Instructions for the HELCOM Sharepoint Workspace
Instructions for the HELCOM SharePoint Workspace for European Red List of Habitats October 2014
Instructions for the HELCOM SharePoint Workspace
for the Baltic Sea WG of
the European Red List of Habitats
The workspace for the Baltic Sea WG of the European Red List of Habitats is provided for the use of the Working Group to facilitate its work.
The group members are able to share, upload, edit and store documents in the workspace. All the members can work on the same file, with the aim to reduce the large amount of versions of documents being circulated around by e-mail. The workspace can also be used for discussions and assigning tasks. Access to the materials on the workspace is restricted only to the Working Group members and HABITAT contacts and can be granted to additional people if need arises.
These short guidelines will help you to get started with the workspace:
Step 1 – Find the workspace
Step 2 – Get acquainted with the workspace
Step 3 – Get a discussion going
Step 4 – Assign a task
Step 5 – Check-in – check-out a document for editing
Step 1 – Find the workspace
- Go to the Meeting Portal,
either > click on “Sign in” in the top-left corner or
or and click “Sign in”
- In the left-hand navigation bar click on “Workspaces” > select “Go to site” link next to “European Red List of Habitats project”:
Step 2 – Get acquainted with the workspace
- You navigate inside the workspace using the navigation bar on the left side of the page:
- By clicking the HELCOM-logo icon (and/or “Home” link on the top) you are returned to the front-page of the workspace
- The HELCOM Meeting Portal link above the project name will take you to the front page of the Meeting Portal
- “Documents” link takes you to the workspace’s document folder which includes all the documents uploaded to the workspace
- “Tasks” is a tool for structuring the work and assigning tasks to specific people
- In the “Discussion” section new discussions related to the group’s activities can be initiated by clicking “+ new discussion”
- “Calendar” shows the project calendar
- Note that the appearance of the navigation bar can change if new apps and links are added
Step 3 – Get a discussion going
In the Discussion section of the workspace you can ask questions and discuss solutions.
- To begin a new thread simply click on “+ new discussion”
- To answer an ongoing thread, click on the heading and type in the box
It is possible to activate an alert for a discussion:
- Click on the “Discussion” tab on the navigation bar
- Click on “ITEMS” in the top row, select “Alert Me” with the bell icon
- Click on the small downward facing grey triangle and select “Manage my alerts”
- Click “Add Alert”
- Select “Discussion” from the options and click “Next”
- Alert title: give the alert whatever name you choose (e.g. Discussion)
Send Alerts To: add your e-mail
Delivery method: select “e-mail”
Change type: all changes
Send alerts for these changes: select anything changes
when to send alerts: send notification immediately - Click - OK
If you find you get too many alerts, then you can modify the settings so that you e.g. receive a weekly summary.
The added value to keeping the discussion in the workspace compared to e-mails is the fact that all comments are kept together so that anyone can easily return to them.
Step 4 – Assign a task
Click on Tasks in the navigation bar.
New tasks can easily be created by
- Clicking “+ new task”,
- Fill in the needed information fields
- Assigning a task to a specific person(s) is done by typing in their e-mail address
When the new task has been created you can pin it to the timeline by activating it with a click left of the little box, then click on “Tasks” in the top menu and select “Add to timeline” (see the following picture):
To Edit a task, you can either click on “edit” above the table or, as above, select an item and click on the tool in the top menu named “Edit Item”.
Once a task is completed, tick the box. If a task is past the Due Date and the box has not been ticked it turns from black to red.
Step 5 – check-in – check-out a document for editing
Editing in the SharePoint system requires a document to be checked-out for editing and checked-in again once the person is ready with the edits. If you only want to download and read a document, you do not need to go through the steps of checking-out and checking-in, just click on the document to download a copy to your computer.
The main gain from checking-in and checking-out is that several people can work on the same document (with hidden versioning) instead of creating several documents that may become difficult to merge.
While you make editorial changes to the document, check-out the document from Sharepoint to you. Once you are done with your changes and wish to put the document back into the system for someone else to edit, you check it in. While the document is checked-out, no one else can make changes.
IMPORTANT – If you have checked-out a document, you are the only one who can check it back in again! The Secretariat can override the check-out, but any edits you’ve made to the document will be permanently deleted in the process and therefore this will be avoided as far as possible.
Therefore, keep a document checked out for however long you are actively working on it. Check it back in when you are ready to pass on the work to the next person.
Go to “All Documents” page through the navigation bar.
To check-out a document for editing
- Click on the three dots next to the name of the document
- Click on the next three dots (after Follow) in the window
- Select “Check Out”
Once you have checked-out the document, click on the name of the document to download it to your computer normally. Make any changes you wish, and save the document on your computer.
If you have problems downloading the document, right click on top of it and choose either “Open link in New Tab” or “Save Link As”.
When you are done with your changes and want to up-load the document back to the workspace, you go to the “All documents”-page and follow these steps:
- Click on “+ new document”
- Browse for the file normally and upload the document
- NOTE: Do not change the name of the document!
- NOTE: keep the box “Add as a new version to existing files” ticked in:
- After you’ve selected the file and clicked OK, you get the next window with the metadata of the document, click either “Save” or “Check in”:
Make sure that the document has been automatically checked in by ensuring that the little green check-in symbol has disappeared (see next picture).
IF for some reason the document has not been successfully checked-in, even though your document has been up-loaded, OR you want to check-in the document again for some other reason, you can also re-trace your steps from when you made the check-out:
- Click on the three dots next to the name of the document
- Click on the next three dots (after Follow) in the window
- Select “Check In”
- Next the window below will appear
- “Choose Minor version” (it does not really signify, the version history is in use so that the Secretariat can retrieve older versions in case a document has been e.g. replaced by the wrong file content)
- Do not write comments
- Click OK
If someone else has checked out a document and you try to upload a document with your changes, then the message…
…will appear. You will only be able to upload a file with the name once that person has checked the document back in.
To sum up:
Check-in – check-out is a way of letting the other group members know that you are working on the document, it does not prevent others from downloading the old copy it only prevents somebody else to upload a new version of the document.
If you want to dive deeper into the SharePoint check-in-philosophy you can find extensive descriptions from Microsoft online, e.g.
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