Introduction To The SharePoint Wiki

The SharePoint Wiki is a straight out of the box solution. It’s not only easy to implement, but the available features will be sufficient for almost all standard applications. Before getting to the features, let’s take a look at Wikis in general.

The term is derived from the Hawaiian term for ‘quick’ which is ‘wikiwiki.’ The correlation here is that it allows for quick and easy creation and editing of inter-linked web pages with a few clicks. The site’s users do not need to have knowledge of HTML markups and the site’s structure. Users can add links to target pages that don’t exist, and these pages are created later simply by clicking on the link.

This kind of capability is very useful when the site is supposed to use user generated content (UGC) and has a large number of users creating and editing pages. It needs a huge and complex database to hold all the data with new pages being created constantly and multiple versions of each page as changes are made. Software to setup this kind of site will have to very powerful and flexible.

Many dedicated solutions are available in the market that can fit the bill. But given the concept of making things simple for collaborative purposes, there’s one particular solution that fits the bill especially well. That solution is the out of the box SharePoint Wiki, a functionality that comes with Microsoft’s SharePoint Server.

The main aim of this server is to facilitate collaborative efforts within and from outside a company’s network, by setting up portals, websites and applications. Different users can be granted separate access permissions and it allows for sharing data and collaboration on documents and projects between employees, customers, suppliers and others on an enterprise level. Given such functionality, it’s no big surprise that the SharePoint Wiki is a perfect match as a component in this server.

Creating it is much the same as creating any other type of site, requiring a name and giving access permissions to specific users. If a ‘Wiki’ is selected as the site type, then some additional elements become visible. This includes a toolbar for easy access to page editing and keeping track of previous edits to the page. Another bar lists the latest pages that have been edited.

Note that there are two types of sites that can be created here. One is a library and one is a site. When the SharePoint Wiki Library is created, it includes two pages by default – the home page and a how-to help page. When a site is created, it automatically creates a library within whose home page is used as a default page for the site.

If the SharePoint Wiki is part of a bigger site, the user permissions can be inherited as is from the site. If it needs any special user access permissions, these can be specified separately. That’s about all there is to it, and this simplicity in creation and use is one of the main reasons why it is an ‘out of the box’ solution.

Knowledge-worker components and tools to assist with Sharepoint Web Parts, Sharepoint List, Sharepoint Wiki, Calendar Web Part, Sharepoint Search & Sharepoint Calendar.