Needs
Once of my first projects in 2019 was to create a home for the many training assets that I anticipated developing. The Learning Center continues to house the latest information and resources.
Challenges
The biggest challenge was identifying and isolating legacy documentation and training aids (an ongoing task).
The previous training page contained hard links to documents. The documents themselves were stored in various directories. There were, in some cases, multiple versions of training documents, reflecting different versions of software that were, or might still be, in use.
All of the document libraries were nested, so documents thought to be deprecated were still searchable and available.
Solution
I used SharePoint to create a new site within the existing system that houses the company Intranet. This gave me fresh document and asset libraries. I planned out the organizational structure and schema for the document libraries. I chose to create one document library with careful use of metadata to distinguish and organize files.
I used uploaded terms to the Term Stores to set up broad categories for the files and then subcategories. Using those fields, I was able to create custom views for the different categories so tahat new documents that were uploaded would appear immediately in the proper list (providing they are properly tagged, of course).
I used a combination of document directories, Quick Links, and video display options to populate most pages in the Learning Center. I worked to balance consistency with visual appeal and ease of access. The home page makes use of a Hero layout, an event that populated from a calendar, and list of Quick Links with consistent icons.
Outcomes
This continues to function as the main location for learning assets. It's relationship to the Intranet makes it easy to set up news and event feeds to keep information fresh and relevant across the sites.