With great improvements in various tools to match the speed of the modern workspace, it is time to explore the best part that is beneficial for your platform.
In simple words, the SharePoint Look book refers to visual reference for the visitors. It is an excellent marketing tool to boost branding and understand the target audience. If you plan to make your SharePoint site look beautiful, you might invest in an amazing graphic designer, which might need a huge investment.
Why should you consider the SharePoint look book? There are multiple reasons to make the right investment, and we will be elaborating on them in the content piece.
What is a SharePoint look book?
It is a collection of downloadable themes, templates, and branding materials created and hosted by Microsoft. You can look at the designs and install the template in your environment. It helps create better websites for the business using the various elements from a look book. There are six different categories of templates you can use to filter:
- Organization
- Team
- Schools
- Department
- Community Solutions
It is a document that contains information about the customization of SharePoint. The tool provides screenshots, explanations, and links to customize relatable files. Whether you begin the journey, it is a smart move to consider a Modern Intranet with SharePoint Online or migrate to Microsoft 365 to access good layouts.
What are the various components of the SharePoint look book?
You must check the internal insights of the look book SharePoint online. On the main building blocks in the look book, you can view:
- Site Features
- Content Included
- Web Parts Used
Once you expand each section, review its description and click on each item to get detailed documentation on every web part. The basic gallery of designs works perfectly for practice or training sites, interactive prototypes, SharePoint forms, and starter sites for SharePoint beginners.
How can you download the Microsoft Look Book templates?
For downloading and installing a look book template, you can follow the below process:
-
- It is important to be a tenant administrator in the SharePoint Online tenant
- Choose the look book template that you like from:
- https://lookbook.microsoft.com/
- Once you are ready, click on the Add to your Tenant button
- Select the following
- Email: Add an email address to get a notification when provisioning is completed
- Site URL: You can view the URL of the SharePoint Online tenant, the managed path in which the site will be created.
- Site Title: Add title where the template will be provisioned
- Click on Provision
You need to wait for a few minutes and navigate the site URL. The template will be ready.
How can you use the SharePoint look book templates?
Once you install the selected look book for your SharePoint site, you get immediate access to the landing page to begin the editing. Just edit the page to add, remove, and update the apps as required. Here are some things you must consider while working with a sample site:
- Delete sample pages: Some templates in the SharePoint look book, like new employee Onboarding, have a few sample pages that are not required. Sometimes people forget about them, and employees reach them and take them as trusted content.
- Site Permissions: Every time you install a SharePoint look book template, it builds a new site. The platform requires explicit access, or else no other users will be able to view it and get any valuable information. So, ensure to provide the right set of permissions for the users.
- Replace or delete sample content: Many users will leave elements of the demo site on the pages, which increases the confusion. This might be a combination of images of reports, diagrams, and tasks. It is better to remove sample documents, sheets, and PowerPoints that users might find irrelevant.
- Delete tried sites: SharePoint will be making a new site every time you try a template. It is better to delete sites to avoid confusion with real sites that the employees use.
What are the advantages of using the SharePoint look book?
- The look book app for SharePoint helps to highlight the capabilities of the organization
- With minimal development time, it is the best choice to start a website and run it smoothly
- It provides ease of usage and deployment, allowing you to create branded templates to make your business unique
- The SharePoint look book can be installed within a few minutes in your tenant. If you plan to train the users, it can be done quickly with the help of ready-t-go sites.
- Anyone can install the template without any coding requirement for installation. It helps to practice the SharePoint skills and maximize customization.
- It is a great choice to represent the style guide of the organization visually
- The designers and copywriters can find the right colour, image, and font for their project requirements.
What are the limitations of using the SharePoint look book?
- There are limited colour combinations which sometimes means you might not be able to find the page colours that match your style guide.
- Sometimes when you zoom in on the look book designs, many page elements are images.
- Once you start adding apps, there are limited choices, and the page might look bland
- SharePoint allows breaking the pages into sections, but they have limited combinations for sections and apps.
- It is impossible to insert a unique look book page into an existing intranet.
Conclusion
The SharePoint look book helps make your site informative, guide, and engage through a seamless process. It is an inspiring starting point towards the journey of SharePoint online. Try to get insights about design principles, web parts, platforms and frameworks, and sites and pages.
