Why SharePoint Feels Like a Mess (and How to Fix It)

Let’s face it—most SharePoint sites end up messy. Files are scattered, no one knows what’s current, and people start saying, “I hate SharePoint.” But it’s not SharePoint’s fault—it’s how it’s been set up.

In this first episode of the Simply SharePoint Podcast, I break down why things go wrong, how SharePoint actually works (spoiler: it’s just a big container), and what you need to get organised. I’ll walk you through the key components of information architecture—sites, libraries, metadata, permissions, and more—and explain how each piece fits together to make SharePoint usable.

You'll also learn:

• Why search doesn’t work when your structure’s broken
• What Copilot will (and won’t) fix for you
• The six things every SharePoint site needs to avoid chaos
• Real-world scenarios and my go-to clean-up method

Whether you’re a total beginner or stuck in the middle of a digital disaster, this episode is for you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:03

Welcome to Episode 1 of the Simply SharePoint Podcast. Why SharePoint feels like a mess and how to fix it. I'm Liza Tinker, consultant, trainer and all-round SharePoint fixer. I've been working with SharePoint for 18 years and in that time I've helped hundreds of teams clean up chaotic sites and turn them into something that actually works in the real world. This podcast is all about giving you practical, no-nonsense advice. Whether you're brand new to SharePoint or right in the middle of a digital mess, you're in the right place. Firstly, we're going to start with something simple to explain what SharePoint is, and that is that SharePoint is just a container, but you have to organize it. You will hear me refer to this a lot if you take any of my training courses, And I use it to explain simple concepts in my YouTube videos as well as on my blog. SharePoint is like a big container. Think of it as your team's digital storage unit or filing cabinet. Inside you can keep all of your documents, spreadsheets, project lists, videos and more. But here's the thing, a container is only helpful if what's inside is sorted and labeled. Otherwise it just becomes a dumping ground. That's what happens to most SharePoint sites. Things start out tidy, but over time it turns into a digital junk drawer. Nobody can find anything, people stop using it, and then everyone says, I hate SharePoint. But it doesn't have to be that way. The key to a clean, useful SharePoint site is something called information architecture. And that's what today's episode is all about. So what is information architecture? Information architecture is just a fancy term for how you set things up so that people can find and use what they need. It's about structure, labels, permissions and relationships. If SharePoint is a container, information architecture is the shelving, the dividers, the labels and the layout that makes it usable. You don't need to be an IT person to understand that. You just need to know what the pieces are and how they all work together. So let me walk you through those pieces in plain language. Once you understand what each piece does, you'll start to see how they all work together to keep your SharePoint site clean, organized, and easy to use. It's not about learning every detail either. It's about understanding the role that each part plays inside the container so that it all fits together. Once that clicks, you'll be able to spot what's missing or out of place. So what are the components of information architecture? Firstly, sites. This is your main container. In modern SharePoint, we don't build big structures with sub-sites anymore. Instead, you create separate, focused sites for different things. A site for HR, one for projects, and another for your intranet homepage. So if SharePoint is your storage unit, a site is one shelf dedicated to a specific topic. Another component is libraries. A document library is where all your files live. You can have multiple libraries on one site. For example, you might have one for policies, one for templates, one for marketing assets. So think of a library like a binder on the shelf. So each binder, library, holds related files. Then we have lists. Lists are like spreadsheets inside SharePoint, but they're much smarter. They help you track things like issues, tasks, events, or anything else that can be captured in rows and columns. So think of a list like a tracker stuck to the wall next to your shelf, keeping tabs on what's going on. We then have views and views let you filter and sort what's in a library or list. You can set up a view to show only say approved documents or only tasks that are due this week. And so think of views like setting up a window in the binder that only shows blue files or only things tagged urgent. We then have workflows for automation. And so these workflows automate tasks. So maybe when someone uploads a document, it gets sent for approval. Or when a list is updated, someone gets notified. So a workflow, think of it like, say, a conveyor belt attached to your container. When something happens, it triggers the next action automatically. We then have permissions, and permissions control who can access what. Not everyone needs to see everything. In fact, oversharing is one of the biggest issues in SharePoint. So think of permissions as locks on those cabinet doors. Some people get the keys, others don't. We then have content types, which define what kind of content you have, such as a policy content type, which might include some metadata like an approval date or owner. It makes documents more useful and easy to manage. So think of content types like the colored folders inside your binder, and each color means something different. It comes with its own label. Then we have what we call document sets. And these are like folders. I'd say like folders with superpowers because a document set lets you group related documents together and apply metadata to that whole group. And so think about a document set as a project folder that travels with the label stuck on the front, identifying what it is. Now, when you put all of these pieces together, sites, libraries, lists, views, workflows, permissions, content types and document sets, you get a structured, labelled, secure container that actually works. It's like a perfectly organised storage unit where every shelf, binder, folder and label has a purpose. You know where things go, how to find them again and who's allowed to open what. That's the magic of good information architecture. So why is everyone struggling to find things? Here's what I hear a lot. We can't find anything. SharePoint is too hard to use. Why is this document showing up in search? It's not SharePoint's fault. It's how it's been set up. In the past, we built things like old school filing cabinets. Lots of folders inside folders inside folders. It looked really neat at first. but totally broke down once people started actually using it. Now, modern SharePoint works differently. Instead of one big site with tons of subsites, you use a lot of smaller sites, one per team, topic or function, and you connect them. Think of it as having different containers on different shelves, but they all talk to each other. This is called the flat structure, and it's way more flexible. So what actually makes a SharePoint site work? Now, for your SharePoint container to actually work, And for Copilot to be useful instead of chaotic, there are six key things that need to be in place. First up is navigation, both global and local. Think of it like labels on shelves and drawers. People need to know where to go. Without a clear map, they're just guessing. Second, we've got hubs. These are what tie your shelves together. So if you've got a people and culture site, a finance site and a marketing site, they all connect back to a central intranet hub. That means things like news and updates can roll up to the homepage and everything feels more connected. Next is metadata. This is the labeling system inside each container. Metadata tells you what something is. Is it a policy, a form? Which team does it belong to? It's how SharePoint and Copilot figures out what's what. Then there's search. Now, search is powerful, but only if your stuff is labeled properly. If not, SharePoint's just guessing, and let's be honest, it usually guesses badly. Number five is permissions. Who has access to what? Not everyone should have the keys to everything, just in case. That's how private information ends up in the wrong hands. Permissions keep the right content in the right hands. And finally, we have personalized views. Imagine opening the container and only seeing what's relevant to you. That's the goal, and it only works if all the other pieces are in place. When all six of these elements work together, your SharePoint environment becomes usable, secure, and scalable. It builds trust, keeps things tidy, and sets the stage for Copilot to actually help. But without this foundation, you're just giving AI a jump draw and hoping for the best. So here's the thing about AI. It doesn't magically organize your content. It just reads what's already there. So if your SharePoint is tidy, labeled, and well-structured, Copilot becomes super helpful. It can pull up the right documents, answer questions, and save people loads of time. But if your SharePoint is a mess, Copilot will show the wrong things to the wrong people or worse, confidential stuff could appear in search results. So Some people try to tweak search settings to help when the rest of the SharePoint environment is a mess. It's not the answer. You end up adding signs to a messy cupboard instead of cleaning it out. Sure, it helps a little, but you're just covering up a bigger issue. It also creates a bunch of behind the scenes rules that are hard to manage and break when updates happen. And when the person who set up all those rules leaves, good luck fixing it. So if your documents are scattered everywhere in random folders or labeled weirdly, no amount of search tweaking is going to help. It's not a search problem. It's a structure problem. So how do you fix it? Here's the method that I use with every client to clean things up. First thing I do is I have a look around. I do an audit. I take stock. What sites do you have? What's being used? What is just sitting there? I then get you to talk to your teams. Ask them how they work. What do they need? What's frustrating? What are all their pain points? This part always uncovers hidden messes and things you didn't think about. Then we rebuild with purpose. So each container or site should have a clear job. If you can't say what it's for, it probably doesn't need to exist. We then organize with metadata. Don't just rely on folders. Folders are okay, but just not too many. Use labels so people can sort and find things across sites. Tidy up the permissions. Stop giving everyone access to everything. Set clear rules so people only see what they should, but also train them to copy link instead of share. And then plan for growth. Think about SharePoint in this way. It's not just a one-time setup. It's not just this one-time cleanup either. Set up a plan to review your structure regularly. Now I'm going to go through a few real-world examples that are very common scenarios that I've come across in organizations of all sizes. These aren't theoretical problems. These are the kinds of issues that come up when SharePoint grows without a plan. and what we did to turn them around. The first one is I'm going to call the unofficial archive site. This team had been using SharePoint for years, but nobody had ever cleaned anything up. So old documents lived alongside new ones. There were three versions of every template and no one could confidently say what was still current. Even worse, search results were a mess because everything was still technically active. I'm sure that is a scenario many of you will have in your current environment. So the fix was that we tackled it by identifying the content owners and setting up retention tags using metadata. So we created a review process for outdated content. We set up views to show only active documents and moved anything older than two years into an archive library. Now users can find what they need, but they can also trust what they're finding. So that was one. Another one is a project site that just became everyone's dumping ground. So it started as a space for one's one team's project, but over time it became the dumping ground for multiple teams with everyone adding their own folders and naming things however they liked. Before long, there were over 50 document libraries and no one could tell where anything belonged. So I worked with the teams to break it out into separate containers that made sense. So one site per actual project. Then we introduced content types to apply consistent labels and we set up hub navigation so that we can link all the projects together. So this one wasn't about deleting everything. It was just about giving space for everything and having it in its right place. So the next one is, I'll call it the let's just upload it culture. In this case, everyone was saving their own version of files in whatever folder felt right at the time. So the same report might be seen in four different libraries. There was no version control and team members wasted hours looking for the most recent version or worse, working off the wrong one. The fix was I introduced document sets to group those related files and we turned on versioning in those key libraries. Look, a lot of people don't turn on version control, but I, as a default, always have we'll say you must always have version control on. You never know what can happen. We then train the staff on how to check out and update shared documents. And we created a simple working final status column so people instantly knew what they were looking at. And, you know, I say check out. This particular organization didn't want people working on the same documents at a time. They wanted them to check them out. So that was that one. So as you can see, even if you share, You have a mess. You can fix it. You don't need to start from scratch. I will say one thing, though. If your SharePoint setup is messy, no amount of AI is going to save you. Copilot can only serve as useful content if the structure behind it makes sense. So it relies on metadata, naming, permissions, and relationships. So if you've just thrown everything into one big library with random names, Copilot's going to struggle. So it's like asking an assistant to find your receipts in a box full of unlabeled papers. They'll give it a crack, but it's not going to be pretty. Sorry about that one. On the other hand, if you've got your IA in place, AI becomes brilliant. You can ask, show me all the policies approved this quarter, and you'll actually get what you need. Okay, so wrapping up this episode, first episode for Simply SharePoint, here's the good news. You don't have to start from scratch. You can begin by reviewing what you already have, talking to your teams and making small changes that bring clarity. So start by tidying one site, label things properly, add metadata where it matters, lock things down with the right permissions, create some views that show people what they need. Over time, your SharePoint site turns from a dumping ground into a digital workspace that actually supports your team. And that's what Simply SharePoint is all about. Thanks for listening to Episode 1. I'll be back next week with a deeper dive into site planning and how to map out a new SharePoint site before you even touch a mouse. Until then, keep it simple.