All SharePoint content is accessed through a site. A SharePoint site is the container for lists and libraries and provides a starting point for basic administration. The content, lists, libraries, and basic look and feel of a site is initially determined by the Site Template used to create the site.

SharePoint offers a couple of ways to add content to the pages in a site. The latest technique and the one implemented by the Team Site template is through wiki style pages. Another method that has been part of SharePoint since the beginning is the use of Web Parts and Web Part pages. Both techniques are similar in the output that can be created, and both Web Part pages and wiki pages share the ability to add Web Parts to them.

A SharePoint Forms library is a special library designed to store Microsoft InfoPath form documents. Microsoft InfoPath comes with a designer tool for graphically creating forms with a wide assortment of fields and controls. The InfoPath Designer can then be used to publish the forms you design to SharePoint rendering them as web page templates for Forms libraries. At the time of this writing Microsoft had stated that InfoPath would be retired. For SharePoint 2016 they left support for the tool in but there is not a 2016 version of the client tools. This means you can still use it in SharePoint 2016 but to create custom forms you use the InfoPath 2013 Designer tool. It is possible that future version of SharePoint will not support InfoPath forms at all. For this reason coverage of this chapter is optional for this course.

One method of customizing SharePoint, in a way that can be reused throughout the site or site collection or even the whole farm, is to create Site Columns and Content Types. Site columns are the simplest element; they are essentially the same as list and library columns except that you create them at the site level and then they can be used throughout that site and any child site. Content Types are a combination of Site Columns as well as additional settings and information such as document templates and workflows. Content Types, once created, can then be linked to lists and libraries.

Permissions on a SharePoint site are assigned when a site is created. The default is that permissions assigned to the root of a site collection are inherited by child sites. At any time, permissions inheritance can be turned off at a site, list, library, or even at the item level in a list or library. The permissions themselves can be assigned to either SharePoint groups, individual users, or groups created outside of SharePoint such as Windows groups.

SharePoint offers users a place for social collaboration in the form of personal sites. The experience and functionality is very similar to popular social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn. The main difference being that it is controlled by the SharePoint Farm and exposure is typically limited to internal networks.