SharePoint CheatSheet for Site Owners

In setting up your SharePoint site with the Web Team, as the Site Owner you should have selected certain featuresto use on your site, such as announcements, a calendar, a documents sharing space, etc. This document will address the most basic functions a Site Owner will need to perform in the most common features. Anything not covered here should be covered in the online SharePoint Training videos available on the intranet

( It is recommended that every site owner complete the entire series of SharePoint Training videos. Additional support questions should be directed to the Web Team.

Site Owners are responsible for:

  • creating and maintaining all user permissions
  • creating new spaces within the SharePoint site
  • ensuring accuracy and up-to-date information on the site

Add users to the site

  1. Visitors to every site will either be classified in one of three default permission groups: visitors, members, or owners. The site owner is the owner. Members of your group are members. Visitors is everyone else.
  2. From the QuickLaunch bar, click on “People and Groups.”
  3. Click on the “New” button toward the top of the screen, and choose “Add Users.” Enter the last name into the “Users/Groups” box and click on the “Check Names” icon underneath. Ensure that the user (or users) names are entered correctly.
  4. Under “Give Permission” select “Add users to a SharePoint group” and choose the appropriate group – most likely the group with your group’s name and “members” after it.
  5. If you want to send a welcome email to the new users you can choose that option as well, and type a personal message to your new users.
  6. Click on “OK.”

Set new permissions for members, owners, or visitors

  1. From the Quick Launch bar, click on “People and Groups.”
  2. Click on “Site Permissions” on the left.
  3. This next screen lists the default permission levels for each group – your members (contribute), owners (full control), and visitors (read).
  4. Click on the name of any one group to see (or edit) the permissions.
  5. Check and uncheck the permissions on the right, and then click on “OK.”

Note: Make sure to leave Visitors as “Read Only.”

Set individual user permissions

  1. To set permissions for an individual separate from the group he or she belongs to (e.g. “members”), start by clicking on on “People and Groups” in the Quick Launch bar.
  2. Click on “Site Permissions” on the left.
  3. From the “New” button, click on “Add Users.”
  4. Enter the last name into the “Users/Groups” box and click on the “Check Names” icon underneath. Ensure that the user (or users) names are entered correctly.
  5. Under “Give Permission” select the second option: “Give users permission directly.”
  6. Choose which level of permission you wish the user(s) to have, select whether or not to send a new welcome email message, then click on “OK.”

Modifying the Quick Launch bar (Global Navigation) or the Top Link bar (Current Navigation)

  1. Click on “Site Actions” in the upper left and choose “Site Settings.”
  2. Under the “Look and Feel” category, click on “Navigation.”
  3. Scroll down on the next page and you’ll see a category “Navigation Editing and Sorting.”
  4. To add a new link to the top of the page (the Top Link Bar), refer to the category labeled “Global Navigation.” Make sure you highlight “Global Navigation,” then choose “Add Heading” and provide the URL information.
  5. To add a new link to the side/left of the page (the Quick Launch Bar), refer to the category labeled “Current Navigation.” Make sure you highlight “Current Navigation,” then choose “Add Heading” or “Add Link.” Headings can be used to group like links together.
  6. To add a new link or heading, delete existing links or headings, or change the order, simply highlight the appropriate item in the list and use the control buttons at the top.
  7. When done, click on “OK.

Modify the site's title, description and icon

  1. Click on “Site Actions” in the upper left and choose “Site Settings.”
  2. Under the “Look and Feel” category, click on “Title, Description, and Icon”
  3. The next page has fields for the site’s title and description, as well as a field for the URL for your desired logo image (recommended to be 20x20 pixels), and a brief description for the logo image.

Change the Site Theme

  1. Click on “Site Actions” in the upper left and choose “Site Settings.”
  2. Under the “Look and Feel” category, click on “Site Theme.”
  3. Click on each theme to see a preview on the left.
  4. When you have chosen the theme you desire, click on “Apply.”

Add or Modify Web Parts

  1. Remember that Web Parts are those little widgets that you can add that take the content from one of the site areas you’ve developed (like a calendar, announcements, etc.) and display that content on the “homepage” for your site.
  2. Click on “Site Actions” in the upper left and choose “Edit Page.”
  3. To add a Web Part, click on the “Add a Web Part” banner then choose which type of Web Part you wish to add to your site (Tasks, Shared Documents, etc.), and click on “OK.”
  4. To rename or resize a Web Part, click on the small “edit” link in the upper right corner of the Web Part and choose “Modify Shared Web Part.” All editing choices will appear on the right in a new pane. Click on “OK” when done.

Delete WebParts and Workspaces

  1. Click on the “View All Site Content” link in the upper left of your site
  2. Each Web Part and Workspace within the site will be listed, including when it was last updated.
  3. To delete a particular Web Part or Workspace, click on its name.
  4. On the next screen, from the “Site Actions” button in the upper right, choose “Site Settings.”
  5. Under the Site Administration category, click on “Delete This Site.”
  6. You will see a big warning and need to confirm you wish to delete it.

Create a Document Workspace

  1. When you need a temporary site for collaborating on a single document, you can create a Document Workspace.
  2. Open your document library and hover over the document you wish to share. Click on the drop-down arrow and from “Send to” choose “Create Document Workspace.”
  3. Click on “OK.”
  4. You can now add announcements, links, and invite other members to share the workspace.
  5. Once the document has been completed, the document should be stored in the site’s Shared Documents Library or elsewhere on the intranet.

Enable the version control features in a SharePoint Library

  1. By default, versioning (tracking different versions of a document) is turned off for all shared documents in SharePoint.
  2. To turn it on, go to your Shared Documents library, click on the “Settings” button at the top, and choose “Document Library Settings.”
  3. From the next screen, you can enable many different features for your documents in this library (approval requirements, document security, etc.).
  4. The versioning option is the second one on the list: Document Version History. You can opt to enable edited documents to display as major (1, 2, etc.) or minor (1.0, 1.1) versions. You can also choose how many versions to retain at any given time.
  5. The last option on the list can require that users check out items before editing them – forcing versioning. If you wish to use versioning, pick “Yes” for this option.
  6. Click on “OK.”

Note: To view any document’s version history, hover over the document’s name in the library, click on the down arrow, and choose “Version History.” To restore a document to an earlier version, hover over the document version’s date and time, click on the down arrow, and choose “Restore.”