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Creating Custom Lists, Libraries, and Web Parts

The key benefits to IcePORTAL are achieved by customizing the default lists, document libraries, and web parts or creating new ones to meet your company needs. Every type of list or library has customizable columns (also called fields) that can be named as you wish and can contain text, numbers, pre-defined choices, rich text, or calculations.

Some examples of how you can use modules are:

Create an Employee Directory with custom fields/columns for date of birth, employee number, department, etc. This list would best be created by starting with a new Contacts List which would include, by default, most of the columns or fields such as First Name, Last Name, Address, Title, Phone Number, etc. that you would want for an Employee Directory. You can also define custom views so you could view employees sorted by department or by last name.
Create a Customer Contact/Sales Lead lists. You could create multiple lists for different divisions or sales department or create one large customer list but have an "assigned to" field so you know which department or person in your company manages that customer. You can also add custom columns/fields for Customer Number, Contract Numbers, Credit Limits, etc. You can even keep track of sales opportunities for each of these customers and track award/won and loss statistics.
Create a Company Events calendar so that all employees can see upcoming company-wide events. Individual employees can view the calendar of events in a list view or a week/month calendar view. You can even subscribe to a calendar/events list so that they appear within Microsoft Outlook alongside your personal calendar (this features requires the IceMAIL messaging service to be active aong with the IcePORTAL service).
Create a Company Forms document library and store company fax cover letters, expense report forms, employee benefit forms, etc. Your company office administrator or manager would simply update these forms on the IcePORTAL rather than have to email the forms to everyone when they are occasionally updated.
Create an Employee in/Out Board where your employees can indicate they will be out of the office on a certain day. You can even have alerts for whenever a new entry is posted go to the Human Resources department so they can track vacations/leave.
Create custom portal pages or tabs for each department. By having multiple sub-portals within your overall portal, you can have unique content, document libraries, and lists that only certain departments or employees can access. Examples of this might be the Finance department, Board of Directors, Technical, or individual Project Teams.

How to Create Custom Lists and Libraries

Clicking on Create from the Site Actions drop down menu on the top right of your portal will display a list. This list contains all of the types of modules/web parts or sub sites that you can create. From this list, you can create new document library giving it a unique name to which you can optionally give unique permissions so only certain users can view or add/change files. You can also create company calendars, customer contact lists, picture libraries, or custom forms.

Below is a list of the types of content that can be created within IcePORTAL along with a brief description of each. When deciding what type of list, library, or module to create, consider which of these pre-defined web module types best fits your need and then customize the title and fields within the new list, for example, to match you requirement. For example, If you wish to track customer support calls/tickets, you might select an “issues list” template since it will already have most of the common fields and features you are looking for. You might, however, decide that you want to track your customer service calls in a discussion thread format in which case you would base your new list on a “discussion” template. Then you would customize the title of the “discussion” to say “Customer Service Tickets” and then add or adjust fields within the discussion thread to have the categories, priorities, or other fields that make sense for your new list/module. Everything is done right from the IcePORTAL user interface and without learning any programming languages.

Libraries

		Document Library Create a document library when you have a collection of documents or other files that you want to share. Document libraries support features such as sub-folders, file versioning, and check-in/check-out.
		Form Library Create a form library when you have XML-based business forms, such as status reports or purchase orders, that you want to manage. These libraries require a Windows SharePoint Services-compatible XML editor, such as Microsoft Office InfoPath.
		Wiki Page Library A free-form web page, similar to a Blog, where users or member of a project team can easily make edits/changes to a common web page.
		Picture Library Create a picture library when you have pictures you want to share. Picture libraries provide special features for managing and displaying pictures, such as thumbnails, download options, and a slide show.
Lists
		Links Create a links list when you have links to Web pages or other resources that you want to share.
		Announcements Create an announcements list when you want a place to share news, status, and other short bits of information.
		Contacts Create a contacts list when you want to manage information about people that your team works with such as customers or partners. You can share information between your contacts list and Windows SharePoint Services-compatible contacts programs.
		Calendar / Events Create an events list when you want a calendar-based view of upcoming meetings, deadlines, and other important events. You can share information between your events list and Windows SharePoint Services-compatible events programs.
		Tasks Create a tasks list when you want to track a group of work items that you or your team needs to complete.
		Issues Create an issues list when you want to manage a set of issues or problems. You can assign, prioritize, and follow the progress of issues from start to finish.
		Project Tasks Similar to a regular tasks list but has additional project-specific features such as Gantt charts and task assignments.
Custom Lists
		Custom List Create a custom list when you want to specify your own columns. The list opens as a Web page and lets you add or edit items one at a time.
		Custom List in Datasheet View Create a custom list when you want to specify your own columns. The list opens in a spreadsheet-like environment for convenient data entry, editing, and formatting. It requires a Windows SharePoint Services-compatible list datasheet control and ActiveX control support.
		Import Spreadsheet Import a spreadsheet when you want to create a list that has the same columns and contents as an existing spreadsheet. Importing a spreadsheet requires a spreadsheet application compatible with Windows SharePoint Services.
Discussion Boards
		Discussion Board Create a discussion board when you want to provide a place for newsgroup-style discussions. Discussion boards provide features for managing discussion threads and ensuring that only approved posts appear.
Surveys
		Survey Create a survey when you want to poll other Web site users. Surveys provide features that allow you to quickly create questions and define how users specify their answers.
Web Pages
		Basic Page Create a basic page when you want to add a simple Web page to this site. You can modify the page by adding text, pictures, and tables using your Web browser.
		Web Part Page Create a Web Part Page when you want to add a Web page to this site that displays one or more Web Parts. Web Parts provide an easy way to build powerful Web pages that can show you information ranging from a view of a list in the current site to the latest data from Web Services hosted around the world. Web Part Pages even allow for Web Part personalization, ensuring each user sees only the most relevant information.
		Sites and Workspaces Create a site or workspace when you want a new place for collaborating on Web pages, lists, and document libraries. For example, you might create a site to manage a new team or project, collaborate on a document, or prepare for a meeting. The new SharePoint site will be created under the current site at: http://mycompany.portal.iceweb.com/sites/[New Site]. You can specify the type of SharePoint site to create from a set of available site templates. Available templates include project sites, human resource sites, meeting sites, employee training, and helpdesk. Each of these templates simply pre-installs a set of lists, document libraries, and other web modules within that page rather than start you off with a “blank” portal page. You can remove any web modules/lists that you do not want, rearrange how they appear, or delete the entire sub-site if you want to try again. Each site or workspace within can be configured to show up on the “tab” bar or menu located on the top right of the main portal page. This is a nice way of letting your users navigate between different sections (or sub portal sites) within your overall Intranet. In the example shown here, there are sub-portal sites for Board of Directors, Business Development/Sales, and Technical. Each of these sub-sites has unique lists, document libraries, and user permissions for that department. Another example is to have different teams or projects have their own section within the portal to communicate and store their documents, events, contact lists, etc.

How to Customize an Existing List or Library

screenshot Within each module (whether a document library, contact list, discussion board, issues list, etc.), you can adjust the individual fields and Views. The fields can be as basic as single-line text entries for a First Name or Last Name or as complex as a checkbox/radio-button with pre-defined categories. You can also have fields that allow looking up information (such as looking up names from the employee directory list) from other sections within the portal. To add or modify fields within an existing form, click on the Settings link at the top of each list/library/module such as the example shown here.

Looking at the example here, you will see the list of Columns (think of them as database fields). Each Column of field can be defined so that it can contain text only, numbers only, yes/no, etc.

You can also arrange the order in which these Columns or fields are displayed.

If the default Columns or fields are not needed, you can delete most pre-defined columns and add your own. Each column you add must have a unique name.

For each Column, you can also indicate that it is a required field. This means that an entry must be made when someone is inserted data into the list, library, etc.

How to Add or Rearrange Web Parts

You can customize which lists or web parts appear on the main portal page (or sub portal pages, also called tabs). On the example below, the Announcements, Links, Company Events, and Employee Out Board are shown on the portal page and links to these sections are also shown on the left side Quick Launch bar.

screenshot To add new web modules (e.g. a contact list, calendar, etc.) to the main page of your IcePORTAL, click on Edit from the Site Actions drop down menu at the top right of the page (under the search bar).

The web parts or modules will now appear outlined in two columns (in this example). You can drag an existing web part from one column to the other or rearrange them vertically as you wish. You can also minimize a web part or remove entirely by clicking on the “x” in the top right of each web part. To add a web module (that already exists) to appear in one of the columns, click the “add a Web Part” button at the top of one of the columns as shown in the example below.

screenshot

When you are finished adding or rearranging web parts, click on the Home button at the top left of the screen or click the “Exit Edit Mode” on the top right of the screen.