Organize And Configure A SharePoint Library On SharePoint Online

Today, I am writing a brief article about SharePoint Library configuration and how to organize it. There are numerous ways to organize and manage your SharePoint libraries. Here, I am trying to show all the details about the same, so we can deploy it in a customer environment and can deliver the output, as expected.

I will be covering the points given below with a new experience of SharePoint Library.

How to create and use the folders.
How to sort and filter with the columns.
Create custom views of the items in the library.
How to restrict an access to a library.
How to assign the permission to the user, who can only access it.

Thus, we will start from the points given above, as mentioned.

Create the folders in a Library

Open your site with the suitable user permission. It might be team site or project site or any other.
Once opened on the page, click Gear box on the right side of the page and select the site contents from the same.
Once you will click on the site content, the page will redirect us to the site contents Library page.
Here, create new List or Library, using new logo, assign the name and click create.
Wait for some time and you can see Library has been created. Click the created library to open it.
Here, we need to create a folder in a library, so click new button, click the folder and assign the name.
Enter a name for the folder and choose Save.

Add columns to a library

To add the columns to a library or list on SharePoint Online, navigate to the library, as we want to add the columns.
On the library page, select gear box from right side of the page and select library setting option, as shown below.
Once library setting opens, scroll down to the columns section. Choose Add from the existing site columns.
Under Available site columns, choose and add the columns which you want in your library and then choose OK, as shown below
Also, we can see here the new look for the site library and the list changed a lot. We can also notice that the new look matches with One Drive from MS.

The screenshot is given below for Library details.
We can see here that the way to create a new item in Library has totally changed and looks better than earlier. This is for your information, to know that the new look's performance is faster than the classic view.

Create a custom view of items in your library

As we know, we are creating View, as per our requirement to show the data available on the list or library in a proper manner. Thus, to start creating a custom view of items in your Library or List navigate to the library for which you want to create a view.
On the Library setting page, choose Create View.
If we want to start from an existing view, choose the view under Start from an existing view.
On the Settings page, type a name for the view.
Choose Create a Personal View in the Audience section, if you don’t want others to use this view.
Once view has been created, we can come back to Doc Library page and can see here by choosing All Document option, as shown below.
From here, we can edit the current view directly. We can also save this view for future use.

Create a Custom View of items in your library with filter data

Imagine we have huge data on the List and Library and we want to see the data with some particular filed or name or type, so we can create view with filter or sort Under the Filter section, choose Show Items only when the following is true.
In the field drop down box from filter, select the column you want to add, and app created by filter
In the next field, choose a condition such it is equal to, for example, we have shared this list or Library with multiple users, who can create data as well, so we know that we want to filter the data with the name.
We will give the name of custom field and filter, as shown below, and click create to view the data.
Finally, in the Folders section of the page, we will choose show all the items without the folders. This option enables you to look at the files across the folders in a library.
Now, choose OK. The Library will show us the created view and we can see the data has been filtered, as per created view.
Now, we can switch the view by clicking filter and select other views available.

Control who has access to your SharePoint Library

To control the permission of SharePoint Library, we need to stop inheritance and assign the permission with the selected user only. Thus, to do so, navigate to the library where you want to share with colleagues.
Go to Library setting, as I have mentioned above in many points. On the Settings page, choose the Permissions for this document's library link, as shown below.
Once you click permission for this document library, we need to stop library, which inherits the permissions from a parent site. Choose stop inheriting permissions on the Permissions tab.
Click OK on the message that appears after clicking stop inheritance.
Now, we can see grant permission option, which will be enabled on the page, so we will share with the user who can access it to see the details. In the Share dialog box, type the names or email addresses of those who will have access to the library.
To remove the permissions that existed before, we stopped inheriting the permissions, select those groups or the users and then choose Remove User Permissions.
Now, only the people that you added in the Share dialog have access to the documents in the library.

Thanks.