Tracy van der Schyff

#Office365Challenge Today I’ll share some valuable resources around Publishing Sites in SharePoint.

After days of research and testing stuff on SharePoint you’d think I’m an expert at Publishing pages – but oh no, I’m only ready to admit defeat. I honestly cannot get my head around this. I think I’m so used to working in “hippy free” wiki page environments that this idea of creating pages which gets authored, approved then published – scares me. I will need to revisit this before my 365 Days are over. Maybe then I’ve grown up a bit and I’m prepared to listen. I doubt it.

I do understand that Publishing sites allows for companies to have page layouts for different pages. The user only adds the content and the template applies the styling. “Publishing pages are designed for users who do not have expertise in creating or editing Web sites.” Maybe that’s why this is difficult for me, I’m no expert but I’m very close to being able to bake a cake using PowerPoint or Wiki Pages. I’m very passionate about what I do, and I’m fortunate to be very creative with the tools I have in Microsoft Office. And that brings me to my mental block with Sway – but that’s a discussion for another day….

So here’s a consolation prize, I’ve put together some of the great resources I’ve come across whilst trying to make sense of Publishing Pages. Enjoy, and please reach out to me if you think you can help this stubborn, blonde, South African biker girl understand Publishing pages better.

Build a SharePoint publishing site

SharePoint publishing site is a site that’s built using a publishing site template. It’s a site where authoring and publishing are more structured and where content management processes are enforced. Publishing sites are typically used to create enterprise intranets, communication portals, and public websites.

Publishing sites have unique features that streamline the authoring, approving, and publishing processes. These features are enabled automatically when you create a publishing site and include page layouts, column types, web parts, lists, and libraries.

In this blog you will learn about:

• Create a publishing portal
• Create a publishing sub-site
• Create a publishing sub-site with approval workflow
• Activate publishing features

Features enabled in a SharePoint Online publishing site

This article explains the features available when you activate the publishing infrastructure in a SharePoint Online site.

In this blog you will learn about:

• Activate the publishing infrastructure feature
• Publishing features
  • Navigation and ribbon
  • Lists and libraries
  • Web parts
  • Master pages, page layouts, content types, and column
  • Users and permissions

Work with a publishing approval workflow

In this blog you will learn about:

• Use a publishing approval workflow
  • Submit a page for approval
  • Cancel approval
  • Check the approval status
• Add a publishing approval workflow to the site collection
• Customize or create a publishing approval workflow

Create and manage pages in a publishing site

In this blog you will learn about:

• A brief tour of the ribbon
• Create a publishing page
• Edit a publishing page
• Check out a publishing page
• Check in a publishing page
• Publish or unpublish a page
• Delete a publishing page
• Restore a deleted page from the Recycle Bin

Create a publishing page layout

Overview of my challenge: As an absolute lover of all things Microsoft, I’ve decided to undertake the challenge, of writing a blog every single day, for the next 365 days. Crazy, I know. And I’ll try my best, but if I cannot find something good to say about Office 365 and the Tools it includes for 365 days, I’m changing my profession. So let’s write this epic tale of “Around the Office in 365 Days”. My ode to Microsoft Office 365.

Keep in mind that these tips and tricks do not only apply to Office 365 – but where applicable, to the overall Microsoft Office Suite and SharePoint.