SharePoint is a powerful platform for building custom solutions that meet the unique needs of your business. One way to extend SharePoint’s functionality is by creating custom web parts. A web part is a modular component that can be added to a SharePoint page to display information or perform a specific function. In this blog post, we’ll explore how to create custom web parts in SharePoint to build custom solutions for your business needs.

Planning Your Custom Web Part

Before you begin building your custom web part, it’s important to plan out the requirements and functionality you need. This includes identifying the data sources, user interface, and any other features that you want your web part to include. Some questions you may want to consider during the planning phase include:

• What data sources will your web part use?
• How will users interact with your web part?
• Will your web part require any custom logic or functionality?

Creating Your Custom Web Part Using Out-of-the-Box Features

SharePoint provides several out-of-the-box web parts that you can use as a starting point for your custom web part. These web parts include the Content Editor, Image Viewer, and Script Editor web parts, among others. You can customize these web parts by modifying their properties or adding your own code. To create your custom web part using out-of-the-box features, follow these steps:

• Navigate to the page where you want to add your web part and click the Edit button.
• Click the Insert tab on the ribbon and select the web part you want to modify.
• Modify the properties of the web part or add your own code using the Script Editor web part.

Creating Your Custom Web Part Using PowerApps

PowerApps is a low-code platform that allows you to create custom web parts without writing code. With PowerApps, you can create custom forms, dashboards, and other components that can be added to a SharePoint page. To create your custom web part using PowerApps, follow these steps:

• Navigate to the PowerApps portal and create a new canvas app.
• Design your app by adding screens, forms, and other components.
• Publish your app to SharePoint by selecting the PowerApps option on the Insert tab in the SharePoint ribbon.

Creating Your Custom Web Part Using SPFx

The SharePoint Framework (SPFx) is a modern development framework that allows you to build custom web parts using modern web technologies such as React, Angular, and TypeScript. With SPFx, you can create powerful, dynamic web parts that can be added to any SharePoint page. To create your custom web part using SPFx, follow these steps:

1. Install the necessary tools and dependencies for SPFx development.
2. Create a new SPFx web part project using the Yeoman generator.
3. Develop your web part by adding components, styling, and logic.
4. Deploy your web part to SharePoint by packaging it as a SharePoint solution and uploading it to the SharePoint app catalog.

Creating custom web parts in SharePoint can be a powerful way to extend SharePoint’s functionality and build custom solutions for your business needs. Whether you use out-of-the-box features, PowerApps, or SPFx, you have the flexibility and power to create web parts that are tailored to your organization’s unique requirements. By planning out your requirements and following best practices for development, you can create web parts that deliver real value to your organization.

The post Building Custom SharePoint Solutions to Meet Your Business Needs appeared first on MS Technology Talk.

Big news in the beginning of this week. No, I'm not back to school :) I recently accepted a new job as an internal SharePoin employee for a company which is not yet an enterprise, but not a startup either. It will be very different than all of my past experience at service providers and consultancy engagements, but I am excited as it's a very innovative organization and we met when it's just about time for some SharePoint(ing).

Now to the point... one of my first tasks is to create the organization's navigation structure for an Intranet portal. We will use Managed Navigation after an evaluation and demos of all the possible methods. I will do this on SharePoint Online for the example, but the method is the same for SharePoint 2013 as well.

The decision to use Managed Navigation is not the scope of this post, a very good comparison by Microsoft is published here, which evaluates performance, needs and in fact all pros and cons.

One of the main requirements is for the Current Navigation to become collapsible, imagine a Windows Explorer style...like the following example. Now, if you have users that will be switching from file shares to SharePoint, that type of navigation might come handy. I personally don't really like the fact that it does go very big when you expand a lot of nodes, but there's a solution for that.

If the SharePoint site structure becomes deeply nested e.g. Site Collection -> Site -> Site -> Site ... this will also be a pain to navigate in, and most users would most likely prefer the Search option (I got this feedback after conducting a few user interviews and demoing this type of navigation).



Let's review the options to achieve the closest functionality in the SharePoint Current Navigation.
We assume we'll only have one site collection, which is nowadays common for small to medium sized organizations. Especially if you go the SharePoint Online route.

Option 1: Tree View

The way to enable this is simply going to Site Settings -> Tree View -> Enable Tree View.

The Tree View looks like this in a site collection (left) and respectively in a site (right):

Pros:
- Not collapsible OOB for use in Current Navigation. Needs custom CSS and potentially JavaScript.