Here are some ways to work with libraries and make them more useful for your group (organized loosely from basic to more advanced):
Use and create views You can use a view to see the files in a library that are most important to you or that best fit a purpose. The contents of the library don't change, but each view organizes or filters the files to make them easier to find and to browse in a meaningful way. For more information about views, see Create, change, or delete a view of a list or library.
Track versions If you need to keep previous versions of files, libraries can help you track, store, and restore the files. You can choose to track all versions in the same way. Or you can choose to designate some versions as major, such as adding a new chapter to a manual, and some versions as minor, such as fixing a spelling error. To help manage storage space, you can optionally choose the number of each type of version that you want to store.
Tip:If your team plans to use co-authoring, we recommend turning on at least major versioning in the library, just in case someone makes a mistake and uploads a document of the same name in a library where everyone is co-authoring. This way, if you lose changes, you can restore a previous version of the document.
For more information about versioning, see Enable and configure versioning for a list or library.
Co-author or check-out of files When you edit a Microsoft Word or PowerPoint document from a library without checking it out, other people can edit it at the same time (that’s co-authoring). When you check out a file, you ensure that only one person can edit the file until it is checked in. You can require documents to be checked out in libraries that contain sensitive documents, or when you want to carefully track the evolution of documents. But be aware that requiring checkout will make it impossible for people to co-author documents. Using check-out, people will be prompted to leave a comment about what they changed in the document, but check-out will also slow down the editing and reviewing processes. For more information, see Document collaboration and co-authoring or Check out, check in, or discard changes to files in a library.
Edit files from desktop programs When you store documents on a SharePoint site, you can create, edit, and co-author documents directly from compatible desktop programs, such as Microsoft Word or PowerPoint, without even going to the site. For example, you can edit a PowerPoint presentation at the same time as other people are editing it (also known as co-authoring). You can also manage check-in and checkout directly from PowerPoint. In addition, you can use OneDrive for work or school or Outlook to take library contents offline, work with them from a remote location, and then smoothly synchronize changes when you come back online.
Stay informed about changesTo stay updated when documents in a library change, set up alerts, subscribe to RSS feeds, or follow documents. The main difference between alerts, RSS, and following are where you receive the notifications. Both alerts and RSS feeds inform you about updates, and both allow you to customize how much information you receive. You can set up alerts or RSS to find out when anything changes in a library. If you care about only a specific document, set up an alert or follow the document. Alerts can arrive as email or text messages. RSS notifications arrive in a consolidated feed that you can read in Outlook or another feed reader. If you follow a document, you’ll receive a notification in your Newsfeed (if your organization is using Newsfeed). For more information about notifications, see Create an alert or subscribe to an RSS feed.
Require document approval You can require documents to be approved before everyone can see them. Documents remain in a pending state until they are approved or rejected by someone who has permission to do so. You can control which groups of users can view a document before it is approved. This feature can be helpful if your library contains important guidelines or procedures that need to be final before others see them.
Set permissionsSharePoint groups and permission levels help you to efficiently manage access to contents. By default, permissions on libraries, folders within libraries, and documents are inherited from the site. Assigning unique permissions to a specific library or document can help you to protect sensitive content, such as contracts or budget information, without restricting access to the rest of the site. For more information about permissions, see Understanding permission levels in SharePoint.
Create workflows A document library or content type can use workflows that your organization has defined for business processes, such as managing document approval or review. Your group can apply business processes to its documents, known as workflows, which specify actions that need to be taken in a sequence, such as approving documents. A SharePoint workflow is an automated way of moving documents or items through a sequence of actions or tasks. Three workflows are available to libraries by default: Approval, which routes a document to a group of people for approval; Collect Feedback, which routes a document to a group of people for feedback and returns the document to the person who initiated the workflow as a compilation; and Collect Signatures, which routes a document to a group of people to collect their digital signatures.
Note:Only the three-state workflow is available in SharePoint Foundation.
For more information about workflows, see About the workflows included with SharePoint.
Define content types If your group works with several types of files, such as worksheets, presentations, and documents, you can extend the functionality of your library by enabling and defining multiple content types. Content types add flexibility and consistency across multiple libraries. Each content type can specify a template and even workflow processes. The templates act as a starting point, for formatting and any boilerplate text and for properties that apply to the documents of that type, such as department name or contract number.
Audit Tracking If you have a group of sensitive files, and it would be helpful to know how the documents were being used, you can define a policy that allows you to enable audit tracking of events, such as file changes, copies, or deletion.
Set policies Policy settings enable document expiration, automatic deletion, or periodic review (through a workflow) of documents that have reached a specified age. As libraries evolve, using these disposition settings can save time and effort over trying to manually clean up hard disk space that is packed full or to avoid reaching quota limits.
Note:Policy settings are not available in SharePoint Foundation.
Use a Document Center site You can use a Document Center site when you want to create, manage, and store large numbers of documents. A Document Center is designed to serve as a centralized repository for managing many documents. Features, such as metadata and tree view navigation, content types, and Web Parts, help you organize and retrieve documents. "Content stewards" can quickly configure metadata-driven navigation to perform well for most libraries without explicitly creating indexes. Or content stewards can create indexes to enhance the performance over a wider range of filters and views. You can use a Document Center site as an authoring environment (where users check files in and out and create folder structures for those files) or a as content archive (where users only view or upload documents).
Note:Document Center is not available in SharePoint Foundation.
