Saving to SharePoint

I shall start with a scenario in which you might have opened a new instance of PowerPoint—or any other Office application—have made some edits to a new document, and now wish to save the document to SharePoint. As described earlier, you start from the backstage area by clicking the File tab on the ribbon.

• 1.  Click the File tab in the Office application (my example uses PowerPoint 2013).
• 2.  Click the Save As left navigation tab.
• 3.  You should see some saving options, like those in Figure 14-3.

Looking at the Save As tab in Figure 14-3, you can see three options: save to SkyDrive, save to the local computer, or add another place. I shall cover saving to SkyDrive further on in this chapter. Saving to the computer is self-explanatory: clicking this option and the Browse button on the right will bring up a familiar Save As dialog with locations on disk to save the open document.

Saving to SharePoint from Office 2013 is different from that of Office 2010. Forget looking for the Send to SharePoint operation under the Save and Send heading—Microsoft has changed the save operations to: Saving to the cloud via SkyDrive and Office 365, Saving to on-premise SharePoint via SkyDrive Pro, and publishing for a specific purpose, such as publishing to a blog from Word, or publishing to a slide library from PowerPoint.

Personally, I miss the very explicit option to save to SharePoint within Office 2010 but can understand Microsoft’s need to reduce confusion, now that SharePoint exists both as an on-premise service and in the cloud. I shall leave the theorizing on this topic to the books on business and strategy.

Fortunately, Office 2013 and SharePoint still support saving to a URL (via WebDAV). The following steps continue to demonstrate how to save an open document to SharePoint by providing the URL of the destination document library:

• 4.  Select the option to save to the computer.
• 5.  Click the Browse icon.
• 6.  In the dialog that appears, enter the on-premise SharePoint document library URL in the location field (at the top of the dialog).
• 7.  Give the file a name.
• 8.  Click the Save button.

Opening from SharePoint

Opening an existing Office document from SharePoint is less confusing than Save As, but just as easy. In this scenario and my example, a document resides in a document library in a SharePoint 2013 team site.

Figure 14-4 shows a screenshot of my example document library in my SharePoint 2013 team site. Depending on whether you have installed Office Web Applications (OWA), clicking on the document name (link) will either open the document on the Office application on the local computer (assuming you installed Office) or within OWA. The following steps demonstrate how to open the document in the local Office application:

1. Click the ellipsis to the right of the document name in the document library.
2. A pop-up should appear.
3. Click the Edit link.
4. Accept the warning about opening files from the web (assuming you trust the document).

Now that you have opened a document from SharePoint (or successfully saved a new document to SharePoint, I would like to point out a few user interface changes in the Office application. Figure 14-5 shows the quick save icon at the top left of the application, with synchronization symbol. This indicates that the document resides in a location that supports collaboration (such as SharePoint); clicking this icon will save any local changes and retrieve any changes from the server.

From within your Office application, click the File tab and then the Save As tab in the left navigation, as I demonstrated earlier. You should notice a new option in the list of save options: Other Web Locations (Figure 14-6). Office is smart enough to know that you opened/saved your document to a location accessible via web browser. This option in the Save As tab now provides a list of recent locations that you have saved documents to and the familiar Browse button to browse to another web location (via WebDAV).

You can also open a document from SharePoint via the Office application user interface, as follows:

1. Click the File tab in the Office application.
2. Click the Open tab in the left navigation tabs.
3. If you saved the document to a SharePoint location earlier, you may see the same location in Recent Folders under the Other Web Locations.
4. You can browse the location of a SharePoint document library, similarly to how you browsed to a save location. Either use the Browse button under Other Web Locations or under Computer and paste a URL of a SharePoint site.

Office 365

As I mentioned in the previous section, Office 365 (O365) is Microsoft’s hosted Office solution, which includes SharePoint. For the purposes of this discussion, I shall focus only on the SharePoint aspects of O365 and leave discussion of the Enterprise services to another book.

The great thing about Office 365 is that organizations can host SharePoint solutions, be it an intranet, extranet, or publishing site, via Microsoft’s O365 platform and make the service available to their audience of choice seamlessly. The end user has no idea that the SharePoint solution is in the cloud, rather than on-premise (hosted by the organization). Office 365 will federate with an organization’s Active Directory and can host on any purchased domain name; thus, SharePoint in O365 looks and feels like an on-premise hosted version of SharePoint, accessible via a common organization-specified URL.

Because Office 365 is a large topic and beyond the scope of this book, I shall cover only the integration with Office 2013. For the following text, assume that you have a hosted version of a SharePoint team site in O365, complete with a document library for saving Office documents.

In the following set of steps, I shall demonstrate saving a new Word document to a team site that I have hosted in Office 365 Preview (SharePoint 2013).

• 1.  Open Word 2013 and create a new blank document.
• 2.  Add some content/text.
• 3.  Click the File tab.
• 4.  Click the Save As tab in the left navigation tabs.
• 5.  Click the Add a Place option and then select Office 365 SharePoint (Figure 14-7).

• 6.  Sign in to your O365 SharePoint—unless your organization has federated authentication, your username will likely be something like user @company.onmicrosoft.com.
• 7.  After signing in, click the Browse button.
• 8.  Similar to how we saved a document to an on-premise SharePoint site, Word displays a Save As dialog with browse capability in the O365 SharePoint site (Figure 14-8).

• 9.  Navigate to the Documents document library.
• 10.  Provide a file name for the new document.
• 11.  Click the Save button.

As you can see, saving to Office 365 SharePoint is almost identical to saving to a SharePoint on-premise instance. This is exactly the point—Microsoft has achieved the same user experience with Office 365 as users would experience with an on-premise hosted version of SharePoint 2013.

Opening a file from Office 365 SharePoint is as easy as opening a document from on-premise SharePoint. You can navigate to the document via the SharePoint web interface and edit the document or open the document from within the Office application, as I demonstrated in the section “Opening from SharePoint.”

SkyDrive and SkyDrive Pro

SkyDrive is Microsoft’s answer to synchronized files in the cloud, and part of the Live.com suite of services. SkyDrive is a free service with a limited amount of disk space (7GB at the time of writing), but it offers users the ability to increase the storage with a paid subscription. SkyDrive requires software installed to your local computer, which then handles the task of keeping local folders on your computer in sync with the storage account in the cloud. Users can synchronize as many computers as they wish with a single account, meaning multiple computers retain the most recent version of files.

Similar to the experience with Office 365 SharePoint, Microsoft has integrated SkyDrive into the Office 2013 suite of applications. Opening and saving documents to your SkyDrive is as easy as opening and saving documents from the synchronized folder on your local computer. The Office 2013 applications also have the option to open and save to SkyDrive if you have previously configured a SkyDrive account within Windows 8. Figure 14-9 shows a screenshot from Excel 2013. I have configured my SkyDrive account as part of my Live.com identity in Windows 8, so Office 2013 understands that I have a SkyDrive location to save and open my files.

There appears to be some confusion in the marketplace regarding the existence of SkyDrive Pro with on-premise and O365 SharePoint. SkyDrive Pro is a version of SkyDrive that ships with Office 2013 and allows synchronization of files with on-premise and 0365 SharePoint. SkyDrive Pro caters to business and enterprise users.

For many of those who are not developers or prerelease software advocates, Office 2013 is out of mind until it releases to the general populous, whereas SkyDrive and Live.com are very much mainstream, which may have contributed to confusion on the role played by SkyDrive Pro. Some thought that SkyDrive Pro was the paid subscription service of SkyDrive. SkyDrive Pro is very different from SkyDrive on Live.com, but both offer similar functionality for management and synchronization of Office files in the cloud and enterprise. For the remainder of this section, I shall concentrate on how SkyDrive Pro relates to SharePoint.

Figure 14-10 shows the SkyDrive and SkyDrive Pro tiles that I have installed in my Windows 8. I included this figure to illustrate that SkyDrive and SkyDrive Pro are very different applications. For the following examples, I assume that you have SkyDrive Pro installed on your Windows 7 or Windows 8 computer.

• 1.  Click the tile to launch SkyDrive Pro on your local computer (Figure 14-10).
• 2.  When launching SkyDrive Pro for the first time, you should see a dialog like that in Figure 14-11.

• 3.  Provide the URL of a SharePoint (on-premise or O365) document library in the text box.
• 4.  Optionally, change the local sync folder location on disk (click the Change link).
• 5.  Click the Sync Now button when ready.

If you followed all the previous steps, you should now have a synchronized folder on your computer, which synchronizes with the document library in SharePoint. You can open, edit, and save documents on the local computer and SkyDrive Pro will synchronize the changes to SharePoint. Similarly, you (or someone else on your team) can open, edit, and save documents via SharePoint, and SkyDrive Pro ensures that all changes synchronize with those on the local disk. By default (unless you changed the location), SkyDrive creates sync locations in the profile folder for the current user (c:usersusernameSharePoint).

SkyDrive Pro is smart enough to handle multiple SharePoint locations. I created a sync location for a document library in my O365 SharePoint team site, and a sync location for a document library in my on-premise SharePoint. Looking in the c:userusernameSharePoint folder on my disk, I see the two locations, as in Figure 14-12.

Look at the screenshot in Figure 14-12; if you cast your eyes to the favorites in the left pane, you can see that SkyDrive Pro has created an entry for SharePoint, so you can get at your files quickly from within Windows Explorer.

There is a more convenient method for adding sync locations via the SharePoint web interface.

1. Open your SharePoint 2013 site.
2. Navigate to any document library to which you have permissions.
3. Click the Sync link in the top left of the page (Figure 14-13).

   

   Figure 14-13. Sync link from within SharePoint 2013

What do you think happens if you open a file from SharePoint, via SkyDrive Pro, and another user on your team performs the same action? The good news is that SharePoint and SkyDrive Pro understand live co-authoring, which is the topic in the next section. Both users can edit the same document and save whenever they wish, and SharePoint will manage live editing and keeping changes to the same file in sync. SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010 included the capability to live co-author, but third-party disk sync tools did/do not support it.

Writing Blog Posts

Microsoft Word includes a template to author blog posts. Microsoft Word works with many blogging engines, not just SharePoint, but because this book is about SharePoint 2013 administration, I will focus on creating blog posts for the SharePoint platform.

1. Open Microsoft Word.
2. Click the File tab and then the left tab item, named New.
3. Search for the Blog Post template.
4. Click the Create button (Figure 14-19).

If you have not registered a blogging service (such as SharePoint), Word will give you the option to do so, with a dialog, as shown in Figure 14-20.

1. Click the Register Now button.
2. Change the blog provider to SharePoint Blog and then click the Next button.
3. Enter the URL of the blog site in your SharePoint site collection.
4. You may click the Picture Options button to configure where Word saves images; by default, SharePoint stores the pictures in the Photos library of the blog site.
5. Click the OK button.
6. After editing the blog post in Word, click the Publish icon on the ribbon to publish the document to the SharePoint blog.

You may wish to publish a regular Word document to SharePoint without creating a new blog post document and using copy-and-paste.

1. From an open Word document, click the File tab.
2. Click the Share tab in the left navigation.
3. Click the Post to Blog Post link.

Compare Document Versions

Microsoft permits users to manipulate versions of a document opened from a SharePoint document library with versioning enabled. The following steps demonstrate how to enable version settings for a document library, and how to compare versions of a document from Microsoft Word:

1. Navigate to the default view of a document library in SharePoint.
2. Click the Library tab on the ribbon and then click the Library Settings icon.
3. Click the Versioning Settings link.
4. Under the section Document Versioning History, enable the desired version scheme.
   
   Create Major Versions: Every document version represents a major version, therefore published for each save or check-in.
   
   Create Major and Minor Versions: Every check-in or save creates a minor version, meaning that the document is in draft mode; users must publish a major version to make the document changes available to other users, which may involve approval workflow.
5. Click the OK button.
6. Navigate back to the default view of the document library.
7. Select the name of a Word document in the document library (click the Upload icon on the ribbon and upload a Word document if none exists).
8. Click the ellipsis and then click the Edit option.
9. Provide credentials for SharePoint, if asked.
10. Wait for Microsoft Word to open.
11. Make some changes to the document.
12. Save the document (which saves it back to SharePoint).
13. Click the Review tab on the ribbon in Microsoft Word.
14. Click the Compare icon in the Compare section of the ribbon.
15. See Figure 14-21 for the options available.

    

    Figure 14-21. Options for comparing document versions in Microsoft Word

Most of the options available in Figure 14-21 are self-explanatory. Users may compare the current open document with a major version, the latest version, or another specific version, and they may combine document versions.

Quick Parts

Microsoft Word documents allow authors to enter Quick Parts, which, when you open a document from SharePoint, allow inclusion of field values from metadata attached to the document library. The following steps demonstrate adding a Quick Part to your open Word document:

1. Navigate to the default view of the document library.
2. Select the name of a Word document in the document library (click the Upload icon on the ribbon and upload a Word document if none exists).
3. Click the ellipsis, and then click the Edit option.
4. Provide credentials for SharePoint, if asked.
5. Wait for Microsoft Word to open.
6. Click the Insert tab on the ribbon in Word.
7. In the Text section of the ribbon, click the Quick Parts icon.
8. Select the Document Property menu item and then select the metadata field from the sub-menu.
9. Figure 14-22 shows an example where I added the author Quick Part—whenever the author of the document changes in SharePoint, Word will update this value, because the author property is part of the document metadata.

Excel Services

Since SharePoint 2007, SharePoint has included Excel Services. Excel Services allows the hosting of Excel sheets and Excel data within SharePoint pages, without the need for Excel installed on the SharePoint Server, nor installed on the client. I covered Excel Services as part of business intelligence in Chapter 12.

Slide Libraries

Since SharePoint 2007, SharePoint has included a Slide Library list type (available only with SharePoint Standard edition and above). Slide libraries consist of collections of slides, taken from one or many PowerPoint decks. The idea is to collect a repository of popular and commonly used slides for new presentations.

As of SharePoint 2013, the slide library template is no longer available in the list of app/list templates accessed from the site contents area. Microsoft might depreciate slide libraries completely in later versions of SharePoint, but for now you can still access the Create page for slide libraries by typing the following link into your browser:

http://your-site-collection/_layouts/15/slnew.aspx?FeatureId={0be49fe9-9bc9-409d-abf9-702753bd878d}&ListTemplate=2100

• 1.  Give the library a name and description.
• 2.  Click the Create button.
• 3.  Open PowerPoint and a slide deck with a selection of slides.
• 4.  Click the File tab to enter the backstage area.
• 5.  Click the Share tab in the list of left navigation tabs.
• 6.  Click the option to publish slides and then the Publish Slides button.
• 7.  PowerPoint then displays a dialog asking you which slides to publish (Figure 14-27).

• 8.  Check the check boxes (or click the Select All button for all) for publishing.
• 9.  Enter the URL of the slide library location in the Publish To box (note that you do not need the filename.aspx in the URL, such as AllItems.aspx).
• 10.  Click the Publish button.

Head over to your slide library in SharePoint, and you should start seeing the slides appearing (hit Refresh a few times). You may not see all the slides immediately, as SharePoint processes and creates thumbnails for each slide before showing the slide in the library.

Now that you have a set of slides in your slide library, I can demonstrate creating a new PowerPoint deck from a selected number of slides from the new slide library, as follows:

• 1.  Navigate to your slide library.
• 2.  Check the check boxes next to the slides in the SharePoint slide library that you wish to include in the new presentation (deck).
• 3.  Click the Copy Slide to Presentation link at the top of the list, just below the ribbon.
• 4.  PowerPoint opens and presents a dialog, like that shown in Figure 14-28, asking the user whether to copy to a new presentation or an open presentation (if PowerPoint was already open with a deck loaded), with some other options, as shown.

  

  Figure 14-28. Copy to presentation dialog

• 5.  Click the OK button to commit the slides to your PowerPoint deck.

Access Services

SharePoint includes a managed service application for Access—Access Services. With Access Services, users can do much more than just host an Access file in a document library, or link lists with Access tables. Access Services integrates the complete Access functionality into SharePoint, so legacy Access users need not rely on the Office Access application to host forms, run queries, and provide reports.

Access Services provides several benefits to collaborative users of data retained in an Access file using SharePoint.

• Access Services locks objects and not the entire file when users make changes (unlike the full Access application).
• Access Services secures data in an Access database using the same SharePoint permissions model.
• Access Service is a middle-tier service and web service application, so users can share access to their Access data across the farm and other connecting SharePoint farms.
• Everything runs in the world of the browser; users do not need the Access Office application on their computer.

The following steps demonstrate how to set up Access Services, via Central Admin, and how to leverage the capabilities of Access Services:

1. Open Central Administration.
2. Click the Manage Services on Server link, under the System Settings heading.
3. Make sure the Access Database Service is in a started state.
4. Click the Manage Service Applications link, under the Application Management heading, from the Central Admin home page.
5. Scroll down the list and see if an Access Services application already exists. If not, continue.
6. Click the New icon on the ribbon and select Access Services from the menu.
7. In the dialog, give the service a name and create an application pool.
8. Click the OK button and wait while SharePoint creates the new service application.
9. You may configure the settings for Access Services by selecting the service application; then click the Manage icon on the ribbon.

Now that you have Access Services configured, I shall demonstrate how to create an Access web application. This is an Access database application residing in SharePoint. Much like Excel Services, Access Services allows you to host Access databases in SharePoint and manipulate them without the requirement of Access installed on client computers.

• 1.  Navigate to your SharePoint site, to host your Access web app.
• 2.  Click the gear icon in the top right.
• 3.  Select the menu item to add an app.
• 4.  Page through the available templates until you find the Access app.
• 5.  Click the tile and then the button to add it.
• 6.  SharePoint will prompt you for a name for your app (Figure 14-35).

• 7.  Provide a name and click the Create button.
• 8.  Wait a moment while SharePoint creates the Access app.

If you prefer to start your Office applications from the Office application, you can also create a new Access application using Access 2013, as follows:

1. Open Access 2013.
2. Choose the Custom Web App template.
3. Give the application a name.
4. Provide the location of the app as your SharePoint site.
5. Click the Create button.
6. You may need to authenticate, as necessary.

Deploying a Form Via Central Administration

Forms deployed to Central Admin by administrators are available for use by other users in designated site collections. The following steps detail how to upload an InfoPath template (XSN file) to Central Administration:

1. Open Central Administration.
2. Click the General Application Settings heading.
3. Under the InfoPath Forms Services heading, click the Upload Form Template link.
4. Browse to the location of the XSN on disk.
5. You may click the Verify button to confirm that the form has no errors (I recommend doing this).
6. Click the Upload button and then look to the Status page, which should read success.
7. From the Manage Form Templates page, hover over the name of the form template you just uploaded.
8. Click the Activate to a Site Collection link.
9. Choose a site collection to activate the form; after completing this step, SharePoint makes the form available as a content type in the Content Type Gallery, for users to add to new and existing lists/libraries.

Rendering a Form Using the InfoPath Form Web Part

SharePoint 2007 used to render forms in a new browser window executed by SharePoint, or site designers could host InfoPath forms in a Forms Server User Control. Neither option was particularly compelling. SharePoint now provides an InfoPath Web Part.

The InfoPath Web Part allows any page contributor to host an existing InfoPath form on pages that support Web Parts, such as wiki pages and pages with Web Part zones. After inserting the Web Part on the page, you should see something like Figure 14-37. Click the link to show the tool pane and follow these steps to configure the Web Part to an existing InfoPath form:

1. The list or library drop-down control contains all lists and libraries using InfoPath form content types. Select the desired list to render the form.
2. Select the appropriate InfoPath form content type in the next drop-down control.
3. The check box Show InfoPath Ribbon or Toolbar instructs the Web Part to display the InfoPath ribbon in the Web Part rendering. Unchecking this option will cause the Web Part to render only the form (which is often desirable for end users).
4. The check box Send Data to Connected Web Parts When Page Loads instructs the Web Part to activate any Web Part connections during page load.
5. The remaining controls pertain to rendering, such as the default view to render and what happens to the form after submission.
6. Click the OK button at the bottom of the tool pane to save your changes.

Customizing the Document Information Panel and List Forms

Earlier in this chapter, I introduced the Document Information Panel, which displays the metadata of a document from within the Office application. The Document Information Panel associates with a particular SharePoint content type for the open document. Using InfoPath and SharePoint, administrators may customize the look of the Document Information Panel, following these steps:

• 1.  Open InfoPath Designer 2013.
• 2.  In the list of available templates shown, click the Document Information Panel template.
• 3.  Click the Design Form button on the right.
• 4.  A wizard dialog appears (see Figure 14-38). Enter the URL of the SharePoint document library and then click the Next button.

• 5.  Select the content type to edit the Document Information Panel and click the Next button.
• 6.  The wizard displays a message about publishing the content type for the InfoPath form to work; click the Finish button.
• 7.  InfoPath Designer 2013 now shows you a form to edit, complete with the Document Information Panel fields (see Figure 14-39).

• 8.  Experiment with editing the form; for example, change some colors, fonts, and so on.
• 9.  To publish your changes to SharePoint, click the File tab and then the Quick Publish button.

InfoPath Designer also allows administrators to edit List Form pages, such as the Edit form, or the New Item form. The following steps demonstrate this:

1. Navigate to the SharePoint list or library.
2. Click the List tab on the ribbon and then click the Customize Form icon on the ribbon.
3. InfoPath Designer opens, showing the Edit form with the active fields.
4. Customize the form. You may change the presentation any way you like, even adding or removing fields.
5. To publish your changes to SharePoint, click the File tab and then the Quick Publish button.
6. Once published, your changes apply to the Edit (EditForm.aspx), New Item (NewForm.aspx), and Display (DispForm.aspx) forms.
7. Navigate to the list in SharePoint and add a new item. You should see the new InfoPath form loaded.

How do you revert to the SharePoint stock list forms?

1. Using Internet Explorer, navigate to the default view of the list.
2. Click the List tab on the ribbon and then click the List Settings icon.
3. Click the Form Settings link under General Settings.
4. Revert back to the SharePoint list forms and click OK.

Lists and Libraries

Users may connect many types of lists or document libraries to Outlook. These lists and libraries then appear in the hierarchy of folders with which users of Outlook are familiar. Furthermore, the list type determines how Outlook displays the folder and the types of items contained. The following steps demonstrate how to connect a shared calendar in SharePoint with Outlook:

• 1.  Open SharePoint and navigate to a shared calendar, default view.
• 2.  Click the Calendar tab on the ribbon and then click the Connect to Outlook icon in the Connect & Export section of the ribbon (Figure 14-40).

• 3.  Outlook launches and displays a dialog asking you to confirm connecting the list to Outlook.
• 4.  You may click the Advanced button to see additional options, such as to edit the name of the folder in Outlook.
• 5.  Click the Yes button; Outlook displays the new calendar in the calendar area of the folder hierarchy.
• 6.  If you have events in your SharePoint calendar, you should see them in Outlook (after the next Send & Receive); you can also make direct changes to the calendar in Outlook and see the changes reflected in SharePoint.

Outlook allows users to connect the following lists to Outlook in a similar process to the preceding steps: Document Libraries, Calendars, Tasks, Contacts, Picture Libraries, Document Sets (Individual Owned), Discussion Boards, and Project Tasks.

Outlook stores all connected list data in an offline PST file, called SharePoint Lists.pst. Readers should note that SharePoint downloads all content to this PST file, so if you have a large document library connected to Outlook, the combination of documents and metadata may take up considerable space on the client machine (not the e-mail server). Fortunately, administrators and list owners may prevent download of list content with the following steps:

1. Navigate to the list in SharePoint.
2. Click the List or Library tab on the ribbon.
3. Click the List or Library Settings on the ribbon.
4. Click the Advanced Settings link.
5. Change the setting for Offline Client Availability to No. SharePoint then disables the Connect to Outlook icon on the ribbon. Users with previous downloaded content still retain the offline copy in Outlook but can no longer sync with SharePoint.