Using SharePoint Online

Make the most out of SharePoint Online (SPO)

Site provisioning, the creation of new sites in SharePoint Online, can take place once your unit has been through the onboarding process.

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Onboarding is the process by which a department, college of other equivalent part of the University sets up their presence in SharePoint Online, outside OxIntranet

At least one Business Owner (BO) and one SharePoint Network Administrator (SNA) must be nominated to oversee the use of SharePoint Online in your unit. The BO or SNA must then complete the onboarding form, supplying:

  • The unit name, as per the University organisation structure
  • The email address for at least one Business Owner
  • The email address for at least one Site Network Administrator

If your unit cannot be located in the University organisation structure, please contact the Nexus team directly.

When approved by the Nexus team, an automated email will be sent to advise that your unit has successfully been onboarded to SharePoint Online.

A unit-wide strategy should be developed for your unit's use of SharePoint Online.

Your unit must have been through the onboarding process

If your unit is not listed in the onboarded entity list, check with your unit’s IT support team about onboarding with SharePoint Online.

 

Site provisioning is the process by which new sites are created in SharePoint Online (SPO). If you are using OxIntranet, this provisioning will be carried out by the OxIntranet team. 

To prevent the creation of new standalone sites that may lead to compliance and accountability issues, each unit must have been through the onboarding process before people in the unit can create new SPO sites.

Site provisioning follows the following process:

  1. The new site owner consults their SNA regarding:
  2. The site owner, or SNA on their behalf, submit a request through the SharePoint Online Site service request
  3. The SNA receives and approves an automated email
  4. The Nexus team use the request details to generate the new site
  5. The Nexus team send a new site notification to the Site Owner
  6. If appropriate, the SNA links the new site to a Hub

OxIntranet is an area of SharePoint, designed to bring 'intranet' style content together in a way that will allow staff and students to find information from across the collegiate University that is relevant to them. 

There will be separate onboarding and governance processes for OxIntranet sites and for the wider SharePoint Online platform. Use the follow guidance to determine which kind of site to request:

  OxIntranet Site SharePoint Site
Purpose Designed to share information broadly across a department, college, or the wider University. It serves as a central point for news, policies, events and tools. ​ Designed for collaboration among a specific group of people, such as a project team or department. It facilitates teamwork and project management. ​
Audience A large audience, such as all staff or students in a department or college, or a wider audience of significant size across the University. ​ Smaller, more focused audience, usually limited to team members or specific departments or trams. ​
Content Management Focuses on communication and information dissemination. Content is managed by authorised editors. ​ Collaborative environment where most members can contribute and edit content. ​
Design and Branding Consistent theme and brand throughout allowing users to identify trusted information. ​ No consistent theme. ​
Functionality Enhanced features available to achieve more complex needs than standard SharePoint sites. Standard offering to meet specific needs of a team or project. ​

 

Please note: Owners of OxIntranet content will need to follow certain content guidelines, but will receive enhanced support and training to facilitate this.

A new process will be introduced in Michaelmas term 2025 for requesting and provisioning OxIntranet sites. Go to OxIntranet for more details.

Team sites and communication sites are the two standard SharePoint Online site types, with hub sites assisting in the organisation of your various sites. 

Team sites

Team sites are similar to traditional SharePoint sites and focus on collaboration.

See also: Team sites in SharePoint (Microsoft)

Communication sites

Communication sites are aimed more at broadcasting messages to a wide audience and can create engaging content, so are the better choice for creating an intranet.

Hub sites

SharePoint Online sites can also be designated as hubs, which connect and organise sites for the project, department or college.

SharePoint Online hubs model relationships as links, rather than a hierarchy or ownership, with each associated site retaining their permission settings.

If you are planning on using your site for sharing information for a wide audience (this usually applies to communications and hub sites), you will need to request an OxIntranet site. Go to the OxIntranet page for more information. 

Document Libraries

Libraries are file repositories, secure places where you and your co-workers can store files, access them from any device at any time, and work on them together. For example, to store all files related to a specific project.

Libraries allow you to:

  • Create folders to separate and organise files within the library
  • Check documents out to make sure that only one person can edit them at any given time
  • Keep different versions of files, and see the versioning history of documents
  • Assign metadata, such as public/internal/confidential sensitivity to a document, or when a document was reviewed

There are four different document library types:

  • Document library: Store documents
  • Picture library: Store pictures in Teams sites, and in Comms sites when the “Team and Collaboration” site features have been enabled by a site administrator
  • Site assets library: Store images, graphics and other common elements used in your site
  • Site pages library: Store HTML and Active Content pages in your site

See also: Documents and libraries in SharePoint (Microsoft)

Apps and web parts

Apps and web parts are the building blocks of a page in SharePoint Online.

Web Parts provide ways to customise the content displayed and the layout of a site. Apps are additional applications such as calendars, notebooks and document libraries, that can be added to provide sites with specific information or functionality.

Additional apps and web parts are available to teams making use of OxIntranet. They are not supported for sites that sit outside of the OxIntranet structure and governance.

See also: Pages in SharePoint (Microsoft)

Lists

A SharePoint Online list is a collection of data that users can share with their site members. Microsoft Lists help users organise, collaborate, and share information. Using lists, users can, for example, create and share lists that help people track issues, routines, contacts, inventory and more. Any web part in SharePoint that holds content is a SharePoint list.

See also: Data and lists in SharePoint (Microsoft)

By default, SharePoint Online provides the following permissions groups:

  • Site Owners: Full permissions. Responsible for managing access and permissions, site-level navigation (web parts), all structures (libraries, folders and document sets), and content held in the site
  • Site Members: Edit permissions. Create and edit content, similar to being a member in Microsoft Teams
  • Site Visitors: Read permissions. Browse, read and download content (if permitted)

If further access control requirements are needed, Site Administrators and Site Owners can create additional SharePoint groups for the site and assign them with custom permission levels.

External users can collaborate or access content using their own accounts in line with OneDrive and MS Teams.

See also: Site governance, permission, and sharing for site owners (Microsoft)

There are currently several issues around compliance and retention. The University does not have a single source of unified ownership or guidance, and the tools provided by the current SharePoint Online licence are limited and do not include the event-based triggers that many retention schedules use.

To date, retention and compliance labels and tools are not available in SharePoint Online. Once a way forward is agreed, retention tools will be implemented retrospectively for existing sites, and made available to new sites where required.

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