SharePoint 365 User: Manage Versions, Alerts & Rules

Course description

This course guides learners through SharePoint 365 tools for version control, file access, and staying informed about changes. It begins with the check-out and check-in process, showing how users can temporarily lock files to make updates privately before releasing them for others to view or edit. Participants learn how check-out prevents co-authoring during editing, how to check files back in to publish changes, and how to discard checkouts when unwanted edits are made, including when this feature remains useful despite real-time collaboration. Learners then explore document versioning and see how SharePoint tracks file changes, maintains previous versions, and allows users to view, restore, or delete earlier iterations. Examples show how version history preserves document integrity and collaboration transparency by recording who made changes and when, and how check-in comments support version tracking, while version settings determine how many and what types of versions are retained. The final section introduces Alerts and Rules for library notifications. Participants learn how to configure email alerts for new, modified, or deleted files, set summary digests, and manage existing alerts, then compare Alerts with the modern Rules feature for automating notifications based on triggers such as new file additions or column updates. By the end of this course, participants will be able to use check-in, versioning, and notification tools to maintain file accuracy, monitor updates, and support transparent collaboration across their organization.

Course outline