In This Chapter
Customizing the look and feel of your SharePoint site
Creating subsites for particular teams
Adding SharePoint components — including libraries, lists, and workspaces
Right out of the box (or, better yet, straight out of the IT department), a new SharePoint site is a pretty generic place. From replacing its standard Windows SharePoint Services logo on the home page and adding content to its empty default lists all the way to creating the specific SharePoint components that your teams need, you have a lot of customizing to do when dealing with a new SharePoint site.
In this Part of Tens chapter, I offer some concrete suggestions (backed up with chapter references) for tailoring a new SharePoint site to your teams' needs. This ten-part customization covers everything from tweaking the look and feel of the site to adding the SharePoint components that make team collaboration and communication possible.
The first thing you probably want to do to your new SharePoint site is to either remove the standard Windows SharePoint Services logo that graces the top of the Right Web Part zone on the home page of the site (as well as every subsite that you create based on the Team Site template) or replace it with your company's logo:
To remove the SharePoint Services logo: Choose Edit Page from the Site Actions drop-down menu, click the Edit drop-down button on the Site Image Web Part containing the logo, and then choose Delete from the drop-down menu that appears.
To replace the SharePoint Services logo: Choose Edit Page from the Site Actions drop-down menu, click the Edit drop-down button on the Site Image Web Part containing the logo, and then choose Modify Shared Web Part from the drop-down menu that appears. Then replace the URL for the SharePoint Services logo graphic file in the Image Link text box with the URL to the picture library (see Chapter 5) where your company's logo graphic file has already been uploaded.
In addition to tweaking the SharePoint Services logo on the home page, you may want to do the following tasks:
To change the site's title, description, and/or icon: Choose Site Settings from the Site Actions drop-down menu and then click the Title, Description, and Icon link in the Look and Feel column. Edit the Title text box and Description list box as needed and enter the URL of the graphic file you want to appear at the top of the site next to the title in the URL text box.
To select a new color scheme: Choose Site Settings from the Site Actions drop-down menu and then click the Site Theme link in the Look and Feel column. Click the name of the new theme you want to use (using the Preview pane to see how its color scheme looks) and then click the Apply button.
One way to organize your new SharePoint site is to reserve the top-level site elements for information of a more general nature as well as announcements that pertain to all of the teams who have access to the site. Then create subsites for each of the particular teams (Accounting, Sales, Marketing, HR, and so forth) that contain team-specific elements and information.
Tip
To create new subsites for your teams, click the Sites link in the home page Quick Launch on the right and then click the Create button at the top of the All Site Content page. Next, click the Sites and Workspaces link in the Web Pages column. When defining the site on the New SharePoint Site page (by designating the name, description, URL, template, permissions, and navigation for the site), be sure to select the Team Site template if you want the new subsite to have Web Part zones similar to those on the home page.
Remember that SharePoint libraries provide the places where you make available the documents that your teams need in order to collaborate with one another. SharePoint supports three standard types of libraries where you can upload particular types of documents for general distribution to your teams:
Document library: Use this type of library to store all the types of documents (other than graphic files and electronic forms) that your teams need to access. (See Chapter 5.)
Picture library: Use this type of library to store the various graphic images your teams need to access. (See Chapter 5.)
Form library: Use this type of library to store the various forms that your teams need to fill out as part of their collaboration. (See Chapter 14.)
The Announcements list and the Calendar are the two SharePoint lists you can rely on to keep your team members informed of important changes that occur during the course of a project. They also keep everyone informed about upcoming events. (See Chapter 4.)
The Announcements list gives you a quick-and-easy way to call attention to recent additions and other changes made to the SharePoint site and to updates on the scope and duration of the collaborative project. It also helps you to rally your teams and give them the encouragement and support they need.
The Calendar provides you with an easy way to remind team members of important events in the life of the collaboration. These events can include project milestones and deadlines along with the inevitable team meetings and other more social get-togethers that are scheduled during the period of the collaboration.
Formal team meetings, both physical and virtual, are the lifeblood of successful collaboration. To help you schedule and manage these meetings, I encourage you to take full advantage of your SharePoint site's meeting workspaces. (See Chapter 6.)
SharePoint 2007 makes it easy to create a meeting workspace using any one of the following three methods:
From scratch in SharePoint: Using this method, you create the meeting workspace just as you would any other subsite, except for the fact that you select one of the templates on the Meetings tab of the Select a Template list box instead of one of the Site templates on the Collaboration tab.
From a SharePoint Calendar list: With this method, you add a new item to the Calendar list using the New Item option from the New menu. Then, when defining the new item, be sure to select the check box labeled Use a Meeting Workspace to Organize Attendees, Agendas, Documents, Minutes, and Other Details for This Event.
From an Outlook 2007 meeting request: Using this method, you fill out a new meeting request in the Calendar module of Outlook 2007 and then use the Meeting Workspace button on the Ribbon to open the Meeting Workspace pane, where you set up the workspace on the SharePoint site.
Sometimes, the documents you make available on your SharePoint site aren't there as supporting materials for the purpose of informing and supporting your team members but rather as works-in-progress that require team member input and editing. When this is the case, instead of uploading the documents to standard document libraries, you send them to document workspaces.
A SharePoint document workspace is specifically designed to enable collaborative editing by all the team members to whom you grant access (with the appropriate permissions). Then, after you've had the opportunity to review and approve the collaborative edits, you can move the final version of the document from the document workspace to the appropriate document library for general distribution on the SharePoint site. (See Chapter 9 for details.)
Getting timely feedback from the members of your various teams is often an essential ingredient in accomplishing collaborative projects. SharePoint facilitates this feedback process through two different components (both of which are covered in Chapter 7):
Surveys: Surveys enable you to poll your team members and publicize and statistically analyze their responses. You can use surveys to get concrete feedback on any of the issues that arise as part of your collaborative process.
Discussion boards: Threaded discussions enable you to provide forums for your team members to give their opinions and exchange ideas about topics that are of vital interest to the team. Through the discussion boards, you can touch upon their collaborative endeavors.
A large part of successful team collaboration comes from the open and free exchange of ideas. SharePoint facilitates this exchange among team members in two forms (both of which are covered in detail in Chapter 8):
Wiki pages: This special type of library enables the members of your teams to edit the library's content and layout and to easily link to other pages both on and off the SharePoint site.
Blogs: This special type of SharePoint subsite enables you and your other team members to post responses to original comments whose general topics can be separated by category.
Monitoring the tasks that each of your teams and individual members need to complete as part of the collaboration is made easier in SharePoint with the use of its different types of task lists (all covered in Chapter 10):
Tasks lists: Enables you to keep track of all the tasks that you assign various team members, including their current status, priority, and due date.
Project Tasks lists: Enables you to keep track of all the tasks that you assign various team members using a Gantt chart display that graphically depicts how the assigned tasks overlap and interrelate.
Issue Tracking lists: Enables you to keep track of any issues that arise and need to be resolved during the course of the collaboration.
Workflows help automate standard business processes that your company routinely follows in completing the tasks that are part of the collaborative project. By using workflows, you automate the responses that are made when assigned tasks enter different phases, thus relieving yourself of the necessity of having to manually monitor the task from start to finish in order to stay on top of it.
If you're using only Windows SharePoint Services, you're restricted to a single three-state workflow template that tracks your business process through three distinct phases that correspond to the Active, Resolved, and Complete phases of a typical Issue Tracking list. (See Chapter 10.) If you're using MOSS 2007, you have a few more choices of document-related workflow templates.
However, if you have access to Office SharePoint Designer 2007, you can use its Workflow Designer to create as many custom workflow templates for your SharePoint site as you could ever possibly need. (See Chapter 13 for details.)