Roadmap for creating and configuring SharePoint libraries

A library is a place on a site where team members can work together to create, update, and manage files. The best way to set up a library depends on how the library will be used and how many people will be using it.

It takes just a few steps to set up a basic library to help manage some team documents. If your organization has a defined process for developing its documents or if multiple people work on the same document, consider exploring the more advanced document management features, such as content types and workflows.

This roadmap is designed for individuals who are creating and configuring libraries for a Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 site but who are not IT professionals. If you are an IT professional, TechNet may better meet your needs.

Concepts and planning

If your organization works on a large number of documents, you will want to develop a strategy for organizing and managing your documents before people start adding content. For example, you can use columns and views to help limit the number of documents that are displayed at one time.

Libraries can also be a key part of a document management process, with tools to provide consistency, manage large volumes of content, and control the workflow of content development.

Getting to know libraries

Your organization may have several libraries on a SharePoint site, such as one or more libraries for team documents, a library for Web pages, a slide library for presentations, and a picture library for photos and other images.

Concept	Description
Introduction to libraries	Read about the benefits, types, and features of libraries.
Organize files in a library	Learn strategies for organizing files in libraries before you create your libraries.
Roadmap to SharePoint document library training	View a roadmap of five different courses on document libraries.

Planning how to organize and manage files

SharePoint libraries have several features to help your team manage and organize its documents. Some planning can help you set up the structure that works best for your organization.

The way that you organize your files in a library depends on the needs of your group and on how you prefer to store and search for your information. Views and folders can help your team stay organized.

Checkout is a tool that enables your team members to work exclusively on files and avoid file conflicts. Your team may also want to use versioning, in which a version history of the files is created. Versioning takes more server space, but enables your team to restore previous versions of files if they make a mistake.

For example, your organization can use document checkout and versioning to help manage how people work on files. To work exclusively on a file, someone checks it out so that no one else can accidentally overwrite changes. With versioning, the team can track a version history and can restore a previous version if someone makes a mistake.

Concept	Description
How does versioning work in a list or library	Learn about versioning, which enables you to track a version history and view and restore previous versions of a document.
Organize files in a library	Read about different ways to organize files in a library. It's good to plan the structure of your library before you create and configure it.
Roadmap for giving users access to sites and site content	See an overview of managing access to sites and site content, including whether to inherit permissions in subsites or apply unique permissions.

Assessing whether to use advanced document management

When organizations do not have any kind of formal document management system in place, content is often created and saved in an unmanaged and decentralized way on scattered file shares and individual hard disk drives. This makes it hard for employees to find, share, and collaborate effectively on content. This also makes it difficult for organizations to use the valuable business information and data in the content.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 supports your organization's document management needs by providing a broad set of document management capabilities that enable you to do the following:

• Store, organize, and locate documents.

• Ensure the consistency of documents.

• Manage metadata for documents.

• Help protect documents from unauthorized access or use.

• Ensure consistent business processes (workflows) for how documents are handled.

Concept	Description
Introduction to document management	Learn different ways that you can use document management to manage content and processes in your organization.
Introduction to SharePoint workflow	Read about workflows, and how they help people to implement business processes, such as managing tasks and collaborating, on documents and list items.
Introduction to content types	Find out how content types enable organizations to manage the metadata, templates, and behaviors of items and documents consistently. Content types are defined at the site level and used on lists and libraries.

Managing large libraries

SharePoint libraries are designed to handle a large capacity of files, up to 5 million total if you use folders for organization, but there are strategies you should use to maximize performance.

For typical customer scenarios in which the standard SharePoint Server 2007 browser-based user interface is used, the recommendation is that a single list should not have more than 2,000 items per list container. A container in this case means the root of the list, as well as any folders in the list. A folder is a container because other list items are stored within it.

For example, the AdventureWorks company uses folders for different types of documents, such as manuals or price lists, within its library. Views and indexing can also be used to improve performance and the user's browsing experience. The following articles will help you plan your strategy for large lists and libraries.

Concept	Description
Plan enterprise content storage	Obtain guidance on configuring and managing libraries with a large number of files.
Manage large numbers of files by using a Document Center	Read about the benefits, types, and features of Document Center.
Manage lists and libraries with many items	Learn capacity recommendations, including how to optimize list performance through limits on the number of items that appear, and by choosing the most appropriate method of retrieving contents.

Creating and configuring libraries

To create a library, you need to be a member of the sitename owners group or have specific permission to design a site or create lists and libraries. You can apply some settings as you create libraries, and you can apply additional settings later from the Settings menu in the library.

Creating libraries

Task	Description
Create a library	Learn how to create a library to create, collect, update, and manage files with team members.
Create a form library	Learn how you can create a library specifically for forms, such as expense reports.

Configuring libraries

Task	Description
Add or change a workflow for a list, library, or content type	Use the default workflows or customize and set up your own for managing documents and business processes.
Enable and configure versioning for a list or library	Enable a library to track versions in a version history and restore previous versions.
Create or change a view	Create views to enable people to see the items that are most important or relevant to them.
Require check-out for files in a library	Learn how you can require all users to check out files before working on them, if you want to set up this requirement. Requiring check-out prevents multiple people from making changes at the same time, which can create conflicts over changes and lead to confusion.
Change a content type for a list or library	Learn how to configure a content type and add it to a library.
Set up a template for a library	Learn how to add a template to a library, if you don't use content types.

Providing access to libraries

You can customize a list or library within a site to broaden or limit which users can access the list or library, and what the users can do to the contents of the list or library.

By default, a list or library inherits permissions from the site it is on. The site that a list or library is on is referred to as the parent site. Changes to permissions at the parent site apply to all the lists, libraries, and other content that inherit permissions from this parent.

You can stop inheriting permissions from a parent SharePoint site and create unique permissions for a list or library. For example, you might want to have unique permissions for a list that contains employee records or a product planning document that is not final. You can also broaden or limit access to specific folders and list items, such as salary or personnel information.

Concept	Description
Customize user access to a list or library	Learn about customizing user access to libraries in a step-by-step flow, or learn the detailed individual procedures for more customization.
Customize user access to folders, list items, and library files	Read about how to broaden or limit access to specific files or folders, if your organization needs to customize access to specific content.
Roadmap for giving users access to sites and site content	See an overview of managing access to sites and site content, including whether to inherit permissions in subsites or apply unique permissions.