing site page and click the three-dot icon [...], then click Copy To
- A prompt will appear asking where you want to save the page, click Copy Here
- Another prompt will appear saying the page cannot be copied because the site name already exists. Click Keep Both
- A new page will appear under your name with a number after it. Click on the three-dot icon [...] next to the new page and click Rename
*Please confirm you are not editing the page "Home.aspx" as this will cause issues accessing your site. Please contact ITS if you need to rename Home.aspx*
- Rename the page to suit your needs
- Click the title of the new page you just created
- Once you are in your site page, you will be able to delete the contents of the duplicated page by clicking the Edit button
- Click on the empty space in a column to make the menu appear. Click the delete button to remove the columns you wish to delete
- Once all the columns are removed, you have a blank slate to begin building out your site page
If you would like to watch video instructions for creating new pages, please see this video.
With Top Border
This border can't be removed and you must insert a page title. You can add pages two different ways:
-
Click the New button under your department's title, then click New Page
- Click the gear icon at the top right of the page, then click Add a Page
Both of these methods will give you the option to chose a blank, visual, or text template. Chose Blank.
Then on the next screen, you will have a blank slate to work from.
Building out your new page is where you can be more creative with the layout. You do not need to stick to using the department homepage template and will have the freedom to customize columns and add any web parts that are available to you. Once you have created your new site page, you will be able to play around with web parts to display the information you need.
Adding and Customizing Sections
- To begin customizing your new page, click the Edit button
- Once in Edit mode, you will be able to add a section by clicking the plus icon on the left side of the page
- You will have the option to select how many columns you want in that section
- If you would like to customize the section, click on the section, and click "Edit section" in the menu that appears under the plus icon
- On the pane that appears on the right, you will have the option to change the layout options, the background shading, and if you want to make the section collapsible
Adding Web Parts
Once you have your section set up, you will want to begin playing with web parts. To add a web part to a section, hover over the top center of the column and click the plus icon that appears
This will give you a list of web parts to choose from, like Text, Quick Links, Hero, Image web part etc. You can find a list of web parts and how to apply them using this Microsoft article.
Moving Sections or Web Parts
Once your sections and web parts are set up, you can move them around your page.
To move sections, click on the section to make the menu under the plus icon on the left appear. Click and drag the "Move section" option to the desired location
To move web parts, you have two options. Hover your cursor over the web part until the cursor turns into a move icon. If that option does not work, click into the web part for the menu at the top to appear. Click the and drag the "Move web part" option to the desired location
In addition to global navigation, your department's SharePoint has its own site navigation. This is only visible on your site page, and you can choose to include links to your internal SharePoint pages or external sites. Your site navigation is located directly below your site title.
To edit your site navigation, please follow these instructions:
- Click Edit within your site navigation
- An edit pane will appear on the left. To add a navigation option, hover underneath or above an existing option until you see a plus icon
- Once you click the plus icon, you can add a link or label option. A link would be inputted as a web address, while a label is a non-hyperlinked text option. If you use the label option, you will want to utilize sub links
- Once you add a navigation option, you will have the ability to click the three-dot icon [...] to see the options Edit, Move Up, Move Down, Make sub link, or Remove. Edit will allow you to change the navigation type, URL, and display name. Move up or Move down will change the order in which the option appears within your site navigation. Make sub link will allow the navigation option to appear as a drop down to the option above it. Lastly, Remove will remove the option from your site navigation.
- Once you have edited your site navigation, click the Save or Cancel button
If you would like to watch video instructions for site navigation, please see this video.
If you decide you like a previous version of your site after saving the draft or republishing, SharePoint allows you to compare and restore your site back to a previous version.
- On your site page, click the Page Details button right under your site navigation
- A pane will appear on the right, click Version History at the bottom of the pane
- This pane will tell you who has updated the article. Click on the three-dot icon [...] to compare with the selected version or restore
- Once you click Restore, the changes are applied, and you can click the X at the top to exit the version history pane.
As you are working on your site you may want to view how your site would look in a mobile device. Within your browser, you have the ability to open developer tools to view how your site would look if you were on a phone or tablet. Press F12 to open your developer tools. Within the pane that appears, there will be a small icon of a computer and mobile device:
Once you click on that icon, you will be able to select what type of device you want to emulate using the Dimensions drop down.
ITS is here to help!
To get access to your department's SharePoint site, quick questions, or once you are ready for ITS to perform the readiness review, you may put in a ticket using this service. We welcome all questions.