CHAPTER 34
SharePoint 2016 Products

The SharePoint family of products is well suited for organizations interested in exploring the collaboration and document management capabilities of the product line. SharePoint Server 2016 is the Windows Server 2016 version of the product and therefore builds upon the previous versions with many new features.

SharePoint has come a long way over the years, from its early days, as a simple server management tool, to its use today, as a sophisticated file sharing and management software suite. Over the years, SharePoint has been used by companies to maximize productivity, build incredible websites, and much more. It has grown with the Internet and changed over time, becoming more powerful and comprehensive with every iteration. Better yet, the future of SharePoint looks bright, with incredible new innovations on their way for the next generation of users.

This chapter focuses on how SharePoint 2016 products can be used to extend the functionality of Windows Server 2016 so that it can function as a powerful document management and collaboration platform.

SharePoint 2001, the first version, was only capable of perform data-driven actions such working with as sites, list, and document libraries. This was built on top of a SQL Server database.

SharePoint 2003 was first version that built on the .NET framework and ASP.NET, and the first that enabled developers to add custom solutions.

SharePoint 2007 introduced site columns, content types, features, master pages, user controls, navigation, authentication, and which architectural changes.

SharePoint 2010 introduced with more user experience with server-side ribbon, model dialog, asynchronous JavaScript, and AJAX.

SharePoint 2013 introduced with more user experience. This is the last version which supported InfoPath forms. Parallel to this, Microsoft introduced the online (cloud) version of SharePoint, which is what you can see in Office 365.

Most organizations have solutions in place that provide intranet solutions, or portals that often overlap with intranet functionality and features, but typically provide access to software services and applications. As the SharePoint product line matured and provided enhanced feature sets, security, and performance, many clients decided to replace one or more other technologies with SharePoint-based technologies.

Cost-effectiveness was, and still is, a driving factor for SharePoint implementation. Microsoft has offered free versions of SharePoint products with each version. These are commonly implemented to test-drive the features. (They are not technically free because the organization must still purchase the Windows Server operating system that houses the SharePoint sites and must purchase the SQL Server software and licenses if the full version of SQL Server is being used.)

SharePoint Foundation 2016 does not require the purchase of the SharePoint Server 2016 software, nor does it require that the organization pay for the client access licenses (CALs). Therefore, the implementation cost is lower than the full version of SharePoint Server 2016 and this has arguably been a key factor in the adoption of SharePoint software.

With this less-expensive option, organizations can test-drive the features of the SharePoint family at very low software costs, test migrations from other collaboration/intranet/portal/document management solutions, and determine whether their needs would be met. In many cases, this resulted in savings of tens of thousands of dollars over competing products.

Another driving factor is the close integration of SharePoint products with the Office product line, which a large percentage of organizations use. Their knowledge workers can easily publish documents to their SharePoint sites from familiar applications like Word and Excel, and can “connect” to calendar or task data in SharePoint lists and libraries from their Outlook clients. Many competitor products sought to offer the same level of integration, but these were usually several steps behind in features and ease of use.

For organizations requiring the full set of features, they can later upgrade to SharePoint Server 2016, and then need to purchase CALs for each user (internal or external) that would be accessing the SharePoint sites, or purchase the “unlimited” licenses for public use. Typically, enterprise-class SharePoint implementations use the full version of SQL Server and benefit from enhanced features, management tools, performance, and scalability.

Organizations that had been experimenting with SharePoint technologies gradually came to depend on them for managing large amounts of data and enhancing existing business processes, and as SharePoint dabblers evolved into power users, they began to request features that SharePoint didn’t provide out of the box. Fortunately, third-party companies quickly evolved to offer new, cutting-edge features, such as workflow tools, backup and archiving tools, governance and management tools, and many snap-in solutions. Microsoft has also offered separate tools to customize the SharePoint environment, especially the Visual Studio line of products for more advanced development needs.

A need for better document management than the file system can offer—This includes document versioning, checkout and check-in features, adding metadata to documents, and better control of document access (by using groups and granular security). The high-level need is simply to make it easier for users to find the latest version of the document or documents they need to do their jobs, and, ultimately, to make them more efficient in those jobs.

Improved collaboration among users with a minimal learning curve—Although almost everyone has a different definition of what collaboration is, a functional definition is a technology solution that allows users to interact efficiently with each other using software products to share documents and information in a user-friendly environment. With regard to SharePoint, this typically refers to document and meeting workspaces, site collections, discussion lists, integration of instant messaging and presence information, and integration with the Office suite of applications. Integration with Office applications is a key component: Most organizations do not want to force users to learn a new set of tools to collaborate more effectively because users generally resist such requirements.

A better intranet—Although most companies have an intranet in place, common complaints are that it is too static, that it is not user-friendly, and that every change has to go through IT or the “web guy.” These complaints generally come from a departmental manager, team lead, or project manager frustrated with their inability to publish information to a select group of users and regularly update resources their team needs to do their jobs.

A centralized way to search for information—Instead of using the “word-of-mouth” search engine, there should be an engine in place that allows the user to quickly and efficiently find particular documents. The user can search for documents that contain certain words, documents created or modified during a certain time frame, documents authored by a specific person, or documents that meet other criteria, such as file type.

Creation of a portal—Many definitions exist for the term portal, but a general definition is that a portal is a web-enabled environment that allows internal and, potentially, external users to access company intellectual resources and software applications. A portal typically extends standard intranet functionality by providing features such as single sign-on, powerful search tools, and access to other core company applications, such as help desk, human resources software, educational resources, and other corporate information and applications.

Further enhancement of SharePoint 2016 sites can be accomplished using SharePoint Designer 2016, which is a free download from Microsoft and allows for a great deal of customization with relative ease and limited potential for damage to the environment. More advanced developers can use Visual Studio 2015 or later or other programming tools to produce custom code to work with SharePoint 2015 or later. However, training is required to ensure that the code developed doesn’t damage the environment.

Collaboration—Use SharePoint’s collaboration sites for activities, such as managing projects or coordinating a request for proposal.

Social networking—If you work in a large company, you can use SharePoint as a social network for the enterprise experience to help you track coworkers and locate people in expertise networks.

Information portals and internal websites—With SharePoint’s web content management features, you can create useful self-service internal portals and intranets.

Enterprise content management—SharePoint offers excellent document and record-management capabilities, including extensive support for metadata and customized search experiences.

Business intelligence—SharePoint is an ideal platform for providing entry into your organization’s business analysis assets. You can use insightful dashboards that allow users to get the big picture at a glance and then drill down to get more detail.

Business applications—Use SharePoint to host sophisticated business applications, integrate business processes’ backend databases and your SharePoint content, or simply use SharePoint as the means to present access to your applications.

Consider the following models:

Product—SharePoint is a product with a lot of features. Explore how SharePoint works without any customization when you’re deciding how to approach a solution, and then decide if you want to customize it for your specific needs.

Platform—SharePoint provides everything you need to deliver a robust business solution. It provides the infrastructure required to deliver web-based solutions.

Toolkit—Finally, SharePoint is a set of components and controls that you can mix and match to provide a solution. You can create sites, pages, and apps, all without leaving the comfort of your web browser.

SharePoint 2016—This is the SharePoint most of us are accustomed to: SharePoint physically resides within the organization’s on-premises data center. The data resides within the organization’s walls, servers are physical or virtual, and the platform is managed by your organization’s operations team. Hardware (servers, storage, and network) is either purchased or leased from your hardware vender(s) and software is purchased under a licensing agreement with Microsoft.

Office 365—Is a rich offering of Office applications such as SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, Word Online, PowerPoint Online, Excel Online, Delve (for front-end search), OneNote, and Sway (to create interactive documents). Because it’s a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering, Microsoft owns and manages the platform, which includes the data centers and servers as well as storage, network, and management tools. Your organization administers access, licensing, and manages data.

SharePoint Online (Stand Alone)—This is the standalone, cloud-based version of SharePoint available from Microsoft. Unlike Office 365, this version does not include Delve, OneNote, and Sway. Similar to Office 365, Microsoft owns and manages the platform, which includes the data centers, servers, and storage, network, and management tools. Your organization administers access, licensing, and manages data.

Hybrid—This is generally a blend of options 1, 2, and 3. Your organization has an on-premises installation of SharePoint 2016 in addition to a SharePoint Online tenancy. The environments are connected through a trust, sync service, and proxy so that accounts can be managed and search results are integrated across both the on-premises and online environments.

Deciding which SharePoint deployment to implement will require a lot of information gathering from all sides of a business. Upgrading to SharePoint 2016 is not just taking advantage of the latest and greatest—it’s aligning your migration goals with critical business needs.

Consult Table 34.1 for further guidance on which option is right for your organization.

Microsoft may provide patches and updated to SharePoint Foundation 2016 and SharePoint Server 2016 to facilitate an easier installation process. It is, however, informative to review some of the requirements for SharePoint 2016 installations, to better understand the requirements for a test or production-level implementation. It is also reasonable to assume that requirements will be similar for SharePoint 2013 products when they become available.

Some organizations may choose to not adopt SharePoint 2016 products upon first release and prefer to implement SharePoint 2013 in their existing environment to stick with the more stable, and patched, previous version. In addition, many SharePoint 2016 environments have been heavily customized and it may make more sense to simply move existing SharePoint 2013 farms to the new Windows Server 2016 platform than to migrate the SharePoint 2013 configuration to SharePoint 2016.

To make matters more complicated, SharePoint 2016 products can be installed on Windows Server 2008 and later Windows servers. As mentioned previously in this chapter, SharePoint 2016 products can use a variety of different versions of SQL Server products, too, further complicating the design process.

The following is an overview of the Microsoft minimum recommendations for SharePoint 2016 products. It is important to note that this overview indicates only the bare minimum necessary for support. In most cases, servers deployed for SharePoint 2016 should be more robust than the minimum requirements dictate.

The following are the minimum hardware requirements as published by Microsoft for the implementation of SharePoint Server 2016. These apply to web servers, application servers, and single-server installations:

Server with a 64-bit processor and at least four cores.

RAM capacity of 4GB minimum for developer or evaluation use, 8GB recommended for production use in a single-server or multiple-server farm.

80GB for system drive. It is also recommended that you allocate sufficient space on a separate volume for the index files created by the search service.

The following are the minimum hardware requirements for the implementation of the database server with multiple servers in the farm:

Server with a 64-bit processor and at least four cores for small deployments, or eight cores for medium deployments

RAM capacity of 8GB minimum for small deployments and 16GB for medium deployments

80GB for system drive and sufficient storage space on other logical drives for SharePoint databases, and other SQL TempDBs and log files

Another common question revolves around the versions of Microsoft SQL Server that are compatible with SharePoint 2016 products, as well as limits to the sizes of the content databases that are supported by each. The following list describes the databases that can support SharePoint 2016 products:

Microsoft SQL Server 2012-2016 64-bit edition—No database size limit, except as specified by Microsoft best practices

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 64-bit edition—No database size limit, except as specified by Microsoft best practices

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 64-bit edition with Service Pack 1 (SP1)

Cumulative Update 2, or Cumulative Update 5 or a later Cumulative Update—No database size limit, except as specified by Microsoft best practices

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 64-bit edition with SP3 and Cumulative Update

3—No database size limit, except as specified by Microsoft best practices

SQL Server 2008 and Later Express with SP1—4GB database size limit

SQL Server 2008 R2 Express and later—10GB database size limit

Because this information can be confusing, a summary is helpful: If either SharePoint Foundation 2016 or SharePoint Server 2016 is connected to any of the supported full versions of SQL Server from SQL Server 2005, no hard limits apply as to database sizes. It’s only when SharePoint is installed with SQL Server Express that hard limits are enforced.

Supported web browsers for SharePoint 2016 are

Internet Explorer 7 and later (32-bit)

Google Chrome (latest publicly released version)

Mozilla Firefox (latest publicly released version)

Supported with Limitations web browsers for SharePoint 2016 are

Internet Explorer 7 and later (64-bit)

Apple Safari (latest publicly released version)

Not Supported web browsers are

Internet Explorer 6

It is important to understand what the “limitations” of the 64-bit Internet Explorer browsers are, as well as Apple Safari, because many organizations have deployed these versions. Some features in SharePoint 2016 require the use of ActiveX controls, many of which are only supported by 32-bit versions of Internet Explorer. Therefore, all non-32-bit browser will not support the following:

Datasheet view

Edit in Microsoft Office application

File upload and copy

Microsoft InfoPath 2016 integration

Microsoft Visio 2016 diagram creation

New document

For additional information about browser support and limitations, as well as mobile browser support, see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288142.aspx.

The main components of this site are as follows:

Current user—In the upper-right corner, the identity of the currently logged-on user is listed. Clicking this link opens a menu that gives options such as My Settings, My Profile, My Settings, Sign in as a Different User, and Sign Out.

I Like It—Clicking on this icon tags the page in question so that it appears in your news feed on your My Site.

Tags and Notes—Clicking this icon opens a window in which you can enter tags or keywords to help define the content being tagged. The Note Board tab in this window can be used to add more detailed notes that will also appear in the Tags and Notes tab on your My Site.

Help icon—You can click the question mark icon to gain access to SharePoint 2016 Help and how-to information. This information is categorized into commonly accessed topics such as Getting Started with SharePoint Server, Libraries, Lists, Site and Page Creation, and other topics.

Search field—The search field allows users to enter specific terms or combinations of terms, and then either press Enter or click the search icon. SharePoint indexes content stored on pages or in most standard document types uploaded to SharePoint to facilitate finding appropriate pages and documents.

Quick Launch area—On the left side of the page is the Quick Launch area, which by default provides links to Libraries, Links, and Discussions as well as the Recycle Bin and View All Site Content.

Site actions—The options displayed vary based on the level of privileges the user has on the site. An administrator with Full Control privileges will see links for Edit Page, New Page, New Document Library, New Site, More Options, View All Site Content, Edit in SharePoint Designer, Site Permissions, and Site Settings.

Navigation, Edit icons, and Browse and Page tabs—The Office ribbon has been incorporated as a standard component to SharePoint 2016 products and provides quick access to different tool sets for users and administrators.

Web part zones—To the right of the Quick Launch area are two web part zones that contain rich text, graphics, links, and a web part for the Shared Documents library. These web part zones can be used to customize the content that shows up on pages, where the Edit Page tool was selected from the Site Actions drop-down menu. When the Insert tab is selected, options such as Table, Picture, Link, Web Part, Existing List, and New List are available for insertion. The Format Text tab allows the insertion of rich text and the use of different text layout and markup styles.

When you click the View All Site Content link at the bottom of the Quick Launch area on the left side of the screen, the full contents of the current site that the logged-in user has access to will be revealed. The libraries, lists, and subsites, if any, are shown in this view. The Create button is also accessible here (assuming your account has permissions to create lists or sites), as is a button for Site Workflows. Site Workflows will show any workflows that are available for use on the site, as well as running and completed workflows.

This is a great place to check when visiting a new site to see which lists, libraries, and subsites are available for the current user to access. The name of the list or library is shown, along with a description of the purpose and content of the list or library, how many items are stored in it, and the last modified date. With this information, it is easy to tell how active the site is, the number of documents or list items available, and the most recently modified list and libraries. Clicking the title of the list or library will open it so the contents can be viewed, and if your account has the appropriate privileges, you can add new items or modify existing.

The Create link is provided for users with appropriate privileges on the site, and it gives access to the create.aspx page. The items that can be created are divided into the following groups: Libraries, Communications, Tracking, Custom Lists, and Pages and Sites. Note that the very last item under the Pages and Sites header is Sites and Workspaces, which allows you to pick a site or workspace template from the available templates.

The administrator of a document library can customize who can add, modify, and delete documents in a document library, or just read them.

Versioning can be turned on for a document library that keeps a complete copy of previous versions of the documents for reference or recovery purposes.

Alerts can be set on a document within the library or for the entire library so the user receives an email notification if a document is modified, added, or deleted.

Documents can be checked out, and the name of the person who has the document checked out can be listed in the library, so that other users can’t modify the document and know who has it reserved.

A template can be stored in the document library that can be used to create a new document in the library.

Metadata can be added to a document library that enables users to better describe what the document contains, by, for example, clarifying which client it belongs to, key words in the document, or pretty much any other kind of textual or numerical information.

Views can be created that group documents by certain criteria, sort them by any of the columns in the library, or only display documents that meet certain criteria.

The library can be searched for text contained within the document, a feature often not available on a corporate network. In addition, the metadata associated with a document can be searched.

If the organization decides on certain standards for the customization of a document library, it can create a template that can be used in other sites.

The following section walks through the main features of a document library. Other libraries are available, varying based on the version of SharePoint 2016 installed (SharePoint Foundation 2016 versus SharePoint 2016 Standard versus SharePoint 2016 Enterprise) as well as the site template used to create the site. Available libraries can include Form Libraries, Wiki Page Library, and Asset Library. The SharePoint administrator should familiarize herself with the full range of libraries available within the standard sites to determine which should be preconfigured for end-user use.

Note that many of the features on this web page are similar to the home page of the site itself, including the look and feel of the home page and the Quick Launch area on the left side, but it now displays library-specific data in the main body of the page, where three documents are visible that were uploaded to this sample library. It is also important to note that the ribbon now displays a tab labeled Library Tools that includes two tabs: Documents and Library. These tabs will be reviewed in the following section, with attention paid to the most used tools and to some tools for those individuals interested in some of the more advanced features of SharePoint 2016.

The view of the document shows the icon related to the file type of the documents, the Name of file uploaded, the Modified date (which is the date that SharePoint tracks, so in this case, the time and date the file was uploaded to SharePoint), and Modified By information.

Following is an overview of several standard features offered to users of a document library from the Documents tab and the Library tab.

New tools—In the New tools section of the ribbon, the New Document and Upload Document icons are provided. The New Document icon allows a user with the Add Items permission for lists and libraries to launch a template document that can be modified and saved by default back to the library or to create a new folder in the document library. Users without Add Items permissions will see the icon grayed out. The library administrator can modify or customize the template document if needed. The Upload Document icon offers the Upload Document option, and if the appropriate version of Office is installed, the Upload Multiple Documents option is provided. Only users with the Add Items permission for the library will see this menu on the toolbar. If a user chooses to Upload Multiple Documents, an interface allows multiple documents from within the same folder to be uploaded. Note that whole folders cannot be checked, nor can files from multiple folders be uploaded simultaneously. The New Folder icon allows the user to create folders within the library. A general best practice is to discourage the use of folders in SharePoint libraries, and instead encourage the use of metadata columns, but many organizations retain the use of folders to make end users feel more “at home” in the SharePoint product. Folders within document libraries can have unique permissions assigned to them, and can serve to segment very large numbers of files into more manageable groups, so there are areas where they can come in handy.

Open and Checkout tools—When one or more documents are selected, the Edit Document icon and other icons become active and usable on the Documents tab. The tools displayed differ depending on the privileges of the user in the library and the configuration of the library (in terms of what tools the administrator has configured to be active). For example, the tools that become available when the document is checked on the Documents tab are Edit Document and Check Out. These are two key actions for end users working with a document library. Edit Document opens the appropriate Microsoft Office application and allows the user to then edit the document. The Check Out tool sets the document status to “checked out,” and only that user can make changes to the document. An administrator can override a check out if needed. This ability to check out documents is a key component of a document management platform.

Manage tools—These include the View Properties, Edit Properties, Version History, Document Permissions, and Delete icons. Properties of a document include the metadata about the item Name and Title, Created By, and Modified date and time as well as the account that performed the action.

Share and Track tool—The E-mail a Link icon is provided here, enables allows the user to email a link to the specific item. This tool offers an alternative to attaching the item to an email and sending to other coworkers.

Copies tools—The Download a Copy tool simply allows the user to download a copy of the document for editing offline. This is especially useful when non-Microsoft documents (such as AutoCAD or Adobe files) are being stored in a SharePoint document library. The Send To icon allows the user to “publish” a copy of the document to another SharePoint location and keep a link to this copy, so that updates to this source document can be published to the other destination.

Workflows tools—If workflows have been made available by the administrator, the end user can start a new workflow, publish or unpublish a major copy of the document, and approve or reject a document.

Tags and notes—The I Like It and Tags and Notes icons allow the user to tag a document or multiple documents that are of interest or add specific descriptive terms to documents. These are key features in SharePoint 2016’s “social networking” capabilities; any I Like It tags, or other tags and notes, are tracked from the user’s My Site, and colleagues of that user can also see these tags and notes.

The SharePoint 2016 administrator should become familiar with these tools to ensure that training is provided to end users on the tools that are most important for them to use. It may be apparent already that there are a fairly large number of different tools and options available, which can be overwhelming to new users, especially if there aren’t “tech savvy” or anxious to learn new technologies.

View Format tools—Offers the Standard View and Datasheet View icons. It is important to note that different views for a list or library can be accessed from the Browse tab on the ribbon, by clicking the down arrow after the view name in the breadcrumb trail. The tools in the Manage Views section are used to create a modify views. The Datasheet view shows a gridlike view of the data, and is most useful when performing bulk edits in SharePoint lists.

Datasheet tools—More useful in SharePoint lists than in SharePoint libraries, the New Row, Show Taskpane, Show Totals, and Refresh Data icons allow users to edit data cell by cell and perform functions such as Exporting to Excel or Access.

Manage Views tools—Views are a very powerful tool in SharePoint lists and libraries and serve to differentiate these repositories from standard file share folders. Multiple views can be created to serve the needs of list and library users. There are many different types of views that can be created for a document library: Standard view, Calendar view, Datasheet view, Gantt View, and Custom view in SharePoint Designer. In a document library, the administrator may want to create a simplified view that is used in a web part on the home page to only show the document name and last modified date, and then sort the results to display the last modified document at the top. Or for a SharePoint list of products that the company produces, the administrator may create a view that groups items by category, allowing users to drill down by category to find specific items.

Share and Track tools—The E-mail a Link icon enables the user to send a hyperlink to the specific item, whereas the RSS Feed icon provides access to an RSS feed link that can be subscribed to.

Connect and Export tools—These tools enable an end user to connect from different Microsoft Office applications to the content in the SharePoint list or library. For example, users can use the Sync to SharePoint Workspace icon to connect to the SharePoint Workspace application (assuming it’s installed on their computer). Other Microsoft Office applications such as Outlook or Excel can be connected to, as well. These are also capabilities that differentiate SharePoint from a file share or competitive document management products. Many users see value in connecting SharePoint document libraries to an Outlook client so that they can sync documents to Outlook. Task lists and Calendars in SharePoint 2016 can also be synced to Outlook.

Customize Library tools—These tools include Form Web Parts, Edit Library, and New Quick Step and allow significant modifications to be made to the library. The administrator can modify the forms that users access when entering information or properties for the list or library, the list or library itself via SharePoint Designer 2016, or create a Quick Step in SharePoint Designer 2016. These tasks should be ideally be performed by a trained developer because they can damage the capabilities of the list or library if used improperly.

Settings tools—These include Library Settings, Library Permissions, and Workflow Settings. The Document Library Settings page is divided into General Settings, Permissions and Management, and Communications sections. These are also important for SharePoint administrators to become familiar with because they affect the tools and features that are provided to users of the library. For example, Versioning settings determine whether more than one version of a document will be retained, if both major and minor versions will be retained, and set limits for the number of major versions that will be retained, and for how many major versions draft versions will be retained. In addition, the administrator can determine whether documents must be checked out before they can be modified.

For example, an organization that has never used SharePoint 2016 before shouldn’t immediately try to leverage all the advanced features of a document library, such as minor and major drafts, item-level security, RSS feeds, and complex columns (such as lookup or calculated columns). Instead, the organization should add one or two new columns to a document library that meet the needs of the user group (such as a column titled Client Name or Part Number), create a custom view, and then provide some training to the pilot users. The best ways to promote the adoption of SharePoint are to limit the complexity, add value to the users, and provide training.

The standard lists available in SharePoint 2016 are as follows:

Announcements list

Contacts list

Discussion board list

Links list

Calendar list

Tasks list

Project tasks list

Issue tracking list

Survey list

Custom list

Custom list in Datasheet view

External list

Import spreadsheet list

The tasks list will be reviewed to provide insight into the features and capabilities of a list.

The default site collection created when a new SharePoint 2016 farm is configured will typically include a tasks list as a standard feature of the site. By default, this list does not have any items in it, so items will need to be added.

When you load the New Item page for a tasks list, the fields are fairly self-explanatory, and, of course, new fields can be added if the existing fields don’t provide enough granularity. The choices in drop-down menus—Priority and Status—can also be modified. The List tab provides the Connect to Outlook tool. If selected, this will ask the user if they want to Connect This SharePoint Task List to Outlook, and the tasks will then be displayed in an Outlook tasks list. These tasks can be dragged and dropped to the user’s own tasks list in Outlook.

These different toolsets provide insight into what tools are available at each strata of the SharePoint 2016 environment and help to clarify what can easily be changed from within the different interfaces and what might require other products, such as SharePoint Designer or command-line tools (such as the stsadm.exe tool or PowerShell commandlets).

It is important to note that the tools that appear will vary based on the privileges of the account that is being used, and whether the Site Settings page was accessed from a top-level site in the site collection or from a lower-level subsite. For example, the Site Collection Administration Tools section, and the links provided in that section, is only available if the Site Settings page is accessed from the top-level site in the site collection.

The following list provides an overview of the different types of tools available for the administrator in Site Settings:

Users and Permissions—The tools provide here (People and Groups, Site Permissions, and Site Collection Administrators) determine “who can do what” on the site. One of the most important decisions is which users or accounts will have site collection administration capabilities, so that should be determined during the design and configuration process. Then users or groups can be assigned to SharePoint default groups (Members, Visitors, and Owners groups) and the specific permissions granted to each group can be customized if needed. It is generally recommended to not modify the default permissions given to the Members, Visitors, and Owners groups because doing so can cause confusion later and may have unintended consequences. For example, these groups may be customized for the first site collection, but then not for the next site collection, resulting in confusion about which users are able to perform which tasks on the different site collections.

Galleries—The Galleries provided (Site Columns, Site Content Types, Web Parts, List Templates, Master Pages, Themes, Solutions) allow the administrator to determine which of these items are provided to users of the site collection. The administrator can remove web parts that he thinks might not be appropriate (e.g., not appropriate for the site’s proposed functionality as an intranet) from this gallery and they will no longer be available for use in that site collection.

Site Administration—This section provides a number of tools and provides access to a number of important settings for the current site in the site collection. These can be configured for each individual site in the site collection if needed, allowing for settings specific to the users of that site (e.g., time zones). Following is a partial list of the settings that can be configured here:

Regional Settings—Time zone and calendar type.

RSS—Determines whether RSS feeds are allowed in the site collection.

Search and Offline Availability—Determines whether users can download items from this site to offline clients (such as SharePoint Workspace 2016).

Workflow Settings—Shows the workflows currently associated with the site collection and allows the administrator to create new workflows for users of the site collection.

Term Store Management—Provides access to any managed metadata term stores that are available.

Site Collection Administration—This group of tools provides additional tools that apply to the entire site collection and are only accessible from the top-level site of the site collection. Following is a partial list of the settings that can be configured here:

Search Scopes—Allows the administrator to define new search scopes the options for search scopes available in the drop-down list next to the search bar. Custom search scopes can make the search engine more user-friendly if created properly. For example, a search scope could be created that is titled PDFs Only and would show only search results from documents with the .pdf extension.

Recycle Bin—The site collection Recycle Bin stores items that were deleted from the top-level site, or cleared from subsite Recycle Bins, and can be restored or emptied using this tool. This is helpful in case items were deleted accidentally from a subsite’s Recycle Bin because they can be restored at the top level.

Site Collection Features—This tool shows the SharePoint features that are installed and activated or deactivated for the site collection. A SharePoint feature is essentially an application that can provide functionality within the SharePoint user interface. For example, workflows in SharePoint 2016 are a feature, and will not be available within the site collection unless enabled in Site Collection Features. Typically, third-party software components are installed as features, as are custom applications created by software developers.

Site Collection Audit Settings—SharePoint 2016 provides auditing tools that can be configured for the site collection. These include events on the site level, including searching site content and editing users and permissions, as well as at the list or library level. The events that can be audited on documents and items stored in lists and libraries include editing items, checking in or checking out items, deleting or restoring items. By configuring the audit settings on the site collection level, the administrator, and if needed, management as a whole, can be better informed about “who is doing what” within the SharePoint 2016 environment.

SharePoint Designer Settings—The administrator for the site collection can also determine whether to allow users to use Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2016 to edit pages and content. SharePoint Designer 2016 use can be disabled for the site collection, and other restrictions such as disabling customizing master pages and page layouts using SharePoint Designer 2016 are also possible. More conservative organizations tent to disable the use of SharePoint Designer 2016 to help ensure the stability of the environment and limit the freedom of trained and untrained developers.

Look and Feel—These tools enable the administrator, or a website designer with the appropriate privileges, to customize the look and feel of the site (also typically called branding). These tools allow “safe” editing of the following: title, description and icon, Quick Launch, top link bar, tree view, and site theme. They are, in fact, quite powerful. The site Theme page allows the administrator to choose a predesigned theme to apply to the site or tweak the color assigned to text or other page elements.

Site Actions—These tools are specific to the site, rather than the site collection, and allow the administrator to configure a number of areas specific to the site. For example, the Manage Site Features link shows the SharePoint Features that are installed and their status relative to the specific site as opposed to the SharePoint features that are applicable to the site collection as found in the Site Collection Administration section. Other Site Actions tools enable you to save the site as a site template, delete the site, or review Site Web Analytics Reports.

Reporting Services—SharePoint 2016 products rely on SQL Server Reporting Services for many of the reports generated, and these tools allow the administrator to configure settings specific to report generation.

The tools in Central Administration are divided into a number of sections, each with a handful of links. On this home page, only a subset of the total number of tools under each topic is shown. Clicking the topic in the Quick Launch to the left, or clicking the section header, reveals the full range of tools available under each topic. Space isn’t available in this chapter to go over the capabilities of each in detail, but an overview is as follows:

Application Management—This section provides access to tools that manage the primary components for the SharePoint farm: web applications, service applications, and content databases. New site collections can also be created from here. It is important to point out that SharePoint service applications can be managed individually in SharePoint 2016 as individual components. Most of these items can be managed, stopped and started, and configured individually.

Monitoring—Central Administration monitoring tools provide best-practices input on configuration errors or issues that it discovers. Access to Web Analytics Reports for specific web applications is also provided.

Security—The tools in the Security section enable the administrator to determine which accounts have farm administration privileges and to configure and manage the service accounts that run the different services required to run the SharePoint farm. Additional tools not shown on the home page enable the administrator to determine the specific file types that are blocked by adding to or editing a default list.

General Application Settings—Tools in this section include External Service Connections, Site Directory tools, SharePoint Designer usage control, Search tools, Reporting Services tools, and Content Deployment tools.

System Settings—These tools include server management tools to manage the different servers in the farm and the services that run on each, as well as email settings (because SharePoint uses basic SMTP email tools to send alerts and receive emails to document libraries), and additional farm management tools. Some of these additional tools include managing farmwide SharePoint features and farmwide SharePoint solutions.

Backup and Restore—SharePoint 2016 provide basic but functional backup and restore tools, and this section provides access to those tools. It should be noted that most organizations purchase more complete and flexible tools from third-party software companies.

Upgrade and Migration—These tools include tools to convert the farm license from SharePoint 2016 Standard to SharePoint 2016 Enterprise, to enable Enterprise features, check patch installation status, and review database status.

Configuration Wizards—The only tool in this section launches the FarmConfiguration Wizard should it be needed at a later date. Normally this is used to configure the SharePoint 2016 farm in the first place, but in some cases, it needs to be revisited in some components or service applications haven’t been configured.

A full mastery of these tools usually requires professional training or significant on-the-job experience with the different management tools and “moving parts” that make up a SharePoint 2016 farm. Most organizations seek professional assistance from technology service providers and professional training organizations to accelerate the process and help the organization ensure the SharePoint 2016 environment is functioning optimally.

SharePoint 2016 can run on Windows Server 2016, but the installation is complex and the supportability of the implementation and third-party add-ins should be validated. Many organizations may choose to implement the latest version of SharePoint 2013. However, some organizations will prefer to use the more tried-and-true version of SharePoint and choose to install SharePoint 2016 product.

Although SharePoint 2016 products can work with the free version of SQL Server 2008, the Express edition, most organizations decide to use the full version of SQL Server 2008 or 2016 if SharePoint 2016 will be used extensively by the organization and will contain mission-critical data.

SharePoint Foundation 2016 is well suited to lightweight use of the toolset, but it is important to understand its limitations when compared to the full SharePoint Server 2016 Standard and Enterprise products to avoid an inconvenient, and possibly expensive, upgrade in the future.

Document libraries are building blocks of SharePoint 2016 sites and provide tools such as document versioning, check-in and checkout features, workflows, and custom views.

Lists are similar to Excel spreadsheets in many ways and offer capabilities such as calendaring, task management, discussion groups, and other types of functionality.

SharePoint 2016 products offers different tiers of management tools for the administrators, including tools for managing lists and libraries, subsites, top-level sites, site collections, and the farm itself.

It is important to understand the complexity of the product when designing a SharePoint implementation to ensure that it meets the needs of the user base without being overly complex to manage and possibly confuse the user community.