SharePoint: Beyond the Basics

Creating an approval workflow in SharePoint allows you to automate the review and sign-off process for documents, forms, or list items, routing them to designated approvers before they are finalized or published. In SharePoint Online, approval workflows are most effectively built using Power Automate (formerly Microsoft Flow), which integrates natively with SharePoint and offers flexible, multi-step approval configurations. To set up a basic approval workflow, navigate to the SharePoint list or library where the item requiring approval resides, then open Power Automate from the Automate menu and select a built-in approval template such as Request sign-off or create a custom flow. You configure the approver — a specific person, a group, or a dynamic assignment based on item properties — define the approval actions when approved or rejected, and set up email notifications to keep all parties informed throughout the process. Items awaiting approval can be tracked in the Power Automate Approvals center, where approvers can review and respond directly from email or the approvals interface. For organizations on SharePoint on-premises, Designer-based workflows are the traditional approach, though Microsoft has shifted its workflow capabilities to Power Automate for modern environments. Approval workflows significantly reduce the manual follow-up associated with multi-reviewer processes and create a documented record of who approved what and when.

Managing users and permissions in SharePoint is essential for controlling who can view, edit, or manage content across your sites, libraries, and lists. SharePoint uses a hierarchical permissions model in which permissions can be set at the site collection, site, library, list, or individual item level. At the most practical level, SharePoint provides default permission levels — Owner (full control), Member (edit), and Visitor (read-only) — associated with corresponding SharePoint groups. To manage permissions, navigate to Site Settings and then Site Permissions, where you can add users or security groups to existing SharePoint groups, create custom permission levels for more granular control, or break permission inheritance on a specific library or item to apply unique permissions. Best practice is to manage permissions through security groups (preferably synced from Azure Active Directory) rather than assigning permissions to individual users — this makes ongoing management far more scalable and reduces the risk of orphaned permissions when employees leave. Regularly auditing site permissions helps identify over-provisioned access or permissions that were granted for a temporary project but never removed. For SharePoint Online, the SharePoint admin center and Microsoft 365 admin center provide additional tools for managing site access at scale across the organization.

Displaying Excel spreadsheet data directly on a SharePoint page allows teams to surface key information without requiring page visitors to download a file. In SharePoint Online, the most flexible approach is to use the File Viewer web part, which can render an Excel file stored in a SharePoint library directly on the page in a read-only embedded view. To add it, edit the SharePoint page, add a new web part, select the File Viewer option, and browse to the Excel file in your SharePoint library. The embedded view allows visitors to scroll through the spreadsheet data without leaving the page. For more dynamic display options, the Excel web part allows you to specify a named range or table within the workbook to display, filtering the view to only the relevant portion of a large spreadsheet. For data that changes frequently, storing the Excel file in SharePoint (rather than on a local drive) ensures the embedded view always reflects the latest saved version. For more advanced scenarios — such as interactive filtering or visualization — Microsoft Lists or Power BI embedded reports offer richer data display options. Embedding data directly on SharePoint pages reduces the friction of distributing reports and ensures that all team members are viewing the same current version of critical data.

Views in SharePoint lists and libraries are customizable filters and display configurations that control which items are shown, in what order, and with which columns visible — without changing the underlying data. Creating effective views is one of the most impactful ways to make a SharePoint list or library useful for different teams and use cases. To create a new view, navigate to the list or library, click the View Options menu (typically in the upper right), and select Create new view. You can specify which columns to display, apply filters to show only certain items based on field values, sort by one or more fields, and group items by a specific field for a more structured layout. Calculated columns can be added specifically for a view to display derived data. Once created, views are accessible from the view switcher in the list or library header. Setting a default view determines what users see when they navigate to the list. Views can also be personal (visible only to you) or public (shared with all site members). For lists with diverse audiences — for example, a task list used by both managers and team members — creating role-specific views with pre-applied filters makes the list immediately relevant to each audience without requiring manual filtering each time they visit.

Sub-sites in SharePoint are separate sites nested within a parent site collection, used to create a hierarchical structure where different teams or departments have their own dedicated space with independent permissions and navigation, while remaining accessible within the broader organizational SharePoint environment. To create a sub-site in SharePoint Online, navigate to Site Contents of the parent site, click New, and select Subsite (note: Microsoft has been moving toward Hub Sites as the preferred modern alternative to sub-sites for organizational structure). Configure the sub-site with its own title, URL path, template, and permission inheritance settings. Linking pages together within and across SharePoint sites is accomplished through the Text and Navigation web parts — adding hyperlinks in page content, configuring the Quick Launch navigation on the left sidebar to include links to related pages or sub-sites, and using the Global Navigation settings to create a consistent top navigation bar across the site collection. For SharePoint Online, Hub Sites provide a more scalable alternative: multiple separate site collections can be associated with a hub, sharing a common navigation bar and theme while remaining independently managed. Well-structured site architecture with clear navigation links reduces the time employees spend searching for information and improves adoption of SharePoint as a central work hub.