Every Fountain divisional page is managed by one or two content librarians. It is up to the librarians to determine the best organizational structure for their page. However, there are some best practices we ask each page to follow. If you ever have any questions or would like to discuss the best way to share information, please reach out to The Fountain admin team. They would be happy to walk through it with you.
Divisional Site Organization Best Practices
(Many of these tips were taken from https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/plan-navigation-modern-experience
Plan your organizational structure intentionally. Navigation should always be planned from the perspective of the user of information – the viewers to your site. Planning effective navigation involves considering not just the information you want to present, but also thinking about the information your viewers want or need to consume. The consumer of a communication site typically doesn't care about the type of content – they care about the purpose or subject of the content. When you consider the purpose or subject, you’ll want to keep all items related to that subject on the same page.
Think through the major areas of information your division might have. For our University, those divisions are often already delineated by departments. For example, Student Success and Engagement includes the Career Development Center, Strategic Partnerships, and Registration & Academic Records. Depending on the needs of the divisional site, the content librarian might choose to develop a page for each of those main departments. Then all the information you want to share from those departments would live on those pages.
Another way to view pages would be to create very intentional pages for information users view often. For example, IT Solutions created a page just for Workday information.
The key to pages is to keep them intentional. If you have more than 5 pages linking off your divisional site, you should carefully consider if the pages are of benefit to your users. More often than not, if you have more than 5 pages linking off, you’re sending users too far in and you will lose them in the clicks.
Do not create a different page for every subcategory of information. Pages are not like chapters in a book. Rather, pages are like separate books in a series. For example, IT has a page dedicated to Workday. All the information for Workday should live on that page. They should not create separate pages for Workday Student, Workday HR items, Workday Finance items, etc. Keeping all the information on one page allows you to tell a coherent and organized story. Use the various webpart options to break up the content on the page. (See below for more information on webparts.)
Divisional pages should not be created to replicate the University’s webpages. As you move information for internal audiences from the website to The Fountain, do not simply re-create many pages. Instead, present your information as a cohesive, organized narrative, with the goal of anticipating what users need to know.
Before you add pages, it is important to outline your content and map out a plan. Consider what your users need to know and how they can most efficiently access it. Again, look at how you can use the webparts to keep all information for a specific division or subject together on one page, instead of creating multiple pages. The Fountain’s admin team is happy to consult with you to development a roadmap for your divisional page, if needed.
Using Webparts
SharePoint offers many different organizational options to make presenting the information on your page effective and easy-to-use, which allows you to put more information on a single page and removes the need for multiple pages dedicated to a single topic. Below are some ideas, but please explore the options and find ways to be strategic in your storytelling. This support page from Microsoft is a great resource.
- Text Boxes are a great way to share introductory information in a section. You could also include bulleted or numbered lists of text, if you need to share fast facts or something similar.
- The File and Media webpart allows you to imbed PDFs, videos, PowerPoints, Word docs, and other items right into the page, allowing people to see content without having to click out of the page.
- Divider lines are helpful for visually separating sections on your page.
- Lists can be a powerful tool for sharing issues tracking, routines, inventory, contacts, etc. There is a lot that can be done with this option. More information can be found on Microsoft’s support pages.
- Power BI is an effective way to embed reports from Power BI right to your page, in order to share content in real time. You can see this in action on The Fountain on the Destination 2030 page in the Key Performance Indicators Dashboard section.
- Quick Chart is a simple way to show data in a visual way on your page.
- Document libraries are a way to share a collection of files, such as reports or forms, that all pertain to a similar subject.
Other Options
As you develop your divisional page, remember to continue to keep audience at the forefront of your decisions. You now have four places where you can house information, and determining where information lives is critical to keeping our platforms as clean and effective as possible. Those places are: The Fountain, Teams, University Website, and the Knowledge Base.
Fountain
Your Fountain divisional site should house information pertinent to an internal University-wide audience, including:
- news & events
- document and information sharing
Teams
Use Teams for internal division or department sharing and collaboration, including:
- documents, forms, etc. only used by your division or group
- collaboration on shared documents, etc.
- instant chatting
University Website
Share information on your web pages on the University website that is pertinent to an external, public audience. If you’re unsure if something should be public information, University Advancement may be able to offer guidance as they continue the updated website project.
Service Portal Knowledge Base
The Knowledge Base platform is a place to house how-to, step-by-step, or directional information for an internal University-wide audience. If your information teaches internal employees or students how to do something or gives information about a service you provide to campus, it should probably be housed on the knowledge base site. IT Solutions can help you put your information on the platform, including:
- how-to videos
- step-by-step guides
- handbooks
*Please note that we want to house information in the most appropriate place. However, you can link to the information from other spots. For example, if you have information on the University website for an external audience but you also want to share it with the internal audience, you can add a link on your Fountain page to the website. Again, the key is to be strategic in understanding who will need the information before housing it somewhere.