sharepoint help

May 29, 2013 1:41 PM

Help me be a sharepoint novice

At my company, we each have our own sharepoint site called "my site". It seems to be a standard sharepoint thing. On this site, it automatically shows some information about us, we can edit / add info, and we can save links etc.

What I want to do is have a place where people can do do separate and unrelated things.
1. Signup for meeting times with me. I really don't need this connected to my actual outlook calender etc. I just want something where I can just input slots where they can put their name and save it. When the next person signs up they can see all the slots and who else has signed up. This is meant to replace a physical sheet of paper on my office door where they sigh up for "office hours"

2. have a lending library of books where people can sign them out from me. I would input my books etc, and they would put their name in by the book they want.

So, any help would be grand!

posted by jseven to Computers & Internet (2 answers total)

Best answer: There should be a default calendar on your site - if you don't see a link to one on the lefthand sidebar, you can create one via Site Actions > Create. Anyone who wants to set up a meeting with you would click "New" and input their information. By default, this would be visible to anyone who has access to your site.

Your lending library should be in a list. Again, go to Site Actions > Create (don't choose "library" unless you are going to put the actual books online). You can import a spreadsheet if you already have a list of books, or you can create a custom list. The name of the book would go in the Title field, and you can add other fields for author, borrower, date borrowed, due date, etc. The borrower would click on the title and add their name and the date borrowed. SharePoint is really flexible: you could automatically calculate a due date (14 days from the borrowed date, for example) and have an alert sent to you when a book is past due. That's a lot to get into here, though.
posted by desjardins at 1:58 PM on May 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

I wholeheartedly second the instructions desjardins has laid out, but -- which version of SharePoint are you working with: 2007, 2010, 2013?

If it's 2007, I can basically be your personal SharePoint tutor and you can ping me with any questions you might have.
If it's 2010 or 2013, as I suspect it is because you mention possibly being able to hook up your signup sheet with Outlook, I'd highly recommend Nick Grattan's SharePoint Blog.
posted by divined by radio at 2:13 PM on May 29, 2013 [1 favorite]