SharePoint Tips and Tricks

SharePoint is used by thousands of organizations of varying sizes and is often lauded for its centralized flow of data and its mobile-accessible cloud storage. It also allows for ease of collaboration on files and documents. The tool is also highly customizable and allows for the integration of all of your shared work environments.

Like any tool, you can miss out on some of the great functionality of SharePoint if you don’t take the time to optimize your processes within the tool. Save yourself time and frustration with these tips and tricks.

SharePoint Tips and Tricks

Use Logical and Intuitive Naming Conventions
You should instill a logical naming convention across your intranet so that all the names of the files are consistent and therefore easier to find. But you should also make sure that the naming convention is intuitive and is consistent with the keywords most people with a basic understanding of your organization would use to find a file. You should include the name of the document, any projects, departments, or segments of your company the file is associated with, as well as the date uploaded and the version number if there are multiple. This will help you proactively combat one of the biggest critiques of SharePoint which is that it’s difficult to find files.
Elements of a naming convention to consider including:

• Creation Date
• File Title
• Brief Description
• Version Number
• Associated Project
• Associated Department
• Creator Name
• Creator Position
• Audience Name

Syncing SharePoint Files to Your computer

One of the best ways to save time using SharePoint is to sync your SharePoint storage with your computer. This will allow the folders you access the most in SharePoint to appear as folders on your computer without you needing to open a web browser to access them. Any changes you make to the SharePoint files on your computer will sync with the SharePoint intranet.

Implement Permissions for Certain files

The point of using an intranet tool such as SharePoint is to be able to collaborate easily across your entire organization, but there are probably certain departments such as HR, Accounting, and IT that will need a high level of security for their files. SharePoint offers the capability to easily restrict or permit access to certain files as well as to notify relevant people whenever a change is made to a certain file or folder.

Know How To Restore or View Previous Versions of Your File

Have you ever made a mistake at work that made you wish you could go back in time and undo it? With SharePoint, you can. There are three helpful features SharePoint has to help you undo mistakes as well as track a document’s version history.

1. You can click on the button in the top right of your SharePoint file that says Catch Up. This will give you a summary of activity that’s occurred within the file by other people working in the file.
2. You can view the older versions of a file by clicking on the file name at the top left of the page. A small white box will appear that includes an option called Version History. Here, you can view all of the different versions of a document, a new version is created every time a change is made to the document and the different versions are labeled based on the date and time the changes were made as well as the person who made the changes.
3. If you accidentally delete a file, you can usually recover it using SharePoint’s recycle bin. The location of the recycle bin will vary depending on your organization’s settings. But generally, the recycle bin will appear on the left side of a group in SharePoint. SharePoint saves files added to the recycle bin for 93 days.

Learn SharePoint Skills

How much time, effort, and money could your organization save by optimizing its SharePoint processes? Whether you’re just getting started, are in the middle of a huge SharePoint project, or want to brush up on your skills, New Horizons has a handy SharePoint tips and tricks guide to help you get the out of this versatile tool.

Click here to download our SharePoint Tips and Tricks Guide. >>