Introduction to SharePoint

Microsoft SharePoint editions can be classified by their deployment method:

• SharePoint Server
• SharePoint Online

SharePoint Server

SharePoint Server is provided to organizations that seek greater control over SharePoint's behavior or design. This product is installed on a customers' IT infrastructure. It receives fewer frequent updates but has access to a wider set of features and customization capabilities. There are three editions of SharePoint Server:

SharePoint Foundation (free), was discontinued in 2016.		SharePoint Standard, which has the following features: Sites: Audience targeting, governance tools, secure store service, and web analytics functionality. Communities: 'MySites' (personal profiles including skills management, and search tools), enterprise wikis, organization hierarchy browser, tags, and notes. Content: Improved tooling and compliance for document & record management, managed metadata, word automation services, and content type management. Search: Better search results, search customization abilities, mobile search, OS search integration, faceted search, and refinement options. Composites: Pre-built workflow templates, Business Connectivity Services (BCS) profile pages.		SharePoint Enterprise, which offers the same features as Standard plus Insights such as: Search thumbnails and previews, rich web indexing, and more refined search results. Business intelligence integration, dashboards, and business data surfacing. PowerPivot and PerformancePoint. Microsoft Office Access, Visio, Excel, and InfoPath Forms services. SharePoint Enterprise Search extensions.

SharePoint Online

Microsoft’s hosted SharePoint Online has usually bundled with Microsoft Office 365 subscriptions but it can be purchased as a standalone. SharePoint Online has the advantage of not needing to maintain a server, but as a result, it lacks the customization options of a self-hosted installation of SharePoint. It is also limited to a core set of collaboration, file hosting, and content management features, but it is updated on a frequent basis, and its feature set can be comparable to SharePoint Enterprise.

Microsoft SharePoint versions released so far which are pertinent to Central Support (as of 2019) are:

Activity! Check the Knowledge Base for the latest release notes in SharePoint compatibility for Bonzai Intranet Bonzai Intranet Latest Release Notes

SharePoint sites are constructed in hierarchies.

A subsite can inherit permissions, resources, and security settings from its parent site, making it easy to create new sites quickly. If you use a site template created from the parent site, the subsite can also inherit visual styles and page layouts. Thus you can maintain consistent styles and policies, and apply any changes efficiently.

The top level in the hierarchy is the site collection. Each site collection can have its own database and security model. There is always one top-level root site in the site collection, under which a hierarchy of subsites can be built.

The following guidelines show the relationship between SharePoint Server sites and site collections, and content databases:

• All content in a site collection must be stored in a single content database.
• You can't store a site collection's content across multiple content databases.
• You can scale up content databases that support a site collection.
• You can also scale-out a content database at the web application level to support additional site collections.
• A site collection can exist in only one content database, but one content database can host the content for multiple site collections.
• A site can't exist outside of a site collection and can only exist in one site collection but a site collection can host many sites.

A site collection is used to host sites that have something in common. For example, the sites might be in a common administrative boundary or share common branding. The site collection might be created to house all the sites and content for a business unit. Or, a single site collection might have become too large to manage, and it must be split into smaller ones. Lastly, some site collections are created exclusively to host specific SharePoint Server functionalities, such as Enterprise Search Center or to host My Sites.

SharePoint Server supports two types of site collections:

• Host-named site collections allow users to assign custom names to each site collection that you create in a web application. For example, you can have two site collections in the same web application addressed like this: http://TeamA.contoso.com and http://TeamB.contoso.com.
• Path-based site collections allow the subsites in the site collection to share a root or parent URL (DNS name). For example, Team A could have a site collection at http://contoso.com/sites/teamA, and Team B would have a site collection at http://contoso/sites/teamB. All sites in either site collection would have the http://contoso.com/sites/teamA or /teamB root. The only way to have a different URL root is to create a different web application.

Activity! Check the following knowledge base articles to know more about collections and navigating through a site hierarchy: What is a Site Collection? How to Find the Right Place to Publish Content?

Every site collection starts as a single, top-level site. Because it is a site, its structure and functionality are based on a site template.

SharePoint Server provides many site templates, plus users can also create and use their own as needed. The following are some of the most common site collection templates that are available in SharePoint Servers 2016:

Team Site: A place to work together with a group of people.
Blog: A site for a person or team to post ideas, observations, and expertise that site visitors can comment on.
Project Site: A site for managing and collaborating on a project. This site template brings all status, communication, and artifacts relevant to the project into one place.
Community Site: A place where community members discuss topics of common interest. Members can browse and discover relevant content by exploring categories, sorting discussions, by popularity or by viewing only posts that have the best reply. Members gain reputation points by participating in the community, such as starting discussions and replying to them, liking posts, and specifying best replies.
Document Center: A site to centrally manage documents.
Records Center: This template creates a site designed for records management. Records managers can configure the routing table to direct incoming files to specific locations. The site also lets you manage whether records can be deleted or modified after they are added to the repository.
Business Intelligence Center: A site for presenting Business Intelligence content.
Enterprise Search Center: A site focused on delivering an enterprise-wide search experience.
Enterprise Wiki: A site for publishing knowledge that you capture and want to share across the enterprise.