Setting up alerts

In addition to following a site, you can also set up alerts for other areas of SharePoint. For example, documents are stored in a special SharePoint container app called a Library. The Documents app that shows up on the left navigation of your default Team site is an example. Alerts are a great way to keep track of the changes your teammates make to documents and items.

You must have an email address configured in your SharePoint profile in order to receive alerts. If your SharePoint server is located in your network, that’s usually not an issue. However, Office 365 may not be integrated with your network and email information. In those situations, your administrator can either manually configure your email address or grant you permission to do so.

To set up an alert for content in the Documents app, follow these steps:

1. Open your web browser and navigate to www.office.com.

2. Sign in if you are requested.

   Remember, this is the site we set up in Chapter 1.

3. Select your SharePoint site to open the site.
4. Select the Documents app that appears in the left navigation pane.

5. At the top of the Documents app click the ellipsis and then click Alert Me, as shown in Figure 10-5.

   The Alert Me When Items Change dialog box opens.

   If you are using SharePoint On-Premises and you don't see the Alert Me button, chances are your administrator has not configured outgoing email settings. If outgoing email settings are not configured in Central Administration, the Alert Me button simply will not appear to users. If you are using SharePoint Online, however, then outgoing email has already been configured by Microsoft and you are good to go.

6. In the Alert Title text box, enter a name for the alert.

   We suggest making the name something meaningful to you in your inbox, such as Documents Modified Today – Budget Team Site. Otherwise, you have no meaningful way to tell one alert from another.

7. In the Send Alerts To text box, enter the names of people in addition to you who should receive the alert.

   That’s right, you can subscribe other people to an alert! You must have the Manage Alerts permission, which is granted by default to Site Owners.

   Organizations and site owners may want to subscribe multiple users to an alert to make sure they get important updates, as well as encourage them to contribute to a discussion board, blog, or wiki. Users can still opt out by modifying settings in their Alert settings.

8. In the Delivery Method section, select whether to receive alerts via email or text message to your cellular phone.

   Text messaging requires that your SharePoint administrator configures this service through a third party, so you may not be able to send alerts to your phone.

9. In the Change Type section, select the option that matches the type of notifications you want to receive — All Changes, New Items Are Added, Existing Items Are Modified, or Items Are Deleted.

   If you’re responsible for managing an app, we recommend receiving an alert any time items are deleted.

10. In the Send Alerts for These Changes section, choose when to receive alerts.

    The options you see here vary based on the kind of app you’re working with. For example, a Tasks app allows you to receive an alert when a task is marked Complete or any time the status of a high-priority task changes.

11. In the When to Send Alerts section, choose the frequency of your alert delivery.

    You can receive them immediately, once a day, or once a week. We like to receive a daily summary; otherwise, we get too many emails.

12. Click OK to create your alert, as shown in Figure 10-6.

You need the Create Alerts permission to create alerts. This permission is granted usually with the out-of-the-box configuration of the Site Members SharePoint group. (See Chapter 20 for details on working with permissions.)

Any time users say they need a workflow to receive notification of changes made to project files, try an alert first. You’d be surprised at how often alerts provide the options that are needed.

If your app has a personal or public view that includes a filter, you can subscribe to changes to just that view. For example, say you want to be notified via text message when an item in an Issue Tracking app has its priority set to High. You would create a view that filters the app for high-priority issues. Select the filtered view in the Send Alerts for These Changes section when you create your alert, and you will receive alerts when items meet the filter criteria.

Managing alerts

You can always go back and adjust alerts. When you click on the ellipsis (shown earlier in Figure 10-5) you can choose Manage Alerts and edit any alerts you have already created. This button takes you to a single page instead of navigating to each app where you have set an alert. Figure 10-7 shows the My Alerts page.

To manage all the alerts you have on a given site and modify or delete them, follow these steps:

1. Browse to an app where you currently subscribe to an alert.

2. On the ellipsis drop-down choose Manage My Alerts.

   The My Alerts on this Site page appears.

3. Select the proper alert name link.

   The Edit Alert on this Site page appears with all the options you viewed when you first created the alert. Change the settings as desired.

   Didn’t set the alert to begin with? You can still read through the settings and change the choices (see the preceding steps). Your changes don’t affect the alert settings for others if the alert was created for multiple users at the same time.

4. Click OK to modify the alert with your new settings or Delete to delete the alert.

   Deleting an alert that was created for you doesn’t delete the alert from other users who are in the group the alert was created for.

If you’re the site administrator, you can manage the alerts of everyone on the site by clicking the User Alerts link on the Site Administration section of the Site Settings page.

When the event occurs that matches your alert — for example, the time or location of a calendar event change — you receive an email in your inbox. The email notification you receive is based on a template. These templates can be modified by your administrator, so they can provide for more detail.

Creating a blog site

To create a blog in SharePoint, you create a new site or subsite using the Blog template. Take the time to consider where this blog will be located in your site hierarchy.

Although you can change permissions at any level, it may make more sense to have your president’s blog on the main site of your SharePoint intranet (and open to all users of the site hierarchy), but perhaps your manager’s blog should be created as a subsite of your team site (so that permissions can be inherited from the team site).

We cover creating new SharePoint sites in Chapter 5. When you create a new SharePoint site you can choose the Blog template in order to create a SharePoint blog.

Posting to a blog

Creating a blog post, commenting on a post, and liking a post are pretty straightforward. A user with permissions to post can click the Create a Post link under Blog Tools and type his or her post (or copy and paste text from a text editor or Word). The dialog box where the post is typed also allows for adding one or more category labels to the posts.

Comments and likes (if any) are displayed below the blog post to which they apply. The Comments link and the Add Comment field allow users to comment on a post by titling their comment (optional) and adding body text. The Comments link also shows the current number of comments. The Like button creates a smiley face and shows the number of likes, along with an Unlike button if you change your mind. You can also click the E-mail a Link to send a link to the post, or you can click the ellipsis to edit the post (assuming you’re the author).

Other features of the Blog Site template are predefined links on the Quick Launch menu for post categories and archives, making it easy to see a filtered list of posts in one category or review older archived posts.

Using wikis to collaborate and coauthor

A wiki app is a library of pages that can be edited by any member (Contributor) of your site. As we describe earlier, encyclopedias, dictionaries, and training manuals are all good examples of wikis for an organization. These examples are entities that provide structure to what is being accomplished but benefit by input of a group.

Adding pages to a wiki

Two pages are created by default in your new wiki app, Home and How to Use This Library. Both provide predefined instructions that may be helpful when you first create the wiki. Most users change the home page content before launching the wiki, but you can keep the How to Use This Library page or delete it, depending on its usefulness.

To add other pages to your wiki, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the home page of the wiki app by using the link on the Quick Launch menu, if available.

   You can also navigate to the Site Contents page (from the gear icon in the upper-right corner of any SharePoint site) and open the app.

2. Click the Page tab of the Ribbon and click the View All Pages button located in the Page Library section.

   You see the list of pages.

3. Click the Wiki Page icon to create a new Wiki page.

4. Type your new page name in the New Page Name text box, and then click the Create button.

   The new page appears, ready for editing, as shown in Figure 10-9. Just click in the page, and then the Format Text tab appears.

   You can now edit the page, or repeat the steps to create multiple pages before editing.

Another easy way to create additional pages is to create a link to them first in a Wiki page, save the page, and then click that link. The new page is created automatically with the name found in the link. For example, type [[My New Page]] to create a link to the My New Page page. The link to an uncreated page appears underlined with dashes. If users click the link, and then clicks the Create button on the Page dialog, the page is created for editing and the link turns into a normal hyperlink. To create a link to a page and have the name be different than the wording of the link, type a pipe character (|) after the page name and type the display text. For example, type [[Resources|Resources for You]] to create the Resources link that points to the Resources for You page.

Creating a Discussion Board app

Adding a Discussion Board app is a fairly straightforward process. You simply choose the Discussion Board app template when creating a new app. Adding apps is covered in more detail in Chapter 11.

You can add as many discussion boards to your site as you like. You might find it beneficial to create a discussion board for each functional area to keep the discussions on topic. On the other hand, you might find that it is better to just have a single discussion board for the team and to get people using it and interacting with their ideas. As with most things in SharePoint, the way you work with the functionality is up to you. SharePoint just provides the platform, and it’s up to you and your SharePoint consultant to determine the best way to use it.

Posting and replying to a subject

To create a new subject in a discussion board, follow these steps:

1. Browse to your discussion board and click the New Discussion button.

   The New Discussion page appears.

2. Type a subject for the new discussion in the Subject text box.

   This needs to be a short phrase that teammates can relate to as a topic.

3. Type the detail of your post in the Body text area.

   You have all the editing options of Rich HTML in this area. Use the Editing tools to format your text with the toolbar and styles, as well as insert tables, images, and links. You can upload files using the Insert tab.

   You also have a spell checker in this dialog box!

4. Select the Question check box if you’re asking a question.

5. When you’re finished with your post, click the Save button.

   Your new post appears and shows the subject title, who created it, the amount of replies, and when it was updated last. Note that the amount of replies shows on the details of the discussion page.

The Discussion Board app shows a number of different views into the discussions: Recent, Unanswered Questions, Answered Questions, and Featured.

To reply to a subject or another reply, follow these steps:

1. Click the Subject Title link for the discussion.

   The subject appears in Flat view with a Reply button. If you’re the owner of the discussion posting, you also see an Edit button. You can also click the ellipsis to be alerted to additional replies, mark the discussion as Featured, or delete the discussion.

2. Click the Reply link or click in the Add a Reply text box.

   The Reply textbox activates, and you can type your reply. By default, the Reply textbox shows only a Body field.

3. Type your reply; if desired, use the Rich HTML features (as we describe in the preceding step list).

   Remember that you can attach files, upload files, and add all sorts of text formatting.

4. When you’re finished with your reply, click the Reply button.

Viewing RSS feeds

Nowadays, most websites publish a syndication feed, or RSS feed, of their site’s content. SharePoint sites are no different. In fact, every app in SharePoint can publish an RSS feed. You can even create RSS feeds based on views, which means you can filter what gets published to the RSS feed. If you subscribe to the feed, you’re pulling the information. However, you can also subscribe to alerts to make SharePoint push updates to you.

RSS feeds are a popular way for people to keep track of updates to a website without visiting that site.

To use RSS feeds, they must be enabled for the site. To enable RSS, go into the Site Settings of the site and click the RSS link under the Site Administration link. This is a SharePoint administrator task and we cover how to work with Site Settings in Chapter 17.

In addition to enabling RSS feeds for the SharePoint site you must also enable them for the List or Library app, too. To enable RSS feeds for your app, follow these steps:

1. In your app, click the gear icon in the top-right corner of the screen and then click the List Settings button.

   The List Settings page appears.

   If you’re in a Library app, click the Library Settings button from the gear icon drop-down.

2. In the Communications section, click the RSS Settings link.

   If you don’t see the RSS Settings link, RSS isn’t enabled for your site. You can enable RSS settings for your site by clicking the RSS link in the Site Administration section of the Site Settings page. RSS must also be enabled for your web application by the SharePoint farm administrator.

3. On the Modify RSS Settings page, select the Yes radio button under the Allow RSS for This List option.

   You can also use this page to configure the settings for the apps default RSS feed, such as the feed’s title, columns, and item limit.

4. After you finish configuring the default settings for your app’s RSS feed, click OK to save your changes.

Each app has its own RSS feed. Therefore, you must configure RSS for each app where you want to use RSS.

After you enable RSS feeds for your app, you can view the RSS feed as follows:

1. Browse to the app where you want to view the RSS feed, click the view-drop down, and click Edit Current View, as shown in Figure 10-10.

2. Click the RSS feed logo, as shown in Figure 10-11.

   The RSS feed is displayed in your web browser. The URL in your web browser is the actual link to the RSS feed.

   Most browsers display the RSS feed using a built-in style sheet for formatting.

3. Subscribe to the feed using your browser as a reader or paste the web address for the feed in the feed reader of your choice.

   See the section, “Reading RSS feeds with Outlook,” later in this chapter, for instructions.

RSS must be enabled for the farm, site, and app. In other words, you can’t use RSS feeds if they aren’t turned on. You can also turn off RSS feeds for a given app or site if you don’t want people to use them. The default option is to allow RSS feeds. At the site level, RSS feeds are enabled in the Site Settings page. The RSS settings for an individual app are managed in the List Settings or Library Settings page for that app, respectively.

Reading RSS feeds with Outlook

Your email application, and specifically in terms of SharePoint integration, Microsoft Outlook, is still the bedrock of online communication for most business users. As in the past, you can still integrate Outlook with SharePoint calendars, contacts, and tasks using the Sync with Outlook button in the Ribbon of an app. You might prefer following a SharePoint app using RSS.

To add a SharePoint RSS feed to Outlook, follow these steps:

1. Open Outlook and on the Ribbon, click File, then Info, and then select Account Settings from the Account Settings drop-down menu.

2. On the RSS Feeds tab, click New.

   The New RSS Feed dialog box appears.

3. Type (or copy and paste after getting it in the previous steps) the URL of the RSS feed.

4. Click the Add button.

   The feed is added to the list of subscribed feeds on the RSS Feeds tab.