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SharePoint: Accessing Sites and Site Contents

Internal or external SharePoint sites can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection through your NYSERDA Office365.com account. Users may want to consider bookmarking their external SharePoint sites for easier access in the future.

SharePoint Search Engine

Log into your Office365.com account using your NYSERDA credentials or access the NYSERDA Launch Page and click the Office365 tile.

Click the SharePoint icon from your Office365.com account to access your SharePoint account.

Type the name of the external SharePoint site in the search field. Search results will appear below the search field as you type in your search criteria. There is no need to hit enter.

SharePoint will locate any examples of your search criteria that exist on any SharePoint site or within any documents in any SharePoint document library that you have access to. If your search does not return the results you are looking for, it is likely you do not currently have access to that site or site component.

When you have located the correct site, simply click on the site link from the search results.

Followed Sites

The below instructions are best used for Internal SharePoint sites as the Follow functionality does not always immediately establish a connection between your Office365.com account and the external SharePoint site. This is due to how the external SharePoint sites are set up for external resource access. While you can Follow external SharePoint sites, please note that it can take a couple of days or weeks for the connection to be made. Sites with more Document Libraries, shared documents, Sub-Sites or complex permission sets take longer to as SharePoint will need to index the site first before the connection can be established.

After accessing the correct site using the instructions in the SharePoint Search Engine section on this page, click the Follow (classic view) or Not Following (modern view) option at the top-right side of the window.

To navigate to Followed sites, access your Office365.com account.

Select the SharePoint icon from the left-hand navigation pane.

Your Followed sites will appear in the left-hand navigation pane of your SharePoint account. Click any item to access the site.

Site Contents

The Site Contents section of your SharePoint site allows users to view all your site's components and sub-sites. This is a helpful tool when site components do not appear on the left-hand navigation pane or if you need to access a sub-site to your existing site.

After accessing your site, click the Cog Wheel icon in the upper right-hand corner, and select Site Contents from the menu that appears.

In the center of the Site Contents page is a tabbed listing of site Contents and Subsites. By default, the Contents tab is active. Site components can be accessed by clicking the name. Users can also click the Subsites tab which displays a list of Sub-Sites that can be accessed by clicking the Sub-Site name.

The Site Assets, Microfeed and Site Pages are default resources that appear on all SharePoint sites and should be ignored by those accessing or administering the site.