SharePoint Web Parts & Add-Ons

One of the most powerful aspects of SharePoint is the ability to create internal websites that act as the interface between users and the data in SharePoint lists. It enables users of any experience to create a website. This is done through web parts.

A web part in SharePoint is a component or widget that forms the basic building block of SharePoint intranet sites. They work in the same way as components in website builders or HTML code blocks in traditional web development.

However, in contrast to HTML code or components added to a page beforehand by a developer, web parts are inserted at run time. This enables users to add, modify, and delete web parts on the fly from a web browser without needing any specialized software.

SharePoint 2019, SharePoint 2016, and SharePoint 2013 web parts represent a specific function or layout feature that users can add to a web page without code. When put together, they can help achieve professional websites with incredible functionality.

By default, SharePoint provides a wide variety of web parts covering almost everything a basic or intermediate user might need. This includes controlling the layout, displaying data from a SharePoint list, or receiving user input.

But the power of SharePoint web parts is that you can program your own website that’s tailor-made to fit your organization’s needs. This can extend the capabilities of SharePoint far beyond what you can do with its default web parts alone. You can use Power Apps or Visual Studio to create customized apps and web parts for a one-of-a-kind experience.

While powerful, custom web parts can be costly and time-consuming to develop. You’d need developers with a specialized skill set, which doesn’t come cheap. A good alternative is to go with a reliable third-party developer like KWizCom. Our extensive library of SharePoint add-ons and SharePoint web parts cover a wide variety of use cases and situations for almost every organizational need.

Thanks to their incredible flexibility and versatility, web parts can be used for just about any functionality within a SharePoint web page.

At its simplest, SharePoint online web parts are in the form of user interface and layout elements like buttons, text, images, and dividers. These allow you to design the look and feel of your page.

But web parts can also be advanced enough to be SharePoint plugins in their own right. For example, a web part might be responsible for pulling stock information from a SharePoint list of your company’s inventory. Or it can display a calendar that aggregates all the events and meetings across your organization, like the KWizCom Calendar Plus web part.

SharePoint widgets and web parts are also not limited to static components used to display information. They can also be used to accept user input, such as the Text web part or the File Viewer web part. In this way, web parts can also be used to create mini-forms inside of SharePoint pages.

SharePoint offers many web parts by default, which are fortunately separated into categories. These categories give you an idea of their general functionality and purpose within a page. Here are some of the most important ones:

• Media and Content Web Parts are used for either inputting or displaying images, text, and video. Mostly, these are important for the look and feel of your web page, as well as the user interface. For instance, the Image web part allows users to submit images, while the Image Gallery web part displays multiple photos like an album. If you’re designing a SharePoint form, you can also use the Microsoft Forms web part.
• The Lists and Libraries category pulls data from SharePoint lists and displays it on the web page. The most common web part you’ll use here is the List. Another useful one is the Document Library web part, which shows a list of documents on your SharePoint site. Users can then view or edit these documents, depending on the permissions you set.
• The Business Data category contains web parts that enable connections to external databases or file sources. For instance, Excel Web Access allows you to connect to an Excel file and extract its data. These web parts will enable you to integrate your SharePoint website into the rest of your organization’s infrastructure.
• One web part that deserves mention is the Power App web part. This allows you to add custom apps created through the Microsoft Power App service. This is notable because the flexibility and customizability given by the platform mean you can add virtually any functionality to your SharePoint web page.

Adding a web part for SharePoint pages is incredibly easy and intuitive. The workflow is similar to website builders like WordPress and Wix, so it should be a piece of cake if you’re familiar with those. If you’re not, don’t worry – it was designed to be easy to learn.

To start, go to the SharePoint page that you want to add a web part to and click on Edit to enter page editing mode. Move your cursor to the area you want to add a web part and click on the green “+” symbol.

Doing this opens up a list of web parts. Simply click on the one you wish to add. If you can’t find the one you’re looking for, you can find it through the Search box.

Once added, you can also edit web parts to customize their functionality. For example, you can change the label and the link for a Button web part. To do so, click on the Edit web part button on the toolbar.

You can also move web parts around by clicking on the Move web part button and dragging the part around the page to your desired location. Alternatively, you can click on the Delete web part button to remove the web part from the page.