Getting Started with Atlas - for Atlas Champions

The purpose of this article is to be provide a high level introductory guide to Atlas in order to help Champions get started as well as provide a central location to help consolidate other ZenDesk article links into one area.

This article should be used in conjunction with formal ClearPeople Training or inline with in-house training from your respective organisation.

Topics in this article

• Roles & Responsibilities
• Other Atlas Learning Assets to help you begin your journey...
• What is Atlas?
• Microsoft 365 & SharePoint Online
• How to Navigate Atlas
• Add It
• Editing a Page and Adding a Components (Atlas Webparts)

Roles & Responsibilities

To help you implement Atlas in the most successful way we have listed the roles and responsibilities we think are vital for you to have in place when starting your Atlas journey. 

The individuals who are helping to lead the implementation of Atlas are often the first people from their organisation to get hands-on and start learning and building their Atlas platform. Each individual will have a designated role and responsibility to their project implementation team. This article is designed to provide a very high level introduction to Atlas to help Atlas Champions get started with the basics but depending on your role might not provide enough insight into your particular area of responsibility or expertise. We advise to consult your implementation team if there is any knowledge which might be missing.

Other Atlas Learning Assets to help you begin your journey...

...can be found here. Quick Reference Guides and Videos will be continually added to, improved and updated with new content.

What is Atlas?

Atlas is an all-in-one digital workplace for knowledge, communication and collaboration that is built on and for Microsoft 365.

The Atlas platform solves the problems everyone has – too many digital tools, too many silos, too much noise and too much stuff that's often too hard to find.

Atlas simplifies the working experience, easily and efficiently connecting people to people and people to knowledge within your organisation.

Microsoft 365 & SharePoint Online

As Atlas is built on Microsoft 365 platform and SharePoint Online technology, the better understanding you have of SharePoint the more adept at Atlas you will be. To learn more about Microsoft’s Online solutions please feel free to visit the links below for further insights.

1. The Microsoft Office 365 Interface
2. Which Microsoft tool do I use and when?
3. User Profiles
4. Editing your User Profile
5. Glossary and Acronyms

How to Navigate Atlas

Like any digital solution (such as a website or intranet) users will need a way to move around i.e. navigate.

The main menu options within your organisation provide a starting point to move around the different areas of Atlas and might look something like the above, with company logo on the left and the unique menu items in the middle-left that provide drop-down options to further areas.

• The Atlas Interface
• Navigation components for Atlas

The options on the right hand side of the main menu show 4 Atlas Tools you will become well acquainted with.

From left to right, these options are:

1. Provide Feedback to your team (speech bubble)
2. My Atlas (A with circle around)
3. Add It (plus sign)
4. Search (magnifying glass)

   1. All Search Dashboard

   2. Searching for content

Power of Atlas

The power of Atlas is of course hard to quantify and different organisations will use Atlas slightly differently, however the two powerhouses of Atlas are ConneX and Add It.

****please note that Add It and Connex can be subject to permissions****

ConneX

ConneX is a tool to create and manage new SharePoint sites within Atlas, known as Workspaces. Workspaces can be public or private and can be connected to a Microsoft Team. These workspaces form the foundation for both collaborating with colleagues and for communicating with your organisation.

• Creating new workspaces with ConneX
• What different types of Workspace are available in ConneX?
• Use ConneX to manage workspaces
• Edit a workspace with ConneX

Add It

Add It is a 'Wizard' type tool which allows the user to add different types of content. You upload new context to a particular workspace where it will be stored.

• Add It
• How to tag content in Add It
• Adding News (Atlas 2.X)
• Add a Knowledge Page (Atlas 2.X)
• Adding Documents (Atlas 2.X)
• Adding External Insights (Atlas 2.X)
• Add a content page
• Add a page

Editing a Page and Adding a Components (Atlas Webparts)

Now workspaces have been created and you know how to add content, you might need to edit a SharePoint page within Atlas to change the layout, add new webparts and update the branding to ensure your workspace and pages look great and intuitively show the specific content you need them to.

• Understanding Page Types and Layouts
• Navigation components in Atlas 
• In-page Navigation
• My News web part 
• Make a copy of an existing page
• Saved Filters for In Focus web parts 
• HoverPoint 
• Enhanced In Focus Cards 

Webpart specific articles

• Event webparts
• News Webpart
• In Focus Webparts
• In Focus Filters Webpart
• In Focus Verticals Webpart
• Configuring In Focus Webparts
• Result sources for In Focus Webparts
• Document Listing Webpart
• Spotlights Webparts
• Knowledge Pages Webpart
• External Insights webpart
• Communication In-Focus webpart
• Configuring Mandatory Reads webparts
• Configuration options for the My ConneX web part

We will always advise to create your own private workspace, or have one created for you, where you are able to practice adding content and configuring webparts, designing pages which suits your needs. The more time your spend learning and practicing, the quicker you will become an Atlas Expert and be able to design awesome pages which deliver content efficiently and look great for your users.