Web Made Easy. Planning Session

Transcription

1 Web Made Easy Planning Session All good websites come from a good plan. Sounds redundant, but it's true. If you want to create a good and solid website, you need a good and solid plan. On a piece of notebook paper, or whatever is lying around, describe your site. Take five to twenty minutes to come up with a purpose for your site, or better yet, call it your Mission Statement. Answer the following questions: 1. What am I going to do with this? 2. Who is going to read this? 3. What kinds of information will I be posting? 4. Why am I doing this? 5. Who am I doing this for? 6. How often am I going to be posting and adding information? P age

2 There are many tools to use that allow you to create simple yet highly effective websites. One of the simplest is a product called Weebly. You can create a free account by going to and registering using a valid address. Once you have logged in you will see the screen below: please enter a Title for your website and select from the drop down lists the type of website it will be (you can always change it later). 2 P age

3 If you have an existing Domain Name or URL you can use it to point to the Weebly site, however for the workshop we will use a Weebly subdomain. Type in a name and the system will check for availability. The default layout will load. The first thing we will do is browse the themes. Click on the Design Tab. You will have a thumbnail gallery of many different themes and layouts to select from. Clicking on the thumbnail applies the theme to your website. 3 P age

4 Once you have decided on a theme you can add elements to your web site by clicking on the element and dragging it to the page. If you hover over the element you have access to additional options. If you click the Pages tab, you can add or remove pages on your website. Any pages you create will be inserted or removed automatically to your site navigation. 4 P age

5 By clicking on the Settings tab you can change the settings for your site including the Title and passwords. 5 P age

6 WordPress Open a web browser and navigate to Click Getting Started and Register. 6 P age

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9 Pages vs. Posts Posts are the principal element (or content) of a blog. The Posts are the writings, compositions, discussions, discourses, musings, and, yes, the rantings, of a blog owner and contributors. Posts, in most cases, are the reason a blog exists; without Posts, there is no blog! A WordPress feature called Pages makes the process of presenting this information in an easier fashion. Pages, similar to posts, are most commonly used to present unchanging information such as About Us, Contact Us, Sign Up for Our Mailing List, and other static information. Before creating your individual Pages, you need to think about what information you would like the Page to hold. Write down the possible Page titles and describe the information you are willing to share online on each Page. Categories Every Post in WordPress is filed under one or more Categories. Categories allow the classification of your Posts into groups and subgroups, thereby aiding viewers in the navigation and use of your site. Each Category may be assigned to a Category Parent so that you may set up a hierarchy within the category structure. Using automobiles as an example, a hierarchy might be Car- >Ford- >Mustang. In creating categories, recognize that each category name must be unique, regardless of hierarchy. Tags Tags are the keywords you might assign to each post. Not to be confused with Categories, Tags have no hierarchy, meaning there's no relationship from one Tag to another. But like Categories, Tags provide another means to aid your readers in accessing information on your blog. Plugins - Add Functionality to your Blog Plugins allow you to add new features to your WordPress blog that don't come standard with the default installation. There are a rich variety of Available Plugins for WordPress, and with the following Screens, plugin installation and management is a snap. 1. To find and install a new plugin, click on the dropdown next to Plugins, then click on Add new. 2. To install a new plugin within your WordPress dashboard, find the plugin you want using the Search box. 3. Scroll down to find your desired plugin and click on the orange Install button next to it. 4. In the popup window, click Install now. 5. Once the plugin software is installed, you will need to activate the plugin you ve just downloaded by clicking on the Activate Plugin link next to it. 9 P age

10 Sharepoint Modular system Acts as a repository for storing and managing content (documents, web) Accessing content from other systems (data, web services) Provides a secure environment for users and content Can be customized / configured (layout, look and feel, functionality) to meet many different scenarios All accessed via a browser Integration to Microsoft Office Suite 2 Corporate Intranet HOW IS SHAREPOINT USED? Communication Documents Organizational Information 2 Arpan Shaw s SPC09 presentation SPC09 Beta book %20SharePoint%202010%20Overview.pptx 10 P age

11 Project Team Collaboration Teams Projects Documents Tasks Alerts Extranet Partner Collaboration Content Management Secure Content Profiles Private Channel 11 P age

12 Business Intelligence Dashboard Performance Management Secure Content Analysis KPI s Search a Product Catalog Corporate Website Website / Online Marketing Knowledge Management (Workflows) 12 P age

13 What are Sites? The basic capabilities required to use SharePoint sites to engage employees, partners and customers in an effective manner, both inside and outside the firewall Formerly known as Collaboration What are Communities? The ability to easily access expertise and interact with other people in new and creative ways across the enterprise through both formal and informal networks 13 P age

14 Introduction to Document Management in SharePoint This section will cover the basic DM functionality available in SharePoint 2010 and tap into some of the more advanced features you might consider using to control your documents. We will look into the following areas: Basic DM Version control Check in/out Adding Metadata Views Basic Document Management Documents are stored in document libraries within a SharePoint site. You can think of document libraries as locations (hard drives, shares) where files can be stored and organized (using folders and meta data) and permission applied. To create a document library, click on the Site Action menu and choose New Document Library : In this example I created a document library named Shared Documents, and left all other values as is: 3 to- document- management- in.html 14 P age

15 Click Create to create the document library. The document library is now created and because I left the value Yes in the Navigation section (in the screenshot above), we will have a link to the library in the Quick Launch (see screen shot below). When clicking on the Shared Documents link in the Quick Launch, available functionality will present itself in the Ribbon. Available functionality is based on your permission level, if you have selected document(s), enabled features, etc. Our newly created document library does not contain any documents at this point, thus the Ribbon presents minimal functionality (when clicking on Library Tools/Documents): When clicking on Library Tools/Library (above the Ribbon) you will see we have more functionality available: 15 P age

16 You will also get access to functionality by clicking on the drop- down menu for each document (more about this further down). In addition to functionality available on the Ribbon, there is the Add document link that will give you the option to upload documents. Click on the Add document link, then click Browse, select a file, and click OK to upload the file to the document library: Now, when checking the box to the left of the document, you will have access to more functionality on the Ribbon: You will also have access to functionality by clicking on the document s drop- down menu: 16 P age

17 At this point there is one document in the document library, and users (based on permission level) are able to view, delete and edit the document, plus adding additional documents. It s pretty straight forward to create and start using OOTB document libraries, but it doesn t necessarily provide the control you are looking for. The following paragraphs describe how you can enable functionality to get more control of your documents. Version control Version control provides functionality to save multiple instances (versions) of the same document, and keep the document history, without visually add more documents to the document library. In a file share, for instance, you have to create multiple files if you want to store the document history, and you often end up naming each file something like this; Contract_customer_version_1.2.docx. Someone else might use a different name convention when updating the document and soon it will be a challenge to identify which document is current. In SharePoint, the user will have access to the current version of the document but also a view into the version history including details about who changed the document and the metadata between versions (more about metadata later). When creating a document library (using OOTB templates) version control is not enabled. This is how you enable version control on a document library: Click on Library Tools/Library and select Library Settings on the Ribbon: 17 P age

18 Then, under General Settings, click on Versioning settings: Scroll down to Document Version History to see available versioning options for you to choose: 18 P age

19 Note: Versions are complete copies of the document and will have an effect on storage space in your SharePoint farm. As you can see, you will have the option to limit the number of versions to keep. In this example I chose to Create major versions, and I left all other options as is: When versioning is enabled, a new option appears on the document s drop down menu (and Ribbon): 19 P age

20 The version history let you see what metadata that have changed, who made the changes, but also give you functionality to view, restore and delete versions: Check in/out The check in/out functionality prevents multiple people to work on the same document at the same time. When the check in/out functionality is enabled, SharePoint will require a check out of the document before you can edit the document.. Note: When working with certain file types, e.g. OneNote files, you should not enable check in/out on the document library. Here are the steps to enable check in/out on the document library: 20 P age

21 First, select Library Tools/Library, then click on Library Settings: Under General Settings, click on Versioning settings: Scroll down to Require Check Out and click on Yes: 21 P age

22 Click OK to save. When opening the document, SharePoint will give you the option to Check Out and Edit: 22 P age

23 Adding Metadata Metadata is data about the document. Typical examples of metadata are Author, Title, File Name and Created Date. In SharePoint you will find concepts like properties, columns, tagging which basically are used to define metadata. By default, SharePoint stores information like; File Name, Title, Version, Created Date and Created By as metadata. None of these are mandatory, and the user is not prompted to give additional metadata when uploading a document, and values are applied automatically. Click on the document s drop down menu, and click on View Properties: Here you will see the metadata with its values: 23 P age

24 Let say we want to store status information to the document. We have to create a new column in the document library for this to happen. First, select Library Tools/Library, then click on Library Settings: In this example I will add an existing column to the library. Under Columns, click on Add from existing site columns: 24 P age

25 Then, select Core Document Columns, and choose Status from the available site columns: Click OK to save. Now, I would like to update my document by setting the correct status. I go back to my document library and click Edit Properties: 25 P age

26 A dialog will be presented because we enabled the Check out functionality (see above): Click OK to check out the document. The new column is available where we can choose the status of the document: 26 P age

27 Click Save. The last step would be to Check in the document: 27 P age

28 When checking in, a new window will give you the option to save version comments (this is because we enabled versioning): Click OK to save and check in. 28 P age

29 Views You can take advantage of the metadata and present the document within a document library in different ways. A document library can have multiple views defined and available for users to choose from. Both public and private views can be created. Here is an example on how to create a view that group the documents based on the new column we created. From the bread crumb, click on the drop down menu after All Documents Here you will have the option to modify and create new views. Click on Create View: I used All Documents (which is the one view available) as a basis for my new view. Give the new view a name: 29 P age

30 Next, pick the columns (and the order) you would like to present in the view: Then, scroll down to Group By and select the column to group by: 30 P age

31 Note: Filtering, sorting and other functionality is also available and can be used when creating a view. Click OK to save. You will now have two different ways (views) at looking at your documents; All documents and Status : Through funding offered by the Student Tech Fund our students have access to more detailed training resources through Microsoft s online and self- paced training system Microsoft IT Academy. Send an to support.ischool@utoronto.ca with the subject Sharepoint and we will register you for the training material. 31 P age