SharePoint

My level of knowledge of help and Sharepoint is based on having stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night. (US site visitors will understand.) I also attended a two day course elevating me to the status of the one eyed man in the land of the blind. In other words, this article is aimed at technical authors knowing little about SharePoint but wanting to implement help in a SharePoint portal. I am not going to attempt to describe what SharePoint is, there is already plenty of information on the web about that.

Some Considerations

Sharepoint ships with its own help so first you need to consider whether or not you want your help to be part of that or separate.

Integrate with Microsoft's help

Keep it separate
By integrating the help, users just have to go to one place. The help is just about what your company / users are doing within SharePoint and not lost in amongst Microsoft's help.
You will most likely need developer assistance to implement it. You can implement it yourself as non context sensitive help.
Can be context sensitive. It can be context sensitive but you will need developer assistance.

 

If you want to integrate the help with SharePoint's own help and / or make it context sensitive, see Further Reading.

If you want the simpler solution, read on.

Linking Help to SharePoint

  1. Surprisingly the first step is to write the help! Create WebHelp using whatever tool you use.
  2. Now you need to be given access to the SharePoint portal. Speak to the Site Collection Administrator to get Site Owner permissions.
  3. Log in to your portal and click View All Site Content on the Quick Launch bar.



  4. Click Create and create a new Document Library called Help.



  5. In the Help Library, go to Actions > Open with Windows Explorer.
  6. Drag your WebHelp folder created in Step 1 into the Explorer window displayed.
  7. Return to the Library and click the folder you just added, then click the start page of the help. It should open to the default topic.
  8. Now we need to give users a better access path to that help. Go to Site Actions > Site Settings > Modify Navigation



  9. Highlight Global Navigation and then click Add Link



  10. Enter the details. Use the Browse button to navigate to the start page of the help you uploaded.



  11. You now have a tab that will open the help at the default topic.


Further Reading

To integrate the help with SharePoint's own help and / or make it context sensitive, take a look at this article at The Code Project. You will need developer assistance.

Tom Johnson's I'd Rather Be Writing blog has two items well worth a read.

Topic Revisions

Date

Changes to this page
17 Aug 2009 Information re context sensitive help amended.
14 Aug 2009 New article.