3.1.2. SharePoint Data Structure

Within a SharePortals instance, all information of a similar types is known as a Record Type. You can think of an entity as a security container for all records of a similar nature, e.g Contacts, Accounts etc.

Within an entity there are Records which are a collection of Field values, and within Records there is Content such as documents, emails, notes, and tasks, and links to other Records. In some advanced configurations, you may have multiple types of Records within an Entity of a similar nature which have slightly different Field values, e.g within Contacts you may have a Partner ‘Record Sub Type’, and an End User Sub Type. Alternatively these could just as easily be different Record Types completely, meaning they will have their own navigation button and summary screens within SharePortals.

When viewing a summary of Records, there are a number of default system Views which can be changed as needed.

For an overview of these concepts, please watch the video on the Overview Page

Advanced SharePoint Concepts

For those familiar with SharePoint, there are some concepts to be aware of for how SharePortals interacts with SharePoint Online.

For a single instance of SharePortals, the customers Microsoft Office 365 tenant will have a SharePoint site provisioned behind the scenes. See: Instance Selection

Using the terms above, the table below translates these terms in to SharePoint terms you may be familiar with:

Using the information above, it is possible to customise the system directly within SharePoint. To create a new Record Type for example, you can create a new library, create a new document set content type, and add it to the SharePortals interface. Some rules to be aware of if making modifications directly within the SharePoint Online site are:

!The license agreement does not include support for changes directly within SharePoint. Please only make changes if you have sufficient product knowledge.

1. There are base site columns and a base SharePortals content type they are associated with. All custom document set content types added to the system must inherit from the SharePortals base content type.
2. It is unsupported to remove any base site columns or the base SharePortals content type.
3. If it is available to make a change through our applications settings, we do not support making the change directly within SharePoint. E.g adding new entities or fields should be done within SharePortals.
4. One of the base site columns is called SPTitle, which is the primary site column for every document set content type (record). This is used in place of the built in Title SharePoint column to allow duplicate values.

Relationships Configuration

The Relationships list is exposed to allow experienced administrators to make changes for what relationship configurations can be made. This list contains a content type called SharePortals Relationships, which is a collection of lookup site columns to the SPTitle field. There is a single view on the Relationships list, which controls which relationships are configurable within the SharePortals admin screen.

Other Configuration

All configuration is held within a hidden configuration file which is not accessible to modify, other than to restore it to it’s default settings through the SharePortals admin interface.

Last Modified: 2022/03/24