ESSENTIAL SHAREPOINT GEMS

1. Audience Targeting: Personalize content delivery, such as news or web parts, based on user attributes like department or location to ensure relevance and improve engagement.
2. Document ID Service: Assign unique, persistent identifiers to documents that remain constant even if files are moved, simplifying tracking and preventing broken links.
3. Column Formatting: Customize the appearance of list or library columns using JSON expressions for conditional styling, enhancing data visualization and usability.
4. SharePoint Syntex Integration: Leverage AI to automatically classify documents, extract metadata, and apply labels, streamlining organization in large repositories.
5. Site Scripts and Designs: Create custom templates for automated site provisioning, including predefined lists, branding, and configurations to maintain consistency across deployments.
6. Roll-Up Calendars and Events: Aggregate multiple calendars into a single view with color-coding and filters, centralizing events without altering underlying structures.
7. Roll-Up News and Announcements: Consolidate updates from various sites into one hub using web parts, ensuring users access all relevant information efficiently.
8. Collapsible Sections: Organize text-heavy pages by allowing sections to expand or collapse, improving readability and navigation on complex sites.
9. Pinning Important Items: Highlight key documents or folders at the top of libraries for immediate access, reducing search time in extensive collections.
10. Automated Metadata Application: Use workflows or templates to apply metadata automatically, ensuring consistency and enhancing search accuracy across documents.
11. Document Locking: Secure files during editing to avoid conflicts from simultaneous changes, preserving version integrity in collaborative environments.
12. Permission Inheritance Management: Understand and strategically break inheritance from parent sites to control access precisely for sensitive content.
13. Content Types for Standardization: Define reusable content types to enforce uniform metadata, templates, and workflows across libraries.
14. Integration with Microsoft Teams: Embed SharePoint sites as tabs in Teams channels for seamless access to documents and resources without app switching.
15. Vertical Sections in Layouts: Add additional vertical sections below banners to expand content space without cluttering the main page area.
16. Power Automate for Automation: Integrate to automate repetitive tasks like approvals and notifications, boosting efficiency without custom coding.
17. Metadata-Driven Search Optimization: Tag files with metadata to enable advanced filtering and dynamic views, making information retrieval faster and more precise.
18. Real-Time Co-Authoring: Enable simultaneous editing in Office files with automatic saves and conflict resolution, facilitating seamless team collaboration.
19. Retention and Archival Policies: Configure policies to manage document lifecycles, automating archiving or deletion for compliance and storage optimization.
20. Hub Sites for Grouping: Connect related sites under a hub for unified navigation, themes, and permissions, simplifying management of interconnected content.
21. Document Sets: Treat related documents as a single entity, applying shared metadata, workflows, and templates automatically. This is particularly useful for managing projects or cases, providing a "smart folder" alternative to multiple libraries.
22. Content Types: Define reusable templates for documents or list items with specific columns, workflows, and policies. Applying content types to libraries enables consistent metadata across sites, improving search and organization.
23. Metadata Over Folders: Prioritize columns and metadata for categorization instead of deep folder structures. This facilitates dynamic views, filtering, and search, while avoiding file path limitations.
24. Grid View Editing: In document libraries and lists, switch to Grid view for rapid bulk editing of metadata, akin to an Excel spreadsheet, enhancing efficiency for large datasets.
25. Alerts and Notifications: Configure alerts on libraries, folders, or individual items to receive updates on changes, additions, or deletions. This ensures timely awareness without constant manual checks.
26. Version History and Co-Authoring: Leverage automatic versioning for change tracking and real-time simultaneous editing in Office files. Restore previous versions easily to mitigate errors.
27. Sync with OneDrive: Synchronize libraries to local devices via OneDrive for offline access and seamless file explorer integration, ideal for mobile or remote work.
28. Column Formatting and View Formatting: Apply JSON formatting to columns or views for conditional coloring, icons, or custom displays, making data more intuitive and visually informative.
29. Integration with Power Automate: Automate workflows directly from libraries or lists, such as approvals, notifications, or data routing, without requiring advanced development skills.
30. Hub Sites: Associate related sites into hubs for unified navigation, search, and branding. This creates a cohesive intranet experience across departmental or project sites.
31. Ratings and Image Tagging: Enable ratings on items for feedback and use image tags for visual identification, aiding quick discovery in media-heavy libraries.
32. Permissions Management: Break inheritance selectively on libraries or items for granular control, while regularly auditing access to maintain security and compliance.
33. Modern Page Sections and Web Parts: Utilize vertical sections, collapsible areas, and web parts like File Viewer or Quick Links to build engaging, responsive pages without custom coding.
34. Search Refinements: Employ advanced search with refiners, keywords, or property queries (e.g., metadata filters) for precise results across vast content repositories.
35. Integration with Microsoft Teams: Recognize that Teams files are stored in SharePoint, enabling advanced management (e.g., metadata, workflows) directly from the underlying library.

These features, drawn from established best practices, empower users to transform SharePoint Online into a robust collaboration platform. Implementing them strategically can significantly improve efficiency and user adoption.