Hey everyone, Kevin here. Today I want to show you how you can use document libraries in Microsoft SharePoint. First off, what is a document library? Well, it’s a place where you can store files. Think of a Word document or maybe an Excel spreadsheet or even an image file. And then those files are easily accessible by other people on your team. Now this might sound a lot like Microsoft OneDrive. OneDrive is focused on your own personal cloud storage space. While with SharePoint document libraries, it’s focused more on team storage space. We’re going to walk through all of the details today of how document libraries work. We’ll even look at how they show up in Microsoft Teams. If you want to jump around this video, feel free to use the timestamps down below. All right, let’s jump on the PC and let’s get started. To be able to use a SharePoint document library, first off, we need to get to SharePoint. And by far the easiest way to get to SharePoint is to head to the website office.com and then log in with your credentials. Once you land on office.com, over on the left-hand side, you’ll see all of your different app tiles. And right here, you’ll see the icon for SharePoint. Let’s click on that. This drops us on the SharePoint homepage. And here I can see all of the different SharePoint sites that I have access to. Now chances are if you’re working with a team, you’ll already have a SharePoint site established. Over on the left-hand side, you can navigate back to an existing SharePoint site. Alternatively, you can also come up to search and you can search for any teams that you might be part of. Now let’s say maybe you’re kicking off a new project and you want a document library for that project. Up here in the top left-hand corner, you can click on create site and you can run through the process of creating a brand new SharePoint site. If you’re interested in just an all up overview of SharePoint and how SharePoint works, I’ve included a link to a video in the description that will just give a nice introduction to SharePoint. Right here, I want to go to an existing SharePoint site for the marketing team. I’ll click on this. This now drops me into the marketing team’s SharePoint site. And if you went through the process of creating a new SharePoint site, it’ll look pretty similar to what you see here. I’ve only made a few very minor tweaks to what this page looks like. And by default, every new SharePoint site also has a document library. Over on the left-hand side, you’ll see on the navigation, there’s an option for documents. I can click into this and this drops me into my document library. Now let’s say you want to create additional document libraries. Here I’ll click back on home and there’s a new menu. Over here when I click on new, I can set up additional document libraries. So here I’ll click on new. And for this example, maybe I want to create another place where our team can store files related to training. Here I’ll type in training and I also want to show this in the site navigation. This will add a link over on the left-hand side. Next, I’ll click on create. This has now created another new document repository. Over on the left-hand side, I can now see this document library in my navigation. And here I can start working with files. Now in this example, I want to jump back to just the default document library. So, I’ll click over here on documents and I’ll navigate to that document library. I’m now in the default document library. But as you can see, a SharePoint site can have any number of document libraries. So, you can set it up however you want to make it easy for you to work with your team. Here within the document library, let’s say I want to add some new content. So maybe I want to create a document that the team can work on. Over here, I can click on new and here I can add a folder. Think of it like File Explorer. I can organize this how I want. Down below I can also create different types of files, a Word document, an Excel, a PowerPoint presentation and the list goes on with other types. Alternatively, maybe I’ve already created content maybe just on my local PC. I can also upload that directly into my document library for others to access. Right up here I can click on upload and I can upload a file, a folder or even a template. Now along with clicking on this button to get content into SharePoint, I can also drag and drop content. I’ll move my browser window over a little bit and here’s a Word document that I want to place into my document library. I’ll click on this, and I’ll drag and drop it over into SharePoint. And here you can see the file now shows up in my document library. When you look at all of the different files in my document library, you’ll see that they’re different file types. Once again this is just standard cloud storage. I could place any types of files within my document library. Now that I’ve placed a file in my document library, what are some of the benefits of doing this? Well, one of the biggest benefits is that you can work together with others on these files. Here’s my file that I just uploaded called delivery options and when I hover over it, I see these two icons appear. The first one is the sharing icon. Let’s click on this. This opens up the share dialog and here I can now share this file with others. Right at the top I can choose who has access to this file. Right now, it’s set so anyone in my organization can go in and edit this file. Here I could decide whether I want to allow other people to be able to edit or not and I have a few other options as well. All the defaults look good to me so I’ll click on apply. And right here I can type in a name of a person who I want to share this with. I think it’d be good if maybe the president of our company reviewed all of our delivery options so I’ll select Patti right here. I could add more people, I could type in a message, or I could just get a link or include a link in email. For now this looks good so I’ll click on send. I’ve now shared the document and one of the really great things is we can now work on this document together in real time. And to just show you how this works let me click into delivery options. I’m now in the document and if we look here in the top right-hand corner you can see that Patti is now also currently in the document. So, as I go in and make changes or as Patti comes in and makes changes, I’ll see them appear in real time. And look at that. It looks like Patti just left a comment on this document. This looks great. Although right now it’s just me and Patti in this document we can have any number of people come into this document and we can all work on it together simultaneously. And although we’re in Word here this also works with PowerPoint. This also works in Excel. We can all work together at once. Another benefit of working with document libraries is you get access to version history. So, here’s that document that I just shared with Patti called delivery options. And Patti has now gone in, and she started making changes to it. Maybe I don’t like all the changes that she’s making, and I want to revert it. Over here I can click on the ellipsis. This opens up a context menu and within this menu there is the option for version history. When I click on this, I can see all of the different versions of the document. So here’s the original version that I uploaded. And then a few minutes later Patti came in and she made some changes. Now I could come in here and I could go back to the original version. I could view it. I could even restore it, or I could delete it. So, this way anytime changes are made to the document you can always go back and jump to a previous version if you need to. As I work on this document with Patti, I requested that she let me know when she makes any types of changes to the document. And I know Patti’s pretty busy and she probably won’t follow up with me even though she does go in and she reviews the document. Luckily I could have the document library tell me when changes are made. Over here, once again, I’ll click on the ellipsis and there’s an option to alert me. This opens up a prompt where I can set up my alert. Right down here, I can get an email anytime a change happens, or I could even get a text message. And here I could specify when I want to be alerted. So let’s say any change happens, I want to make sure I get notified about that. Here I could choose whether I want it to aggregate the different alerts or just send it immediately. I’ll have it set to send notification immediately and then click on OK. Hopefully by now you’re starting to see the many benefits of working with document libraries. Along with simply working on files, I can also customize this experience right here. So right now we’re working on this delivery options document and this is the hot document that we need to get done. Over here, I can click on the ellipsis, and I could pin this to the top. So this way it makes that document a little bit more prominent. Down below, I can also add columns to my documents. So right here I’ll click on add column and let’s add a single line of text. I’ll use this to describe the current status of the document. This opens up a pane over on the right-hand side and I’ll call this status. Once I’m done, I’ll go down and click on save. I now see my new column and I can now come in here and right click on one of these files. I could go down to details and here I can type in the status. So maybe this one right here is final. I’ll hit enter to save and that’ll save the status for this file. Now alternatively, I can also click on this edit in grid view and here too I could quickly go through and update all of the values in this column. I’ll exit for now and here we see that this flyer here is currently in the final state. Along with adding a column, I could also customize this view by deciding how I want to visualize all of these files. Now if you look here I have some image files in here and seeing image files in a list really isn’t that helpful. Up here in the top right-hand corner, I can click on all documents and here I could choose how I want to see this list. So let’s say that maybe you have a lot of files here. You can switch it to a more compact view. Or I have these image files, I could switch to a tile view and here I get a thumbnail preview of what those images look like. I could even come in here and I could create my own view and then I could save that view so I could easily come back to it in the future. Along with customizing the view, I can also filter the view, so I only see the files that I’m interested in. Up here in the top right-hand corner, there’s a filter icon. When I open this up, I could filter based on date, I could filter based on who modified it or even the type of the file. I’m working with Patti on this delivery options file so I could just sort it to files that Patti modified and here it just limits my view to this one specific file. So it helps me get back to the files that I care about quickly. So far we’ve been looking at how you can work with all of your files directly on the SharePoint site. But next I want to show you how you can access your SharePoint document libraries from outside of SharePoint. First I want to show you how you can get back to your files using File Explorer. Right up here you have the option to sync your files with your PC. This will make it available in File Explorer and you’ll also get an offline copy. Let’s click on this. I get a prompt from OneDrive asking me if I want to set it up. I’ll click on sign in. The next prompt tells me that it’s setting up a folder on my computer for these files. I’ll click on next. And it looks like it is all ready to go. Let’s open up the OneDrive folder. And look at that. This now drops me in File Explorer, and I now have a new section for my organization. And over on the right-hand side, I can see my document library. When I click on this, I can now see all of the different files. Now I can keep a copy on my computer as well. If I right click, right down here I can choose to always keep this file on my device. So, this is a very easy way to get back to your document library files. I can also get back to all of my document library files from directly within all of the different Office apps including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Here I am in Word and over on the left-hand side, if I click on open, here I see a new option for SharePoint sites. When I click on this, I see all of the different sites that I have access to. Right up at the top, I see the marketing team and when I click on that, I see my two document libraries. I have documents and then the new one I created called training. When I click into documents, here I see all of my different Word files and here’s that delivery options file. I can open it up and now I can edit this document. Here I am now in Microsoft Teams, and I want to show you how Teams works together with SharePoint. If you’ve never used Microsoft Teams before and you want to learn about how to use it, I’ve included a link in the description. Here within Teams over on the left-hand side, I can see all of my different teams and underneath each one of these teams I can also see all of the associated channels. Now this one might look familiar. This is the Kevin Cookie Company marketing team. Anytime you create a team in Microsoft Teams, you’re also creating a SharePoint site. SharePoint provides all of the storage for Microsoft Teams. To demonstrate what I mean, let me click down below on new conversation and I’ll upload a file here. I’ll move Teams over and let me take this file and I’ll upload it into this conversation. Now that I finished uploading my file, I’ll send this message through, and this now shows up in Microsoft Teams. Here I’ll now go up to files up on top and here within files I see my new Word document that I uploaded. Now what’s interesting is right up here on the top bar, I have the option to open in SharePoint. Let me click on this. This drops me into SharePoint and here I could see the file that I just created or uploaded via Teams but really the file gets uploaded into SharePoint. Once again SharePoint provides all of the storage for Teams, and here I can see that I’m currently in the general folder. If I click back into documents, here once again, I can see all of my files that we were working with earlier directly within this SharePoint site. Back within Teams, anytime I create a channel the channel also gets a subfolder created within SharePoint. So here once again on the marketing team, I’ll click on the ellipsis and let me add a new channel. I’m going to call this new channel growth hacking and then click on add. My new channel is now created. Let me jump back over into SharePoint. Back within SharePoint, here you’ll see there’s a new folder in my library called growth hacking. When I click into it, it’s currently empty. So, the way to think of this is this is my top-level site or my team in Microsoft Teams and any channels that I create within Teams will have a folder underneath that main document library. So here once again, I see my general channel and my growth hacking channel. Any files uploaded to those channels will show up within these folders. By default, all Microsoft Teams automatically have a SharePoint site associated with them. However not all SharePoint sites have Teams associated with them. However, that’s easy to change if you want. Here I’m currently in a new SharePoint site and this doesn’t have a Microsoft Team associated with it. Down here in the bottom left-hand corner, I have the option to add Microsoft Teams. This will add a new team, it’ll add a new channel, and then any files I upload within that team will automatically show up within the document library of this site. Hopefully all of that is making sense. It is a little bit confusing but the thing to keep in mind is that SharePoint is the storage for any files that you upload within Teams, and any team, and all channels also show up within SharePoint. I also want to show you a way that you can more prominently show document libraries within your channels. Here I am in the general channel of the KCC marketing team and remember earlier I created that training document library. Maybe I want to make sure that everyone on the marketing team has easy access to it. Up here on the top tabs, I can click on this plus icon. This opens up all of my different apps, I’ll click on SharePoint over here. By default, it’s currently set to the KCC marketing team and here I can see all of my different files and also document libraries. Right over here, I can click into document libraries. Here I see the default one that we’ve been working in most of this video, but here I see the other one that I created at the beginning called training. I can click on that and then click on save. Just like that now it adds a new tab for training and any of my team members who come into the general channel, they could very easily get to all of the training content and any content that I upload to that document library. As you can probably tell by now, Microsoft is doing a very fantastic job at connecting all of their different products. In fact, here I am in Microsoft OneDrive. This is my own personal storage space. Over on the left-hand side, here too I can see all of my different shared libraries. Here I’ll click into the marketing team and here too I see my different document libraries. Now let’s say that in OneDrive I started working on a document, but I really should have shared it with the team through a team site. Luckily, I could very easily change it or move it over to that team site. Here for example, I have a spreadsheet with all of our cookies sold data. I can click on the ellipsis over here and I can go down to move to. This opens up a pane over on the right-hand side and I can take a file from my OneDrive and I can now move it to any one of my SharePoint sites. So here I’ll click on the marketing team and then here again, I can choose the document library where I want to save it. I’ll put it in the main documents folder and then click on move here. I see now that the document has been moved, I’ll click over here on documents. This drops me into the document library and here I can see my cookies sold file. So it’s very easy to move files back and forth between OneDrive and SharePoint depending on how you want to make that file available to others. We’ve touched on a lot today of how you can use document libraries. One of the most powerful ways that you can use document libraries is with automation using Power Automate. Right back within the document library, up on the top tabs, there’s the option for automate. When you click on this, this opens up Power Automate and here I can create a new flow. If you’ve never heard of Power Automate before, I’ve included a link to a video in the description that will give you all of the background of how you can use it. But at a very high level, you can set up different flows using a document library. Let’s take the first one as an example. Here anytime a file is added, you can receive an email about a file being added. You can even set up approval flows. So there are all sorts of different pre-created flows that you can use and you could even go in and create your own flows. So it’s extremely powerful when you tie together document libraries together with Power Automate. All right, well that’s how you can use document libraries. If you enjoyed this video, please give it a thumbs up. To see more videos like this in the future, please consider subscribing. Also, if you want to see me cover any other topics on this channel, leave a note down below. All right, well that’s all I have for you today. I hope you enjoyed and as always, I hope to see you next time. Bye.