How To Quickly Find Files in Microsoft Teams and SharePoint (2023)

when it comes to using teams and SharePoint we often can never find our files why is it that when we have to work with that all important file and it comes to searching for it that you spend longer searching for the file and actually working within it itself our SharePoint and teams a big digital black hole that eats all of your files only to never be seen again well that's not the case there are actually simple ways that we can use today to find and work your files in a need easier Manner and I'm going to be showing you five ways you can do that today but before we dive in we'd love it to hit that subscribe button to find more great content like this and to turn you into a productivity Superstar so can anyone help me find that file so here we are inside the Microsoft teams and if you may have noticed before there is a search box at top of teams try and find your content what we can do is head up to search and we can search for a particular word or phrase to look across all of the content inside of teams and inside of this team search experience we can also refine the result as we can see we can look for messages have the word marketing referenced in them and any such file shared we can look at people with relevant skill sets and also all the files I have access to now as you can see in teams are the ability to use filters we can change a file type to look for Word documents we can also change the Modified by searching for relevant people or even date ranges it's quite powerful into how you use team search but equally if you have lots of files in here it can be a real problem to try and find all the relevant files now remembering that behind teams your files are going to be stored in one dri of business and SharePoint and SharePoint is used for all of your Microsoft teams but SharePoint search has a lot more capability than what we can use inside of this teams app so to open up your files in SharePoint and to exper experience SharePoint search what we can do is go across to our team list and we can now select the files tab for one of your teams and very simply select opening SharePoint to open it in a web browser tab that now presents us with the ability to search through this content using SharePoint search where's much more capability available to us and now we have our files open in the SharePoint site we can now begin to search our content and inside of your site you'll now see a search box at top to search inside of this Library once again we can add in a keyword let's go and add in the word quadcopter with that done we can now see it found two results inside of my library my library being the documents library that we're working in and there are two Word files equally you might have content that's stored outside of this Library as an example I have a company information file which is a Word document and not stored in this documents Library what we can do is therefore change the search sech result and look for company information they inputting that search term hasn't found me the file I'm looking for I know this is a Word document without file name but why hasn't SharePoint found the result well this is because this search is scoped to this particular library and it could be that your content is stored in another Library within the site so it's to expand our search I'm going to go down and select exactly that expand search to all items in this site and in doing so you'll now see it finds the for the information documenti expecting right at the top of the screen so being able to search across your light at multiple libraries is really important but do you need to click on that option every time you do a search well no the best way to do a search across your whole site to include all content is go to the site itself and on the site homepage you'll see a search box at the top this box actually searches your entire site so if you have content across multiple libraries this can be a great way to find relevant results we can once again add in company information and find relevant results and in our search page we can also refine the result for example I might be interested in files where particularly Word documents I can refine it I can apply the change and I can also once again change the modified dates when I found the relevant content well I can simply left click into it to look at the content through word online make changes and all sync them straight back into SharePoint but you may be wondering well Scott why on Earth did we take you through this experience and that's because as I mentioned earlier it's very common to do a search in the wrong place yes I find people searching inside of libraries looking for Content that simply does not exist in that Library so our recommendation is to always look across the site to find all the libraries and folders to include them in your search result it can certainly take a lot of pain away when it comes to finding those all important files Now using keyword search in SharePoint is very powerful it indexes content inside of those files if the text is machine readable be index for search so the words company and information will be found inside of any relevant documents where they're mentioned alongside files with the same file name but that is super powerful but also can become a problem the more files you have the more likely keyword search will bring up results which may not be very relevant to you especially if you knew the file name had something to do with company information so can we use additional search refiners called keyword query language to improve how we use SharePoint search and we certainly can I'm going to show you some of the basics to make SharePoint search work for you so in this search box here we are searching currently from a keywords of company information what I'm going to go ahead and do is go to the start of this and simply type in file name and then colon what we can also then do is put a wrap around it in quotes to look for company information inside of any files of that name you can actually see right now the other results where company and information were referenced inside of that document and now excluded from the search we've now refined the search we're only looking for file names that match that result so that's a super powerful way to look for your file name inside of SharePoint search but does this also go further it might be the case that we're looking for a particular author or maybe someone that's actually modified the actual file itself can we use SharePoint to do that especially considering that the filters are none of this exist in the filters right but yes we can achieve it what I'll go ahead and do is remove our current search criteria this time I'm going to add the word author I'm going to add a colon and at which point I'm going to go and type in the name of the auor I'd like to find with that done we can Run a search and all of this content here has been offered by Alex Wilbur now that is a great way to find content from a particular person we can also change that R to things like Modified by as well so it's very powerful to use but what if we want to use that in addition to another piece of information maybe the comfy information file we're looking at had multiple people creating different copies of it well we what we can do is add operators into our search operators are effectively and or or so inside of the search box I can put and and I'm going to paste in what we used previously in our search and then click on the search button we can now see that that search has also brought back the relevant result Alex Wilbur modified this as an auor alongside having the file name of company information so using these properties can certainly help you refine the search result and find content that's relevant to you and the search and remove other searches which are just built around keyword searches so let's take a bit of a BRI and I'd love to tell you more about your 365 coach because we're dedicated to turn you into a productivity Superstar when it comes to using the apps in Microsoft 365 soever you your team or your business need additional training or coaching you can check out more on our website and not only that there's even a link to download a free Microsoft 365 ebook to learn even more about the tools that you have at your fingertips so anyway let's dive back in and find those all important files but sometimes the best way to find files isn't even using search no if you know the content you're looking for then inside of your document libraries and folders you can very simply filter for results there's an option in the top right of SharePoint which you can select here for filters and what it allows us to do is filter filter through properties of data that have been set on content stored in this Library yes I could have a look at the modified date I could move the slider across and see all files modified in the last 30 days or again expand that out so we can see other results and also if I wanted to know a particular author that been modified this content well I can very simply select Megan's name and then further filter it D that all important two PowerPoint files that we're looking for so using filters inside of your document library and folders is a very powerful way to be able to find and identify the files that you need to work with now as you close out of this filter here you'll see automatically applies what you can do now inside of SharePoint is begin to refine the result I could clear the filter for PowerPoint and open up the other file types equally I could also select clear filters and return the view of the library and folder back into what I seen previously and can I sort based on information well absolutely we can sort by modified dates looking at all of our latest content we can also sort on modified and we can even Group by who's made changes so I can see all the content made by Alex and all the content changes made by Megan this is a great way to find relevant content without going anywhere near the search box so you're thinking all of these are great tips Scott but what happens if you use fils often you don't want to filter the library neither do you want to go into search to find the relevant result well there are quick ways to get to files that you actively use in Microsoft 365 that being in teams and in SharePoint the first option we can use inside of your SharePoint folders is to pin content to the top of your library that means if you actively use folders or files and want you and your team to have quick access to them that's a great way to do that all we need to do is find the relevant file or folder we we can highlight it under the free dot menu there will be an option to pin to top when we select pin to top we can now add a pin for this PowerPoint file this project documents area well that's very important too so we're going to go ahead and pin that one you can then see that as your library grows with hundreds or thousands of files there's no need to scroll through the library all we need to do is left click into that file at the top we can open it straight through the browser so creating those pins inside of your doc douments is also very important what's also helpful is you can pin content inside of other folders for example in our project duck folder we've got a couple of files here and I might want to pin the product pitch so as this folder grows it's going to get the visibility it needs once again I can go down and select pin to top and there is our PowerPoint file but if I a browse between the documents and the project docs you'll see the pin files change based upon the folder we're looking at so you can actually tail and deviate those depending on your need but you may also be thinking well that's great but those are not particularly useful if you want to actually identify farsa you're working with because these pins will help the whole team once again we'll go back to documents and look at a new change inside of SharePoint and also how we can access it across one drive and in teams so I might have an interest here in this product overview PowerPoint it discusses one of our all important products and I need to refer to it quite a lot what I don't want to do is go into the SharePoint library and find it every time so I'm going to click on the free do menu and I'm going to select the word favorite now as we can see it's now added as a favorite but not much has changed I don't see anything different inside of SharePoint today what that does allow me to do is have quick access back to it so firstly we're going to go and open up Microsoft teams we're going to go ahead and open the files tab on the left and there is an option for favorite files yes on the left under one drive it won't only show your one drive favorites but also favor files inside of SharePoint and here is my product overview file I can left click in Via teams and have quick access to the PowerPoint file to refer to and make changes so that is a simple way to get back to one of your favorites and if you don't use teams or not to worry we can go into the office.com or Microsoft 365 homepage and inside of there there is now an option for favorite files if I select favorites well there we go there's our file once again made quickly available to me so using pins and favorites are a great way to get back to files you need access to without going anywhere near the search box and finally is there a way to look at all of your content across Microsoft 365 and there absolutely is inside of SharePoint Point as search so far has been scoped very much around the single site inside of SharePoint as search so far has been scoped very much around the single site but if I go to office.com or microsoft365.com what I can then do in the search box at the top is do a search across all of our services for example it's already shown me files I've worked with recently in this dropdown once again I can now type in company information and go ahead and do a search on that term and much like Sho it would do a search across all of our content but in here we can even look at messages maybe there was a post or an email that you've actually got bya teams or Outlook you can also do a search for by clicking messages you'll find relevant information here if I change the word to contract and press enter you can actually see I've got content from inside of Outlook and in teams chat and I can easily by clicking into any of these open it inside of outlook on the web and refer back to that original or email so that's ability to search across all of your files be it one drive team SharePoint teams messages and Outlook emails is very important and that is available through those areas but not only that we're finding more people that integrated their search results inside of Bing yes if we go over to bing.com and sign into your work or school account you will have the ability to search for Content inside a bing not to worry your company data is not being surfaced publicly it's rather a connector to allow you to search for data inside of your business but using Bing and this does require configuration by your it administrators but once again I'm going to search for the word contract and press enter I'll get the normal Bing search results appear but now I have a work tab at the top of the screen and much like our Microsoft 365 search and office.com well I can see very similar capabilities here I can have a look for the keyword contract and I can open up files from teams SharePoint and one drive I can search through all of my email messages and Outlook emails with this search term and not only that by going to files I can also use those refiners to find relevant content in relation to our contract and there we go five ways we can use today to find files in SharePoint and teams and work with them in a much better way saving you time every day to do the more important things now if you like this video we'd love it if hit that subscribe button to look at more great content that we have on these topics to make you into a productivity Superstar and not only that I'd love to hear your comments and how these tips work for you otherwise I'll be seeing you in the next [Applause] [Music] one

Channel: Scott Brant

Views: 3,201

Keywords: microsoft 365, SharePoint Search, Teams Search, How to use Search in SharePoint, How to use Search in Teams, Find Files in SharePoint, Find Files in Microsoft Teams, Search Microsoft Teams, Search SharePoint Online, Search SharePoint, microsoft 365 sharepoint, SharePoint Tutorial, Microsoft Teams Tutorial, Files in SharePoint, Files in Microsoft Teams, Tutorial, Your 365 Coach, How To, SharePoint Help, Teams Help, Find Documents in Microsoft 365, Find Files in Microsoft 365

Id: 5KXC8aeZN_c

Length: 17min 0sec (1020 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 16 2023