Understanding Libraries and Documents | Beginning SharePoint 2007: Building Team Solutions with MOSS 2007 (Programmer to Programmer)

If you want to, you can think of a document library as a Windows file folder, but better. Like folders, libraries act as document storage, but they also store the document’s metadata or version history (more about this a little later) that folders do not. Also, folders lend themselves to user personalization in that they may stay on a user’s drive or be labeled differently from another user’s folder, which leads to inefficiency. You don’t encounter this in libraries, which acts as central store, shared across an organization. SharePoint also offers collaboration features that go well beyond the traditional file-sharing techniques that you may have used in the past. Because SharePoint stores lists and libraries in a database rather than the file system, it is arguably more secure, more efficient, and enables more sophisticated document workflow and content management scenarios.

You should remember the following as you work with libraries:

Storage Types: You can store a variety of file types, including presentations, images, archives, or spreadsheets. You can store virtually any file type in a SharePoint library as long as the file type has not been added to the Blocked File Types listing.

Managing Blocked File Types
You can view the listing of blocked file types for your SharePoint environment by visiting the Operations tab of your SharePoint Central Administration site for your server farm. Once there, you can find a link to view blocked file types under the Security Configuration group of links.

You can remove items from this list to upload them, via a web application, to SharePoint libraries; however, you should be very careful not to allow certain executables or file types that are security risks or performance issues. It is recommended that you speak with someone familiar with managing security within your network before removing a file type from this list.

Administrators may allow users more or less flexibility for managing certain file types within their personal sites versus their collaborative sites. This may include blocking certain media file formats in the MySites application that may typically be used within the various departmental and team sites for training or reference.
Metadata Information: Document libraries have metadata columns for attaching information, such as document owner or status, to the document so that you can tailor it to your corporate practices. Metadata is useful for running searches on documents, which you learn more about in Chapter 14. Users with appropriate permissions can quickly and easily create extra metadata columns, while keeping your methodologies very agile, which is another important asset in today’s business environment. In fact, SharePoint document libraries offer many of the same features as the lists that you explored in Chapter 2, such as rows, columns, and views.
Document Protection: Documents in libraries are protected by a check in and out feature, which ensures that only one user at a time can edit a document. Later in this chapter, you learn about the various methods available for working with documents in this manner.
Document History: Libraries keep a document audit trail, even when multiple people edit the document at the same time. Version history lets you quickly revert to a previously saved version of the document, right from the browser.
Major and Minor Versions: While both lists and libraries support versioning of information, document libraries support major and minor versions. Major versions are published files that all site users can access, whereas the minor versions are files in a draft state that typically only a document’s author or members of the approver’s group can access.

From the surface, a document library view page, shown in Figure 3-1, looks very similar to that of a list, but with a few additions including:

Upload menu: Located on the toolbar, this uploads single or multiple files to the library.
Windows Explorer type view: You can see files in the library in this view via the Actions menu.
Document contextual menu: This menu has several helpful options including the Send To option, which allows you to copy files to other locations, create collaborative workspaces for a document, or email a document’s link to others; the Edit in option, which lets you edit a file in an associated and supported Microsoft Office application; and the Check Out and Check In options, discussed previously.

image from book
Figure 3-1

You get a chance to see each of these items in action throughout this chapter, starting with basic activities related to creating, uploading, and editing files in a SharePoint library, which are the items you’ll learn about next.

Important

The Try It Outs in this section show you how to perform common library operations using the document library, which you create using the document library template, the most common library type. However, SharePoint has a whole slew of libraries, each designed to store specific content. For example, the picture library stores images and photos and the slide library stores PowerPoint slides. While you can store images and presentations in any library, the picture and slide libraries have content-specific features, such as views for seeing photos and slide shows. For more information on the other library types SharePoint has available, see the section “Understanding SharePoint Library Templates.”

Creating and Managing Documents in a Library

Both employees and organizations benefit from SharePoint libraries. Organizations commonly roll out SharePoint 2007 because libraries keep shared documents in a secure system where access, versioning, templates, columns, and content are controlled. From a user’s standpoint, creating and managing documents in a library is a simple process. You start by creating a document, with the aid of a template. You then upload a single or multiple documents. When you upload documents in bulk, you may need to edit your documents so that they have the correct metadata.

This section has a series of Try It Outs that walk you through this process, but before you do so, you need to understand the various document templates, shown in the following table, that are available for you to create a document. The obvious purpose of these templates is to start with a blank document or file. You can also use them to create custom templates that help your company to maintain content continuity. For example, you can have a sales proposal document template that contains company elements, such as your company’s name, logo, and standard product specifications, as well as elements relating to customer choices, such as sections for recording a customer’s requests. Associating this template with the sales team document library allows an account manager to launch a document containing these elements.

With the exception of the first item in the following table, you click the New button in the document library toolbar. The None option starts up the Word application, so it’s for situations where you want to work strictly with a Word document outside of SharePoint.

Open table as spreadsheet

Template	Purpose
None	This starts the Word application and creates an empty Word document.
Microsoft Office Word 97–2003 Document	Creates a blank Word document compatible with versions of Microsoft Office prior to the 2007 release.
Microsoft Office Excel 97–2003 Spreadsheet	Creates a blank Excel spreadsheet compatible with versions of Microsoft Office prior to the 2007 release.
Microsoft Office PowerPoint 97–2003 Presentation	Creates a blank PowerPoint presentation compatible with versions of Microsoft Office prior to the 2007 release.
Microsoft Office Word Document	Creates a new Word document using the new file formats supported only by Microsoft Office 2007.
Microsoft Office Excel Spreadsheet	Creates a new Excel spreadsheet using the new file formats supported only by Microsoft Office 2007.
Microsoft Office PowerPoint Presentation	Creates a new PowerPoint presentation using the new file formats supported only by Microsoft Office 2007.
Microsoft Office OneNote Section	Creates a new OneNote section using the new file formats supported only by Microsoft Office 2007.
Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer Webpage	Creates a standard web page that you can edit using SharePoint Designer.
Basic Page	Creates a blank SharePoint web page containing a content editor web part to allow users to add text and basic HTML to the page.
Web Part Page	Creates a blank SharePoint web page with a series of web part zones to support the addition and configuration of multiple web parts in a desired layout.

Try It Out-Create a New Document from a Document Library

You can create new documents while working in applications, such as Microsoft Office Word, and then save them to a SharePoint site, or you can create them within SharePoint by selecting the New button from within a document library. By default, each document library has a single blank Word document template associated with it. You are presented with this template as a starting point to create your document. This is the case for any standard document library that you create in a SharePoint site, unless the site manager specifies otherwise or uploads a custom template.

From the main page of your team site, click the Shared Documents link from the Quick Launch navigation bar.
Click the New button from the toolbar. A blank document opens in Word, as shown in Figure 3-2.

Figure 3-2

Try It Out-Upload a New Document

With SharePoint, uploading previously created documents is as frequent as creating new ones. The following example guides you through the process of uploading a document from your personal computer or network share to a SharePoint document library.

Imagine that you are an account manager for a large technology company, and you want to upload a recently created sales presentation to the team library. In the previous Try It Out, you created a new document from a library. However, you may want to share or manage a document created outside of the SharePoint environment. To accommodate this common situation, SharePoint document libraries support the upload of content to the library from another location.

In this exercise, you browse to the location of a presentation called “Why Our Products are Better.pptx” that is available as part of this chapter’s resources and upload it to the Shared Documents library.

Return to the Shared Documents library of your team site, as shown in the last Try It Out.
From the document library toolbar, click the Upload button.
From the Upload Document page, select Browse. The Choose File dialog box appears.
Browse to the location of the “Why Our Products are Better.pptx” file and click Open, as shown in Figure 3-3.

Figure 3-3
Click the OK button. When the page refreshes, you will see the presentation within the document library.

How It Works

When you upload in step 3, you are presented with a standard file-open dialog box from which you can navigate to and select the file. After you select your file and choose OK, your document transfers to the document library and, if applicable, you are prompted to enter any metadata that your document library requires.

Try It Out-Upload Multiple Documents to a Document Library

The previous Try It Out works great if you only need to upload a single document to the document library. However, it’s less time consuming and more realistic to upload multiple documents to your document library.

From the main page of your team site, click the Shared Documents link from the Quick Launch navigation bar.
Select Upload Upload Multiple Documents from the document library toolbar. The Upload Document page opens, as shown in Figure 3-4.

Figure 3-4

Select the folder that contains the resource files for this chapter from the left panel, then select the presentation files to upload from the right panel as shown in Figure 3-5. You can only upload items from a single folder at a time.

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Figure 3-5

Tip

The default setting when you upload multiple files is to overwrite any files that already have the same name. You can change this by deselecting the Overwrite Existing Files check box. If youselect the check box, the file remains selected. As a result, the sales presentation uploaded in the last Try It Out is over-written by the copy you upload in this exercise.

Click the OK button. A message window displays asking you to confirm your wish to upload the documents.
Click the OK button to continue.

Try It Out-Edit a Document Library View in Datasheet Mode

One important thing to remember when uploading files in bulk is that you are not prompted to complete the metadata for each item. Incomplete metadata can negatively impact searches that users perform to locate your documents. If you have to meet a deadline and can’t fill in metadata information during the upload, remember to return to the library afterward and do so. The most efficient way is to use the Edit in Datasheet command. This command, which is shown in the following steps, allows you to update document metadata in a manner similar to updating a spreadsheet in Excel.

Tip

For more about performing searches in SharePoint, see Chapter 14.

From the main page of your team site, click the Shared Documents link from the Quick Launch navigation bar.
Select Actions Edit in Datasheet, as shown in Figure 3-6.

Figure 3-6
Update columns as necessary as shown in Figure 3-7.

Figure 3-7
From the Actions toolbar menu, select Show in Standard View. You may receive a warning stating that you have pending changes or unresolved conflicts. Select Yes that you want to wait for the operation to complete.

How It Works

In this example, you temporarily changed a standard document library view to a datasheet view. This updates to the metadata associated with all documents within your document library. Editing a datasheet view is very similar to completing information within a spreadsheet application and is therefore ideal for occasions where a team member must update in bulk. While you can create views that are always in datasheet mode, you can edit any standard list view in datasheet mode as shown here.

You now know how to create documents within your libraries as well as how to upload documents and update the metadata associated with them. The next section discusses how to update documents that are already in a library.

Updating and Sharing Documents

Your document’s life cycle will probably require you to perform updates and edits over time. You can quickly open and edit any document inside its document library via the contextual menu of the item. You have two ways to edit an existing document:

Via the contextual menu: Hover your cursor over an item in a library to expose a contextual menu and then select the down arrow. Select Edit in Microsoft Office Word from the list of menu options, as shown in Figure 3-8. You have several other options, such as Edit Properties, which edits the metadata, or View Properties, which displays additional information associated with the document.

Figure 3-8
Select an item in a document library. The associated application opens so you can begin editing.

Obviously, the collaborating often requires that people work on the same document, which can lead to version conflict. For example, if you work on a document, but leave for an extended period of time, another user can make changes to your document that conflict with your version or another user can upload an older version of the document that bears no resemblance to any other document in the department. When you resume your work, you definitely will notice changes, but not necessarily why or how the document changed.

To minimize frustration, instead of editing the document via the contextual menu or from the document library, you can select the Check In/Check Out options. Checking out a document locks it so that others can view the last published version, but cannot edit it, until you check the document back in. The Edit Document option also locks the document, but it doesn’t save progressive versions of the document so that you can see what changed, why it changed, and who changed it.

The next three Try It Outs cover how to check out and check in a document, either from the SharePoint library, or from a Microsoft Office application, such as Word. The Check In/Check Out feature has the added benefit of allowing you to work offline as you check out. This means you can perform changes away from the office and these changes are placed in the library when you check the document back in. In the last Try It Out, you learn how to send your colleagues notification so that they’re aware of the changes you’ve made to a document.

Tip

SharePoint’s Check In/Check Out feature is controlled as part of library versioning. To configure and customize the settings for this feature, see Chapter 4.

Try It Out-Check Out a Document

Checking out a document greatly reduces the chance of version conflicts because only one person can make changes to the document at a time. The following example shows you how to check out an item from a document library.

Hover your cursor over an item in a document library to expose the contextual menu.
Select the down arrow that appears and then select Check Out, as shown in Figure 3-9. You receive a message informing you that you are about to check out a document, as shown in Figure 3-10. By default, SharePoint temporarily stores your document in your local drafts folder. For this example, the default setting will do.

Figure 3-9

Figure 3-10
Click OK to check your document out. The icon to the left of the document name changes to a document with a green arrow next to it, as shown in Figure 3-11.

Figure 3-11

Try It Out-Check In a Document

After you make changes to your checked out document, you need to check it back in. This creates a new version, complete with your changes, and makes the document available for others to check out. The check in process is very similar to the check out process, but you have the additional option of checking in changes while keeping the document checked out. This means others can see changes you’ve made so far, but that you can continue working on the document. It’s best practice to include comments when checking a document in so that others understand what you did. Comments also create a version history, which makes tracking down problems easier in the future. The following steps show this process:

Follow steps 1 and 2 in the “Check Out a Document” Try It Out, but select the Check In option. The Check in window appears as shown in Figure 3-12

Figure 3-12
To continue working on the document but allow others see your changes, you can select Yes under Keep Document Checked Out After Checking in This Version option. This example assumes that you click No to unlock the document completely for editing by others.
Type a reason for your changes to the document in the comments box. For this example, type Check in demo.
Click the OK button, and the document is checked in.

Try It Out-Check In a Document from a Microsoft Office Application

If you are editing a document with Microsoft Office application, instead of saving your changes, closing the document, going back to the browser and checking in your document, you can check the document back in straight from the application to cut out some steps. This functionality is only available in Microsoft Office 2007 for Excel and PowerPoint. All other applications require you to check in the document using the SharePoint interface via the browser.

The following steps show you how to check in a document using Word, but they are similar to when you would check in a document in Excel or PowerPoint. Before you perform these steps, you should open a document and check it out from your document library. Checking a document in using the Microsoft Office Word client application has the same effect as checking it in via the browser (shown in the last Try It Out).

From Word, select the Office Button on the top-left corner, as shown in Figure 3-13.

Figure 3-13
Hover your cursor over the Server button to expose a set of menu options.
Select Check In from the list.
In the Check In dialog box, add comments describing the changes you have made to your document, as shown in Figure 3-14.

Figure 3-14

Tip
You can opt to keep your document checked out after checking in. For more information about this option, see the previous Try It Out. This example leaves the option unselected.
Click the OK button.

Close the document.

Try It Out-Work Offline with a Document

To this point, the Try It Outs in this section have dealt with checking a document in or out and working with it online, that is, connected to a network. As mentioned previously, you have the option of checking out a document and working offline by saving it to your local drafts folder, which is automatically created the first time you check out and save a document. SharePoint creates a physical copy that you can edit away from the office. When you check a document back in via the browser or through Word using the steps shown in the previous Try It Outs, the offline copy of the document synchronizes and uploads to the document library so that your changes become available to team members.

Tip

SharePoint 2007 has multiple methods for working on offline content. Chapter 2 discussed how to connect specific lists to Outlook to make items available offline.

Hover your cursor over a document in the library to expose the contextual menu.
Select the down arrow.
Select Check Out from list of options. A window appears saying that you’re about to check out the document (see Figure 3-10).
Select the Use My Local Drafts Folder option.
Click the OK button.

Try It Out-Send an Email Link of a Document to Others

After uploading or updating a document, you commonly want to share your changes with other team members so that they may review, collaborate, or make their own changes. In the past, this involved opening your email, writing a detailed message to your coworkers informing them of your intention to share a document, attaching the document, and finally sending it. Unfortunately, attaching a document can lead to duplicate files because team members tend to save versions of the document from the email message to their desktop or local drive. This, of course, makes change synchronization and document management very difficult.

SharePoint 2007 bypasses this confusion by allowing you to send an email with a link that directs colleagues to your document on the library. This informs team members of your updates without removing the file from the document management system.

Follow the simple steps outlined below to send a link to your document via email:

Hover your cursor over a document in your library to expose the contextual menu.
Select the down arrow.
From the list of options (see Figure 3-1), select Send To and then select Email a Link. Outlook opens and a pre-populated email with a link to your document appears.
Fill in the email addresses to which you want to send the link.
Fill in the subject and a brief message.
Click the Send button.

Review Document Version History

Imagine working all night on a document and saving your changes to your team’s collaborative location, only to have a team member overwrite your document with an older version of the document. For a collaboration team, multiple versions of a single document can translate into lost work and frustration. That’s why most organizations mandate a document audit trail, which helps users understand when changes were made and why. SharePoint’s Version History option allows you to view this trial as well as restore previous versions if you catch errors or omissions in the active version. If versions before a certain date are in doubt, you can restore the document to a point where you know the information is accurate and relevant. In addition, history can help users investigate when and why things first went wrong.

In the upcoming exercises, you learn how to view the version history related to a document and optionally restore a previous version of a document as the active version.

Tip

In Chapter 4, you will learn how you can manage the rules around versioning related to a document library.

Try It Out-View Document Versions

SharePoint 2007 stores a document’s version history each time a user changes or saves the document. Imagine that while you were away from the office someone made changes to your document that you either were not satisfied with or wanted clarification on. You can visit the version history of the document and review the various versions and associated comments to determine what changes were made. In addition, you may find it useful to review versions of a document to find out what information was published and available to users of the SharePoint site.

Hover your cursor over a document in the library to expose the contextual menu.
Select the down arrow.
Select Version History from the list of options, as shown in Figure 3-15.

Figure 3-15
A list of versions associated with the document displays. Select a version from the list to preview it. The version of the document will open for you to review in the associated application.

Try It Out-Restore a Previous Version of a Document

Commonly when multiple team members work on a document, they need to revert back to a previous version of the document. This may be because of unwanted changes or just to perform a what-if analysis to see how changes impact a report. With SharePoint 2007, you can easily follow a document’s entire audit trail and if need be, restore a previous version of the document by following these steps:

Hover your cursor over a document in the library to expose the contextual menu.
Select the down arrow.
Select Version History from the list of options as shown previously in Figure 3-15. A list of available versions appears, as shown in Figure 3-16.

Figure 3-16
Hover your cursor over the version you want to restore to expose the document’s contextual menu.
Select the down arrow.
Select Restore. You are prompted with a message informing you that you are about to replace the current version of the document with the one you have selected.
Click the OK button.

How It Works

When you restore a previous version of a document, the document reverts back to reflect that state of the document and it becomes the current version of the document. The restoration of a document does not overwrite or delete previous versions. Instead, it creates a completely new version within the library. For example, if you view a listing of a document’s versions, you may see that there are five versions of the document. If you were to restore version 2.0, then a new version would be created called 6.0. All previous versions would remain unaffected.