When you click “New Item” in any SharePoint list or “Upload” in any document library, SharePoint sends you to a standard form for creating the new item. Behind the scenes, SharePoint also passes in two parameters to let the form know where to post the item and where to go after the item is posted. By leveraging these two parameters in the URL, you can make a link anywhere that posts data to any list and sends you someplace else when finished. This has come in handy for us when creating intranet home pages, as we can create a list of links to post data to custom lists, which sends the person back to the home page afterwards. Otherwise, the person would end up in the root of the list or library they submitted the item to. So we were able to easily meet a requirement that the person be directed back to the home page after submitting the item.
A SharePoint new item link is structured as follows:
https://intranet.doman.com/site/Lists/listname/NewForm.aspx?RootFolder=/site/Lists/listname&Source=https://intranet.domain.com
The two parameters of interest are RootFolder and Source. RootFolder tells SharePoint where to post the document. If it is removed from the URL then SharePoint will post data to the root of the list where newform.aspx is located. You could also specify the path to a subfolder there, and SharePoint would post to that subfolder. Source tells SharePoint where to go when the posting is complete. The source needs to be a place in the site collection. In the example link above it is back to the home page. If source is left out of the URL then SharePoint will just return you back to the root of the list afterwards.
By using these two parameters, you can create lists of links on a page rather than having to drop in web parts, and you will gain more flexibility in how the user experience and navigation work.