SharePoint is a complex (not quite complicated), document management solution. It’s grown quite a bit over the years, so its architecture can be confusing to newer adoptees. However, understanding a few of the higher-level SharePoint concepts can help uncomplicate things for most people. For simplicity, imagine moving some local computer files to SharePoint. How could this content be organized?
What are sites?
Migrate the content to a SharePoint site, which is essentially a private website for an organization to store and retrieve their data. Think of it as a digital home for their work stuff and SharePoint admins can build additional homes for more work stuff when necessary. Each home is intended to house related work content like a family unit of sorts:
- E.g.,
- Home #1 | Human Resources dept. and their files.
- Home #2 | Information Technology dept. and their files.
- Home #3 | Accounting dept. and their files.
What are libraries?
A home isn’t much of a home without rooms, right? Stuff goes into rooms and in a site, those rooms are site libraries. Site documents live in site libraries. Just as homes can have multiple rooms, sites can have multiple libraries, and no two sites have to be the same. Home #1 could have 8 libraries, home #2 could have 1,000 libraries, and home #3 could have 1 library. Just remember that these rooms are meant to better organize things in the home, like organizing those local computer files in different libraries.
What are folders?
Folders are nested containers of a site library. Imagine having a bunch of tax documents in a library but they’re grouped by tax year in different folders. With the home example, think of folders like dresser drawers or a shelving unit in a closet. Everything is in the room, but everything is just further divided and organized into smaller, more organized units.
What are hub sites?
Well, this one is a bit tricky. A newer approach to structuring and organizing SharePoint sites, hub sites are a way of associating related sites by way of a shared site navigation. Imagine the organization having a dozen or so department specific sites and needing to list them on an intranet page. Well, the shared site navigation accomplishes this, ensuring end-users can easily navigate from one site to the next. Bonus, changes made to the shared navigation are reflected in every site using it.
Unfortunately, hub sites don’t fit as easily into the home analogy… 😛
Conclusion:
Organize the home and organize it well. A well-organized home is a welcoming home, and it makes finding stuff easy…
“Racism is so universal in this country, so widespread, and deep-seated, that it is invisible because it is so normal.”
Shirley Chisholm
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