Datasheet

The containers that are often created and managed by business users include
the following:
 Sites: SharePoint sites are usually created for a specific purpose, such
as coordinating a project team or providing an information environment
for a department. It’s common for companies to create sites for each of
the departments within their organization. SharePoint provides a special
kind of site, called portals, which is intended for providing information to
larger groups of people. For example, the top-level site in a site collection
is often a portal. Sites can contain additional sites as well as lists and
libraries. Each site has its own administrative interfaces for managing
permissions, navigation, and appearance. I discuss sites in Chapter 4.
SharePoint sites can inherit permissions, navigation, and appearance
settings from their parent site.
 Lists: SharePoint provides a number of predefined lists that can be used
to store data, such as tasks, events, and announcements. You can create
your own custom lists to store data that’s specific to your business. By
default, list data appears in a tabular format, but SharePoint provides
additional view formats. You can easily customize how much data
appears on the screen and whether the data is sorted, filtered, and
grouped. You can even create master/detail displays of data. SharePoint
automatically generates Web pages to add, edit, and display the data
you store in lists.
 Libraries: SharePoint sites can contain any number of libraries for stor-
ing files. The most common SharePoint library is the document library,
although you can also use libraries to store electronic forms, pictures,
and PowerPoint slides. You can create new file properties for the files
you save in SharePoint libraries. SharePoint automatically prompts
users to enter values for the properties when they upload files. Users
can open files from and save files to SharePoint libraries from their
usual desktop applications, such as Word and Excel.
From SharePoint’s perspective, all the information assets that you store and
manage in SharePoint are content. All the Word documents, Excel spreadsheets,
and PowerPoint slideshows that users upload to libraries are content. All the
tasks, announcements, and other data that users enter into lists are content.
Even the Web pages that are displayed in a portal are content. The sites, lists,
and libraries that you create to display, organize, and store content are content
structures.
SharePoint’s content structures are more than just passive storage containers.
To have a managed information environment, SharePoint provides a frame-
work of features that includes workflows, content types, versioning, content
approval, and permissions management. I introduce lists and libraries in
Chapter 4. You can read more about SharePoint’s content management fea-
tures in later chapters.
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