tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5126798447690878102024-03-16T20:52:50.554+02:00More SharePointFor Everyone.Dimitar Miriyskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413044946456573336noreply@blogger.comBlogger58125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-512679844769087810.post-5037426945324255112018-03-13T18:38:00.000+02:002018-03-13T18:39:57.782+02:00Power BI Q&A feature in reportsI know I've been lazy in the last six (ok, even more) months... but things have changed around my career a little bit. Don't get me wrong, I am still doing lots of SharePoint stuff, but since last summer I also got involved in some Power BI projects. I've also started putting up a another <a href="http://tripcookbook.com/">small blog</a> on Facebook related to my other passion, which is globetrotting.<br />
<br />
I got really good insights in the Power BI technology during a full day workshop at the European Collaboration Summit in Zagreb, Croatia last year. Thanks to <a href="https://whitepages.unlimitedviz.com/">John White</a> and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonhimmelstein">Jason Himmelstein</a> for the wonderful delivery of the content. It was transferred to hands-on experience starting the day I got back to work.<br />
<br />
In the last 9 months, I've got my hands dirty and designed several solutions, based on Power BI reports and dashboards, with data from SharePoint, Exchange Online and other business applications.<br />
<br />
To prove I'm seriously into this, today, I have actually passed the now official Microsoft exam:<br />
<br />
<h2 class="" data-exam-number="70-778" id="exam-title" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: wf_segoe-ui_light, "Segoe UI Light", "Segoe WP Light", wf_segoe-ui_normal, "Segoe UI", Segoe, "Segoe WP", Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.846em; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.25; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/learning/exam-70-778.aspx">Analyzing and Visualizing Data with Microsoft Power BI (70-778)</a></h2>
<br />
It was the toughest exam I've taken (no kidding!), there were a lot of DAX queries and a mix of admin and developer questions...it was a close one with a passing score of just 745.<br />
<br />
Anyway, I wanted to give you some value with this post by telling you about a feature that got released in Power BI Desktop recently... that's the Q & A.<br />
<br />
Even on the exam, questions to Q & A referred only to the dashboards in the Power BI service, but this feature is now also available in the reports in Power BI Desktop. Your Power BI desktop client must be at least the <a href="https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/power-bi-desktop-december-feature-summary/">December 2017 version</a>... but I recommend you get the <a href="https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/power-bi-desktop-march-2018-feature-summary/">March 2018 update</a>.<br />
<br />
It's a preview feature, so you'd need to enable it first. You can do that by going to File -> Options and settings -> Options -> Preview features. Tick the Q &A feature, click OK and restart Power BI desktop.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-a2E3XP3naC8/Wqf6npSH16I/AAAAAAAAeYY/T6ppej-G75E2lP9g0FcW4rcMi-_qnCCrACLcBGAs/s1600/previewfeatures.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="638" data-original-width="628" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-a2E3XP3naC8/Wqf6npSH16I/AAAAAAAAeYY/T6ppej-G75E2lP9g0FcW4rcMi-_qnCCrACLcBGAs/s400/previewfeatures.PNG" width="392" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
The next time you start your Power BI desktop client, you will see this:</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bNKxhO2KVcY/Wqf8mow1DLI/AAAAAAAAeYo/_2i1hpRr9fweV2EtIWbsPqwURdC4lo-VwCLcBGAs/s1600/QA.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="618" data-original-width="452" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bNKxhO2KVcY/Wqf8mow1DLI/AAAAAAAAeYo/_2i1hpRr9fweV2EtIWbsPqwURdC4lo-VwCLcBGAs/s400/QA.PNG" width="292" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
How does the feature work? Pretty simple, you can ask questions about your data in a natural language. Just click on the canvas in Power BI desktop report view and the following visual will appear:</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-u92vjLCelpo/Wqf83aVX-bI/AAAAAAAAeYs/d5TH_8n16SM-lt6xjP-NDLVwLxxGs4u3wCLcBGAs/s1600/askq.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="233" data-original-width="409" height="227" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-u92vjLCelpo/Wqf83aVX-bI/AAAAAAAAeYs/d5TH_8n16SM-lt6xjP-NDLVwLxxGs4u3wCLcBGAs/s400/askq.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
For example, I'll load a dataset of Projects and ask the simple questions.. ok how many are they? Rather than doing a COUNT function with DAX... and boom: I've got the answer.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3pP8hTHhWrI/Wqf9EGWN-mI/AAAAAAAAeYw/CAeu7OV6ssQ8W8_2upFHopHeJS0ZuhQSACLcBGAs/s1600/how%2Bmany.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="219" data-original-width="636" height="137" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3pP8hTHhWrI/Wqf9EGWN-mI/AAAAAAAAeYw/CAeu7OV6ssQ8W8_2upFHopHeJS0ZuhQSACLcBGAs/s400/how%2Bmany.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Now, sometimes, you will not know the exact field name by which to search... let's say you insert a query for top client by revenue, but the field in the dataset is called customer. Here's where the synonyms come into play. I will write another post on how to get the most of those.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
So... how many of you are using Power BI? Are there any of you interested on taking the exam?</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />Dimitar Miriyskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413044946456573336noreply@blogger.com110tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-512679844769087810.post-40668953533001553002017-07-27T10:47:00.000+03:002017-07-27T10:48:08.656+03:00Export to Excel now Works in Chrome. Open with Project doesn't work anywhere :)So.. some <b>good news</b> for the majority of people.<br />
<br />
This scope of this post is all about SharePoint Online.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Lg9KCkHkWm8/WXmasEbnspI/AAAAAAAAPeA/lLyVJ5e-ttMavhBoWcnHBIoZVtTAdGESQCLcBGAs/s1600/export.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="71" data-original-width="164" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Lg9KCkHkWm8/WXmasEbnspI/AAAAAAAAPeA/lLyVJ5e-ttMavhBoWcnHBIoZVtTAdGESQCLcBGAs/s1600/export.PNG" /></a></div>
<br />
The most popular browser in the world nowadays is Chrome... and we've had the pain of not being able to use the "Export to Excel" functionality on SharePoint lists for a while... I've even implemented HTML buttons in CEWP in order for people to download a pre-saved .iqy file and get the same functionality in any browser. From last week, the OOB button on the ribbon seems to work fine in Chrome! It also works in FireFox (not sure since when) and IE and Edge had this working traditionally.<br />
<br />
<b>Now the bad news...</b><br />
<br />
The Open with Project button that was working fine in any browser traditionally...now doesn't work. In any browser. So the only way to open your Project (.mpp) files that are synced to SharePoint task list is to go to Site Contents -> Site Assests and then open the file from there.<br />
<br />
While this has been aknowledged by Microsoft like 2 weeks ago, there's still no fix and no ETA on a fix...Dimitar Miriyskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413044946456573336noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-512679844769087810.post-29721169244732301442017-06-14T10:44:00.001+03:002017-09-15T13:35:16.907+03:00Calculated fields with HTML in SharePoint Online lists are GONE.<b>Updated 15/09/2017: </b>This feature has been extended up to 28/02/2018.<br />
<br />
So today I just found out that many of the lists that I've created for Projects, task lists etc. have gotten pretty bad looks. I mean... BAD. This # field should be displaying the color background of the task number, according to the task status...NOT today.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nqKvyj-Qcf0/WUDo8PVT2PI/AAAAAAAAHE4/3f0QMu0qAqALhwDtKT-2rEHhcNvRe4DVQCLcBGAs/s1600/11.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="150" data-original-width="622" height="154" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nqKvyj-Qcf0/WUDo8PVT2PI/AAAAAAAAHE4/3f0QMu0qAqALhwDtKT-2rEHhcNvRe4DVQCLcBGAs/s640/11.PNG" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I've also used this to display website links in a pretty way, as well as some traffic lights for project statuses. Then I stumped onto this message in the tenant's Office 365 Message Center.</div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HfSKWjAxwJE/WUDoxP0Rh2I/AAAAAAAAHE0/7JXJaIwSxDQMyBIUYVjMztB4aSrG9w9IQCLcBGAs/s1600/Capture.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="524" data-original-width="830" height="404" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HfSKWjAxwJE/WUDoxP0Rh2I/AAAAAAAAHE0/7JXJaIwSxDQMyBIUYVjMztB4aSrG9w9IQCLcBGAs/s640/Capture.PNG" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Turns out, this "undocumented" feature, which exists since ages is taken away IN A DAY. Thanks, Microsoft. Good job in notifying us and making the transition so smooth. I have now requested an extension and let's see what happens...</div>
<br />Dimitar Miriyskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413044946456573336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-512679844769087810.post-36758842124322916392017-03-07T16:35:00.000+02:002017-03-07T16:47:55.071+02:00SharePoint Saturday Munich 2017 Day 2: The Conference!You can read a short introduction about SPS Munich and the pre-conference workshops that took place on the previous day in my <a href="http://www.moresharepoint.net/2017/03/sharepoint-saturday-munich-2017-day-1.html" target="_blank">last post</a>.<br />
<br />
We went to the conference at around 8:30 and the atrium was already full of people. We were met by <a href="https://twitter.com/mattein?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor" target="_blank">Mathias Einig </a>who organizes the SPS Munich and SPS Stockholm events and he gave us the tip to quickly get into the Keynote room as it was expected to get packed. It did. The room was full and there were 3 more rooms that had been watching the keynote on big screens.<br />
<br />
Even though <a href="https://twitter.com/cmcnulty2000?lang=en" target="_blank">Chris McNulty</a> from Microsoft had to cancel his keynote at the last moment, <a href="https://twitter.com/vesajuvonen?lang=en" target="_blank">Vesa Juvonen </a>and <a href="https://twitter.com/eshupps?lang=en" target="_blank">Eric Shupps</a> opened with a very artistic keynote - Vesa playing the Microsoft guy, and Eric being the bad, really annoyed customer asking the "awesome" questions :) From time to time, Eric did put his positive hat on, yes he had one. We've got many insights from the keynote, mainly around priorities and not real release dates, but there are a few things that are definitely on the way:<br />
<br />
- <b>Proper Modern Team Sites</b>, providing customization capabilities that will match the levels possible within the Classic sites<br />
-<b> Classic sites are not going away</b> anytime soon<br />
- <b>OneDrive single client</b> for syncing both SharePoint document libraries & OneDrive will soon be a reality (in fact there is a TeamSiteSyncPreview.reg which you can download and already sync SharePoint document libraries.<br />
- <b>SharePoint Framework </b>will be the future model for SharePoint development. Skills needed would match those of a regular web developer, so the possible career path for SharePoint developers would be more interesting and flexible.<br />
- <b>There will be </b>another (maybe even two) <b>on-premise version of SharePoint Serve</b>r.<br />
- SharePoint Product Engineering is aiming to shorten the release cycle from 3 years to small incremental releases, so that the users can get more <a href="http://sharepoint.uservoice.com/" target="_blank"><b>feedback </b></a>in the process. And oh boy, they did get feedback as Vesa said.<br />
<br />
Last but not least, we've had lots of laughing in the hall. Well done, Vesa and Eric!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Rb-eYKrmM_Y/WL5z-iFjzFI/AAAAAAAAG_s/5QI9qRwsA1UmeAh2SBCVuk3z_jBsuRq8wCLcB/s1600/IMG_20170304_084301.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Rb-eYKrmM_Y/WL5z-iFjzFI/AAAAAAAAG_s/5QI9qRwsA1UmeAh2SBCVuk3z_jBsuRq8wCLcB/s640/IMG_20170304_084301.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Eric did really get into the bad cop from Texas role and transmitted a lot of feedback and questions that the audience would have otherwise asked anyway. One of my favorite ones as I hear it all the time from the people I work with:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gjuME2P8UPc/WL51h2yTvPI/AAAAAAAAG_8/Ifsrb5DggholXyAsNJ1Sbf_-TCrrLimiACLcB/s1600/IMG_20170304_090615.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gjuME2P8UPc/WL51h2yTvPI/AAAAAAAAG_8/Ifsrb5DggholXyAsNJ1Sbf_-TCrrLimiACLcB/s640/IMG_20170304_090615.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
A little bit of impressive statistics shown by Mathias. With 430 attendees, I think that was the biggest SharePoint Saturday ever? I bet it is the biggest in Europe and the best one held so far. The event was in fact international with all sessions held in English and people from all over Europe and even the US!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FpERWA46nSA/WL51Bcf_fII/AAAAAAAAG_4/oDoGu73BztYynsdUGEasZ_vGkk3vSzSyQCLcB/s1600/IMG_20170304_084732.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FpERWA46nSA/WL51Bcf_fII/AAAAAAAAG_4/oDoGu73BztYynsdUGEasZ_vGkk3vSzSyQCLcB/s640/IMG_20170304_084732.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Meanwhile, at the coffee area, there was this really cool poster by <a href="http://www.if-blueprint.de/" target="_blank">IF-Blueprint AG</a> who were volunteers at the event. Cheers to the person or team who worked on it, it's really cool!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lWQ3-eNRQt4/WL52UwwZ9XI/AAAAAAAAHAE/Jp3PMVEx4e42ar1v8v_DMspTF_ZEAulBgCLcB/s1600/IMG_20170304_095721.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lWQ3-eNRQt4/WL52UwwZ9XI/AAAAAAAAHAE/Jp3PMVEx4e42ar1v8v_DMspTF_ZEAulBgCLcB/s640/IMG_20170304_095721.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />
The agenda. First of all, we've all downloaded the mobile app <a href="https://whova.com/" target="_blank">Whova </a>(which is available for iOS and Android) way before the conference day came, so we've made our custom agendas. Sorry to the 3 people at the event that had Windows Phones :) The app was really useful for a couple of things:<br />
<br />
- <b>Navigating through the schedule</b> and modifying it on the go. I've changed my mind for one of the sessions on the day.<br />
- <b>Rating the sessions</b> - there was even a section for comments.<br />
- <b>Networking </b>with other SharePointers. I've got a message from another Bulgarian whom I didn't know before the conference, but we were in the same room.<br />
- <b>Photo Contest</b> :) Even though we've posted some pics, I think the organizers missed that one partly because there were so many things going on at the same time! But this is not a critic in any way. It was fun, at least to see what people would post in terms of interesting pictures from the event.<br />
<br />
There was a printed agenda as a bag insert, too, it was also useful. I liked the looks of it, so I'll share the picture here (it's from the official <a href="http://www.spsevents.org/city/Munich/Munich2017/schedule" target="_blank">SPS Munich site</a>).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jh-ag7oJiLc/WL6FL5BdITI/AAAAAAAAHAU/ddpXjkI75vU3DB2xWuf2puwTT8SyywC5gCLcB/s1600/Agenda_Front.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jh-ag7oJiLc/WL6FL5BdITI/AAAAAAAAHAU/ddpXjkI75vU3DB2xWuf2puwTT8SyywC5gCLcB/s640/Agenda_Front.png" width="452" /></a></div>
<br />
The #spsmuc20 session with <a href="https://twitter.com/harbars?lang=en" target="_blank">Spencer Harbar</a> got replaced with <a href="https://twitter.com/cimares?lang=en" target="_blank">Paul Hunt</a>'s <a href="https://docs.com/paul-hunt---cim/2043/spsmuc-exploring-identity-management-options-in" target="_blank">Exploring Identity Management Options in O365</a> as Spencer couldn't make it to the conference, but it wasn't on my agenda anyway.<br />
<br />
The sessions that I've visited were:<br />
<br />
<b>#SPSMUC00 - Keynote: The Future if SharePoint is Now, Reinventing Content Collaboration with Vesa Juvonen and Eric Shupps</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><a href="https://docs.com/jasperoosterveld/8335/spsmunich2017-the-key-to-a-successful-office-365" target="_blank">#SPSMUC01 - The Key to a Successful Office 365 Implementation is Adoption with Jasper Oosterveld</a></b><br />
<br />
<b>Move, Manage, Protect SharePoint & Office 365 - sponsored session by Metalogix.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><a href="https://docs.com/maarteneekels/9981/spsmuc-office-365-groups-deep-dive" target="_blank">#SPSMUC07 - Office 365 Groups Deep Dive with Maarten Eekels</a></b><br />
<br />
<b><a href="https://docs.com/jussi-roine/1253/securing-office-365-and-microsoft-azure-like-a" target="_blank">#SPSMUC06 - Securing Office 365 and Microsoft Azure like a Rock Star with Jussi Roine</a></b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>#SPSMUC11 - Power charging Microsoft Teams with Bots, Connectors and Tabs with <a href="https://twitter.com/wictor">Wictor Wilén</a></b><br />
<br />
<a href="https://docs.com/mikael-svenson/5038/level-up-with-powerapps-and-microsoft-flow"><b>#SPSMUC13 - Level up with PowerApps and Microsoft Flow with Mikael Svenson</b></a><br />
<br />
<b>#SPSMUC23 - Panel Discussion: Groups, Teams, Conversations, Skype, Yammer - say what?</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>...and SharePINT of course :) </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
My recap of the sessions:<br />
<br />
<b><a href="https://docs.com/jasperoosterveld/8335/spsmunich2017-the-key-to-a-successful-office-365" target="_blank">#SPSMUC01 - The Key to a Successful Office 365 Implementation is Adoption with Jasper Oosterveld</a></b><b><br /></b>
<b><br /></b>
<br />
First of all, Jasper is an amazing speaker, full of energy and always wearing a smile. I truly believed that his IS the key to Office 365 adoption, along with all the tips & tricks he presented :)<br />
<br />
One of the case studies I found very interesting - a video with the key stakeholder. The project was a simple Project Management solution in SharePoint, one you've probably designed in a few days - it looked like the default columns in a Task list, then a very simple branding, BUT the key was the way it was presented. With a video with the key stakeholder - I think a VP of Information Technology or something similar.<br />
<br />
The solution home page:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iJHhcIs7laY/WL6lrMKAFOI/AAAAAAAAHAk/NQeWdYFJg7I8TgWP6h6ZleJJhQ9pS5GggCLcB/s1600/IMG_20170304_103215.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iJHhcIs7laY/WL6lrMKAFOI/AAAAAAAAHAk/NQeWdYFJg7I8TgWP6h6ZleJJhQ9pS5GggCLcB/s640/IMG_20170304_103215.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
A project site:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--BLyJzvfR7g/WL6l1WJg1OI/AAAAAAAAHAo/ywXcXX597NMViPjHKyNQx4cD1O1NMOTlQCLcB/s1600/IMG_20170304_103137.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--BLyJzvfR7g/WL6l1WJg1OI/AAAAAAAAHAo/ywXcXX597NMViPjHKyNQx4cD1O1NMOTlQCLcB/s640/IMG_20170304_103137.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Video still... it made me wonder how many times I've seen projects fail because of poor communication / presentation / a little bit of PR.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UZDj79eW9pc/WL6l_lrZc-I/AAAAAAAAHAs/QCUh90Ycbyc5AwSWRS01N2NJ8Q3XnVbrwCLcB/s1600/IMG_20170304_103105.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UZDj79eW9pc/WL6l_lrZc-I/AAAAAAAAHAs/QCUh90Ycbyc5AwSWRS01N2NJ8Q3XnVbrwCLcB/s640/IMG_20170304_103105.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Jasper also used the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5eq5Awc--0" target="_blank">introduction of Microsoft Teams</a> by Satya Nadella as an example, how Microsoft are bringing "the big guns" when introducing something new.<br />
<br />
As a takeaway, if you'd do Office 365 projects, make sure you:<br />
<br />
- Have <b>vision & goals.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
- Have an <b>executive sponsor.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
- Have a <b>budget for adoption</b> (it's not free).<br />
<br />
- <b>Know your target audience.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
- Make a <b>launch party</b> (everyone loves to have some fun at work).<br />
<br />
- Think about a <b>video </b>with the project sponsor if you have virtual teams.<br />
<br />
- Try and answer the <b>"What's in it for me?"</b> question proactively<br />
<br />
- Train your users by doing quick <b>1-2 min videos</b> frequently (think of hiring a voice actor to make your videos more professional).<br />
<br />
- <b>Train users in person</b> if that's the style of working in your organization (don't make groups larger than 10-15 people and don't do it alone as you won't be able to handle all the incoming questions).<br />
<br />
- <b>Train the trainers (</b>especially valid if you're an external consultant and you're not going to be around for long in the organization).<br />
<br />
- Have <b>Office 365 champions </b>(definitely try to get those people from different departments).<br />
<br />
- <b>Share a roadmap.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
- <b>Be honest!</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>- Set a baseline and success criteria. </b>You can use the <a href="https://portal.office.com/adminportal/home#/reportsUsage" target="_blank">OOB O365 Reports</a> to measure the success once you launch - you'd need to be an administrator of the O365 tenant to access those.<br />
<br />
- Start small.<br />
<br />
- Use the <b><a href="https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Set-up-the-Standard-or-First-Release-options-in-Office-365-3b3adfa4-1777-4ff0-b606-fb8732101f47?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US" target="_blank">First Release</a> </b>cycle for selected power users in your organization. Keep in mind they must be curious and play with the new features so that you get feedback from them.<br />
<br />
- Office 365 is going fast! <b>Go to conferences & events, </b>just like SPS Munich :) to stay up-to-date.<br />
<br />
Hands down, the session was above my expectations. Even though just a level 100, I got some useful insights which I'll use into practice.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Move, Manage, Protect SharePoint & Office 365 - sponsored session by Metalogix.</b><br />
<div>
<b><br /></b></div>
<div>
Crappy sponsored session. Slides in German!? The speaker said he gets a bit uneasy in front of people (?!) A good question that was asked at the end about the licensing model for calculation could not be answered. Got redirected to account managers. So where were the account managers instead of in the room?</div>
<div>
Although I am certified on Metalogix Content Matrix and I've used their software for a large-scale migration for a customer 2 years ago, I honestly think they could do better. Anyway, thank you Metalogix for being SPS Munich's only diamond sponsor!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><a href="https://docs.com/maarteneekels/9981/spsmuc-office-365-groups-deep-dive" target="_blank">#SPSMUC07 - Office 365 Groups Deep Dive with Maarten Eekels</a></b></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Instead of this session, I was planning to go to a level 400 Business (?) session: #SPSMUC10: The Executive's Guide to the Digital Workplace and I am so glad I didn't go there!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Maarten was a great speaker, very professional, the session included lots of info about Groups (and Teams, even if it wasn't announced beforehand). He started with the building blocks of Groups:<br />
<br />
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-z0ViuSJ28RM/WL6vIfHPdbI/AAAAAAAAHBA/Kd5dw9nMBJ0CpyurT3QWKHtNHrFXbJPfgCLcB/s1600/IMG_20170304_112720.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-z0ViuSJ28RM/WL6vIfHPdbI/AAAAAAAAHBA/Kd5dw9nMBJ0CpyurT3QWKHtNHrFXbJPfgCLcB/s640/IMG_20170304_112720.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Maarten focused on a few things:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
- <b><a href="https://dev.outlook.com/connectors">Connectors </a></b>- those are also available in Teams and there are more than a 100 of them already. You can build your own by creating an incoming webhook and then send requests to it from any web service (this was demoed with <a href="https://www.getpostman.com/">Postman</a> - a very handy tool which I was not aware of, so thanks Maarten).<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
- <b>External guest access </b>- right now the only part that's available to external users is the modern team site. Teams do not have external access just yet, but it's on the <a href="https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public-preview/suggestions/16911109-external-access-and-federation">roadmap</a>.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qs4LtF7YLbg/WL6vIN_yf3I/AAAAAAAAHA8/OMP_UrCADzklwQ1mL9Y842EcIwXo0MWeQCLcB/s1600/IMG_20170304_113723.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qs4LtF7YLbg/WL6vIN_yf3I/AAAAAAAAHA8/OMP_UrCADzklwQ1mL9Y842EcIwXo0MWeQCLcB/s640/IMG_20170304_113723.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div>
<br />
- <b>Manageability - </b>mixed feelings story. Groups are managed from so many different places - O365 Admin Center, Exchange Admin Center, the Outlook (?) Groups mobile app, PowerShell...with the latest being the greatest.<br />
<br />
Maarten showed us some good examples of commandlets to manage what kind of external users people can invite in groups (on the picture above) and gave us a few insights on the Groups roadmap to wrap up the session. Again, very glad I chose this one over the level 400 business session...<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
We've had a pretty good lunch, this day it was a menu with predefined options, but again, hands down for the food. I will not fill this blog post with pictures as they're too much already, you just have to trust me! It was awesome and we've had plenty of time (80 min) for lunch (there were some sponsored sessions going on during lunch time too) and in that time we've managed to get a tour of the brand new <a href="https://www.google.bg/maps/place/Microsoft+Deutschland+GmbH/@48.177622,11.5912643,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x479e71de81797387:0x96e5ccd42f4f5155!8m2!3d48.177622!4d11.593453?hl=en">Microsoft DE HQ office</a>. There were 5 groups for the day (10-11 people) and the previous group was already full, so this time we went 15 min ahead of time.<br />
<br />
And we were in. I'd let the pictures speak for that place, but in a few words: it's awesome! Not what you'd expect from a huge corporation - it was not that grey, dark, American standard cubicle box floor...About 1900 employees are "attached" to that office, but our guides told us that there are only 1100 seats. The difference could be easily explained with the first picture:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RF3YY5ANzwM/WL623P-82zI/AAAAAAAAHBQ/WtYw8a_PKEsP5Ill94M3LSG4btVUbLX1wCLcB/s1600/IMG_20170304_175223.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RF3YY5ANzwM/WL623P-82zI/AAAAAAAAHBQ/WtYw8a_PKEsP5Ill94M3LSG4btVUbLX1wCLcB/s640/IMG_20170304_175223.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-71s6Djo3b0U/WL63PQzcY5I/AAAAAAAAHBU/8fXkljP7uzQ5zTOQqCs8_ZPkgrJ_wnDkACLcB/s1600/IMG_20170304_131824.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-71s6Djo3b0U/WL63PQzcY5I/AAAAAAAAHBU/8fXkljP7uzQ5zTOQqCs8_ZPkgrJ_wnDkACLcB/s640/IMG_20170304_131824.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4w21gCrdqnY/WL63PWaL3_I/AAAAAAAAHBY/1F1d5XDZlfU6ha61D0JOt2x-vORswf-FwCLcB/s1600/IMG_20170304_131849.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4w21gCrdqnY/WL63PWaL3_I/AAAAAAAAHBY/1F1d5XDZlfU6ha61D0JOt2x-vORswf-FwCLcB/s640/IMG_20170304_131849.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<b><a href="https://docs.com/jussi-roine/1253/securing-office-365-and-microsoft-azure-like-a" target="_blank">#SPSMUC06 - Securing Office 365 and Microsoft Azure like a Rock Star with Jussi Roine</a></b><br />
<br />
To be honest I don't have much experience with Azure and the security in it, I've just used MFA in Office 365. But Jussi's session was really insightful and I'm surprised he managed to stick it into 50 minutes.<br />
<br />
I took a few things with me:<br />
<br />
- <b>Azure Active Directory</b> is at the heart of security, just like the good old AD is on-premise.<br />
<br />
- <b>Enable MFA for the admin users</b> in Office 365<br />
<br />
- Enable the <b>free security tools in Azure - </b>Azure Active Directory reporting, Azure Security Center, Operations Management Suite<br />
<br />
- <b>Forget about building on-premise security solutions -</b> they're not as exciting anymore :)<br />
<br />
- You can discover <b>unmanaged cloud apps/services</b> on your users' workstations - something that most organizations would launch a project for and do manual surveys and interviews with people.<br />
<br />
- If you're a<b> large business</b>, you'd need to invest in the <b>paid options.</b><br />
<br />
And this diagram was really cool - we've had 20 seconds to memorize it :)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tMYhWg8-Jvk/WL646E9Vj6I/AAAAAAAAHBg/VDo1SVFsikMvJEkx82QPJkEq1Y595WgaACLcB/s1600/IMG_20170304_134014.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tMYhWg8-Jvk/WL646E9Vj6I/AAAAAAAAHBg/VDo1SVFsikMvJEkx82QPJkEq1Y595WgaACLcB/s640/IMG_20170304_134014.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Jussi was an expert in the field, and the examples he's used in the demos were quite interesting. such as detecting impossible travel activities from Netherlands to Bosnia and Herzegovina (cool country, been there on a rafting trip :)) and botnet attacks on Russi's tenants. Great session!<br />
<br />
<b><a href="https://twitter.com/wictor?lang=en" target="_blank">#SPSMUC11 - Power charging Microsoft Teams with Bots, Connectors and Tabs with Wictor Wilén</a></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-W68mPvd8dRc/WL68oa6gcaI/AAAAAAAAHBw/2AgOH3hTzL8muttdWjCiO5iQ1w5V581BACLcB/s1600/IMG_20170304_143245%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-W68mPvd8dRc/WL68oa6gcaI/AAAAAAAAHBw/2AgOH3hTzL8muttdWjCiO5iQ1w5V581BACLcB/s640/IMG_20170304_143245%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Wictor started with a quick introduction on <a href="https://teams.microsoft.com/_">Microsoft Teams </a>and then focused on 3 areas:<br />
<br />
- <b>Connectors - </b>nice use cases here. This topic was also covered by Maarten Eekels in one of the previous sessions.<br />
<b><br /></b>
- <b>Tabs - </b>While those seem basic, they are reminding me of the Global Navigation in SharePoint. Wictor did a cool announcement of his new <a href="http://www.wictorwilen.se/yo_teams-tab">yo teams-tab </a>tool which is basically scaffolding everything you need to start building your Tab for Microsoft Teams. Wictor asked everyone in the room to know TypeScript for the next time, as this was the future of SharePoint development. I trust him. He was helping me out of a good will with a customer project a few years back and I can say his wealth of knowledge is incredible.<br />
<br />
- <b>Bots - </b>those are based on the <a href="https://dev.botframework.com/">Microsoft Bot Framework</a> and could do some pretty interesting stuff. During the workshops on Day 1, Vesa showed us how a bot is listening to commands via the iPhone's voice recognition and is creating a team site, based on the voice command. Pretty neat, huh?<br />
<br />
<b><a href="https://t.co/5EpY6FS5Xm" target="_blank">#SPSMUC13 - Level up with PowerApps and Microsoft Flow with Mikael Svenson</a></b><br />
<br />
What an amazing session :) We were shown the <a href="http://www.techmikael.com/2016/11/whac-mvp-creating-powerapp-game.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TechAndMe+%28Tech+and+me%29">Whac-an-MVP game</a> created with PowerApps - LOL.<br />
<br />
I took the following outcomes:<br />
<br />
- <b>PowerApps </b>is the successor, not the replacement for <b>InfoPath</b>.<br />
- Same is valid for <b>Flow </b>and <b>SharePoint Designer</b> workflows.<br />
- Always <b>copy your screens</b> in PowerApps, there's no ALM story here :)<br />
-<b> Do not </b>build any new stuff with InfoPath or SharePoint Designer (or at least try not to)<br />
<br />
<b>#SPSMUC23 - Panel Discussion: Groups, Teams, Conversations, Skype, Yammer - say what?</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
This was the most fun session. The atmosphere was quite relaxed at the end of the day, the speakers even got an unexpected beer delivery in the room :)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rCs_TfXQWYE/WL7EgwtUqMI/AAAAAAAAHCI/bk8wHZ7GgMw5MfvDlgB8FeDaPCel5vQ4ACLcB/s1600/IMG_20170304_165849.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rCs_TfXQWYE/WL7EgwtUqMI/AAAAAAAAHCI/bk8wHZ7GgMw5MfvDlgB8FeDaPCel5vQ4ACLcB/s640/IMG_20170304_165849.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<b><br /></b>
My outcomes:<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>- Forget about Yammer, use Teams</b><br />
<b>- Use the cloud as much as possible, </b>there aren't many valid alternatives for on-premise social.<br />
- <b>Groups are the backbone</b> of everything new in Office 365.<br />
<br />
I've found the panel very informative and useful, except for some "marketing" comments done by Symon Garfield, I think he really didn't fit the otherwise "best-of-breed" group of speakers. Perhaps the fact that he's now a Microsoft employee would explain that...<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><br /></b>
There was a raffle with some pretty cool prizes (Phantom 3 Drone, Xbox etc,) and then an official closing by Mathias with a group picture of the speakers. An epic way to spend the Saturday, I'd say!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MKgYnKzO-N8/WL7EECk11_I/AAAAAAAAHCE/Vi2p_Lyyrag9DSrV5b184FT9MHfQ5xNPwCLcB/s1600/IMG_20170304_180620.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MKgYnKzO-N8/WL7EECk11_I/AAAAAAAAHCE/Vi2p_Lyyrag9DSrV5b184FT9MHfQ5xNPwCLcB/s640/IMG_20170304_180620.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<b>SharePINT :)</b> Of course...looking forward for the next SharePoint Saturday!<br />
<b><br /></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/--lA1laU4-Zs/WL7DuB8H9FI/AAAAAAAAHCA/qjZlLxD3wB4MN99Q1lVnMOoh1l-4wnrwACLcB/s1600/IMG_20170304_181952.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/--lA1laU4-Zs/WL7DuB8H9FI/AAAAAAAAHCA/qjZlLxD3wB4MN99Q1lVnMOoh1l-4wnrwACLcB/s640/IMG_20170304_181952.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<b><br /></b></div>
Dimitar Miriyskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413044946456573336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-512679844769087810.post-28596056482551762002017-03-06T12:26:00.001+02:002018-11-01T22:17:53.857+02:00SharePoint Saturday Munich 2017 Day 1: Pre-Conf WorkshopsFor the first time, I've аttended <a href="http://www.spsevents.org/city/Munich/Munich2017" target="_blank">SharePoint Saturday Munich</a> which was a massive community event, held directly at the <a href="https://www.google.bg/maps/place/Microsoft+Deutschland+GmbH/@48.177622,11.5912643,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x479e71de81797387:0x96e5ccd42f4f5155!8m2!3d48.177622!4d11.593453?hl=en" target="_blank">Microsoft DE headquarters</a> (awesome office, by the way).<br />
<br />
My friend and ex-colleague <a href="https://alekpavlov.blogspot.bg/" target="_blank">Alex Pavlov</a> who is living and working in Munich and has been a part of the previous event in 2015 told me it was awesome and I should definitely go this year. So, I asked another buddy <a href="http://www.sptrenches.com/" target="_blank">Ivan Yankulov</a>, he thought it was a good idea and we formed the team.<br />
<br />
We've traveled the <a href="https://www.google.bg/maps/dir/Sofia,+Bulgaria/Microsoft+Deutschland+GmbH,+Walter-Gropius-Stra%C3%9Fe+5,+80807+M%C3%BCnchen,+Germany/@45.379285,12.9679298,6z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m13!4m12!1m5!1m1!1s0x40aa8682cb317bf5:0x400a01269bf5e60!2m2!1d23.3218675!2d42.6977082!1m5!1m1!1s0x479e71de81797387:0x96e5ccd42f4f5155!2m2!1d11.593453!2d48.177622?hl=en" target="_blank">1334 km </a> (1:50 hours flight) to attend the free, community-organized SharePoint event and boy, I personally do not regret it!<br />
<br />
This Saturday, the organizers (the great team of <a href="https://twitter.com/rencoreab?lang=en" target="_blank">Rencore AB</a>) invested in setting up two full-day pre-conf workshops (paid - EUR 125 per workshop, limited to 50 seats each) on Friday, March 3rd.<br />
<br />
The workshop, targeted more to administrators was <b>SharePoint 2016 Infrastructure Powerclass for Admins </b>with <a href="https://thomasvochten.com/" target="_blank">Thomas Vochten</a>.<br />
<br />
As I currently do not work with SharePoint 2016, I chose go to to: <b>PnP all the way – Reusable tools for SharePoint</b> with <a href="https://twitter.com/vesajuvonen?lang=en" target="_blank">Vesa Juvonen</a>,<a href="http://erwinmcm.com/" target="_blank"> Erwin van Hunen</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/PaoloPia" target="_blank">Paolo Pialorsi</a> and last, but not least our friend from Bulgaria <a href="https://twitter.com/radiatanassov" target="_blank">Radi Atanassov</a>. Sounds funny, right? Going abroad to listen to a Bulgarian speaker - well, unfortunately in Bulgaria there's no SharePoint Saturday anymore and we (about 15-20 of us) only meet up in the <a href="https://www.sugbg.com/" target="_blank">SharePoint User Group Bulgaria</a> once a month. I believe it's a good idea to meet 400+ more SharePoint professionals from all around Europe (and even a few from US) so that we can catch up on the latest features, best practices and get aligned on the SharePoint future. And have a SharePint altogether, of course.<br />
<br />
I must admit I've missed the first tickets in December and I've booked my place on 9th of January, when the 2nd batch of tickets was released. I was refreshing the site a few times that day :) After I've registered, I got frequent communication over e-mail with updates on sessions, time, logistics etc. There was everything I needed to know so that I just showed up on the first day at 08:15 with my computer and tickets printed (later, I realized I didn't even needed the computer).<br />
<br />
So, here we are, flying out from Sofia, Bulgaria on Thursday, March 2nd around sunset time, just after wrapping up the work day. Our flight was delayed with half an hour, but check out what a view we've got in exchange for that.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-57Adl6C234U/WL0x9wtw_vI/AAAAAAAAG-Q/tOA3gMhAO9smi-S14HGHX_Qjj0ntej_MQCLcB/s1600/IMG_20170302_182947.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="310" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-57Adl6C234U/WL0x9wtw_vI/AAAAAAAAG-Q/tOA3gMhAO9smi-S14HGHX_Qjj0ntej_MQCLcB/s640/IMG_20170302_182947.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
So, after the landing in Munich, I took the Lufthansa Express bus to the Nordfriedhof station and within 15 mins of walking I was at my hotel, just steps away from the Microsoft office, where we'd spend the next 2 days, full of Microsoft and Office 365 knowledge. By the way, Germany is so well organized, that you don't even need to know German to get around, everyone spoke English, from the bus driver, to the hotel staff and so on...<br />
<br />
In the morning, we were at the Microsoft office 08:15 AM and the registration was already running full speed. Even though we couldn't get our badges on time, at 08:30 we were in the workshop rooms, with a cup of hot coffee (by the way the coffee that Microsoft treats their employees with was not bad at all).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uFUqD1vdUTo/WL00IUo823I/AAAAAAAAG-c/1S62nNJo1g07-mwWNxupt6dSC2cys__gwCLcB/s1600/IMG_20170303_080909.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uFUqD1vdUTo/WL00IUo823I/AAAAAAAAG-c/1S62nNJo1g07-mwWNxupt6dSC2cys__gwCLcB/s400/IMG_20170303_080909.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
<br />
Our workshop was focused on everything <a href="https://dev.office.com/patterns-and-practices" target="_blank">PnP</a>. I must confess I do not use that yet, but I am quite interested in starting to use it. I brought my laptop (and a few more people did) as I though we're actually going to use the samples and do something with them, but the day went more in a conference-like agenda. Anyway - happy with it, and I just gave PnP a try today so that I can create a solution that updates the SharePoint User Profiles (Delve in SPO) with data populated in a SharePoint list. For that purpose, I've used especially the <a href="https://github.com/SharePoint/PnP-PowerShell" target="_blank">PowerShell module</a> on which Erwin van Hunen is working frequently.<br />
<br />
Here's a quick selfie of the Bulgarian team @ the workshop.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9xCCcwmUCTk/WL01d8HkXOI/AAAAAAAAG-w/o4vDvKIvekg99Vn8D2omseKMoCfp8O-bgCLcB/s1600/IMG_20170303_082457%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9xCCcwmUCTk/WL01d8HkXOI/AAAAAAAAG-w/o4vDvKIvekg99Vn8D2omseKMoCfp8O-bgCLcB/s640/IMG_20170303_082457%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Even though there was a small fee for the workshops, the whole event would not be possible without the support from the sponsors, so I'm including the slide with their names. Kudos to all those great companies!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8zf06fdbiSs/WL01SMCE71I/AAAAAAAAG-s/VFPNGv3MwlEmUDJhmoD_Wf1DIvZQuShAwCLcB/s1600/IMG_20170303_081929.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="322" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8zf06fdbiSs/WL01SMCE71I/AAAAAAAAG-s/VFPNGv3MwlEmUDJhmoD_Wf1DIvZQuShAwCLcB/s640/IMG_20170303_081929.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<a href="https://twitter.com/cimares?lang=en" target="_blank">Paul Hunt</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/cimares/status/837986466827489280" target="_blank">mentioned </a>on Twitter, that this was the best food on a SharePoint Saturday. While I can't compare, I think it deserves a few words. During all breaks, there were fresh fruits, pretzels, some small chocolate bites and cakes. Basically, thousands of calories :)<br />
<br />
We've had lunch at the Microsoft canteen, and there were plenty of choices - some slow-roasted pork, pizza, pasta, sushi, soups, salads and freshly squeezed juices. Love it! During our lunch, <a href="https://twitter.com/mattein?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor" target="_blank">Mathias Einig</a> (who's the main person to blame for SPS Munich and SPS Stockholm) came to ask if everything's going well and if we're happy with the workshops. Great attention to attendees!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1onmNjG549s/WL03AnDxyOI/AAAAAAAAG_E/UJZEXAFhO7YeeWboil7_QWE3d5HvqMvCwCLcB/s1600/IMG_20170303_133721.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="332" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1onmNjG549s/WL03AnDxyOI/AAAAAAAAG_E/UJZEXAFhO7YeeWboil7_QWE3d5HvqMvCwCLcB/s640/IMG_20170303_133721.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
I've included this photo of my lunch as it contains something very rare these days - one of the 3 Microsoft phones we've seen during the event:)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
After we were full of calories and knowledge, we ended the day with a 6-7 km walk through the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Englischer_Garten" target="_blank">Englisher Garten</a> and a few beers (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma%C3%9F" target="_blank">Maß</a>, of course) at <a href="https://www.augustinerkeller.de/home/" target="_blank">Augustiner Keller</a>, which was recommended by Alex as a "local". The food and beers were great, I highly recommend this place, but you should make a booking, especially on a Friday or Saturday evening. There was a huge beergarten, so I'd love to come back here during the summer months. The same is valid for the Englisher Garten, it would be so green during the summer. It didn't matter for the locals, though as the beergartens there were full at 5 PM :)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ysvutg8B1MY/WL04i3s1gBI/AAAAAAAAG_U/IgCNmnLaw5888x9RRoBsKLoR8cs_LAyhACLcB/s1600/IMG_20170303_174735.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="262" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ysvutg8B1MY/WL04i3s1gBI/AAAAAAAAG_U/IgCNmnLaw5888x9RRoBsKLoR8cs_LAyhACLcB/s640/IMG_20170303_174735.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MX-rsEiygq4/WL04mdY15pI/AAAAAAAAG_Y/3AKH2HSuJ98EO4HiqJf-6HD6njbqnfJ2QCLcB/s1600/IMG_20170303_195002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="328" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MX-rsEiygq4/WL04mdY15pI/AAAAAAAAG_Y/3AKH2HSuJ98EO4HiqJf-6HD6njbqnfJ2QCLcB/s640/IMG_20170303_195002.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
More info on Day 2 - the actual conference will come as part of the next blog post.Dimitar Miriyskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413044946456573336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-512679844769087810.post-46666487773448333312017-02-21T17:44:00.001+02:002017-03-09T14:02:39.998+02:00Will Teams take over collaboration from SharePoint?Already using Microsoft Teams? Do you like it or hate it already?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FqaJ6YteaU4/WKxgStvqDvI/AAAAAAAAG98/Nl4TJOjCxqo40GYz2O6KfXPruAXFg7QAgCLcB/s1600/unnamed.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FqaJ6YteaU4/WKxgStvqDvI/AAAAAAAAG98/Nl4TJOjCxqo40GYz2O6KfXPruAXFg7QAgCLcB/s1600/unnamed.png" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
I've had a talk on the topic last week at the awesome SharePoint User Group Bulgaria meeting.<br />
<br />
You can find the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SZwDvLCKEc&feature=youtu.be" target="_blank">video </a>and the <a href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2F1drv.ms%2Fp%2Fs!ArCZIFtdGY3phfUlJeWyETn5LqZ78g&h=ATOgKrFO9i8tprkyrcn8O3NfNlNQENgcv_Ebw8gNnAtOi-rNXO-Jsasvw4tGXF4dD_j1AaZ3qsTZKydOfMujp3LDta0SHHs9QACKIyFGc837M94qMfr9m7NPBTnlpQE0MPuP8kQ" target="_blank">slides </a>from the talk, I hope you enjoy them!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CSj6aG1gcGU/WMFEV3TNrXI/AAAAAAAAHC8/iQrP4Ax02jc056GTbIKEP8EMhfqE9EzbQCLcB/s1600/DSCN9296.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="224" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CSj6aG1gcGU/WMFEV3TNrXI/AAAAAAAAHC8/iQrP4Ax02jc056GTbIKEP8EMhfqE9EzbQCLcB/s640/DSCN9296.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Next week I'll be visiting <a href="http://www.spsevents.org/city/Munich/Munich2017" target="_blank">SharePoint Saturday Munich</a> where there will be a deeper level session led by Wictor Wilén on Teams and the customization available.<br />
<br />
I'll share some insights after the conference here, so stay tuned.Dimitar Miriyskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413044946456573336noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-512679844769087810.post-78123318599106391252017-02-02T14:03:00.002+02:002017-02-21T17:45:27.555+02:00Microsoft Flow after General Availability: The Good, The Bad and the UglyHey... it's been a good 4+ months since my last post, shameless.<br />
<br />
I'll be sharing more details in a future post on why is that, but for now I'd like to post a few updates on Microsoft Flow after it <a href="https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/announcing-ga/" target="_blank">reached General Availability</a> 3 months ago.<br />
<br />
<b>1. Outages</b><br />
<br />
I've been using this since the very first day of the Public Preview and it's been acting strange sometimes, but since it entered General Availability, it started to calm down... a bit. Since this Monday (30/01/2017), when it went bananas...for a full day in production. Nothing like the small glitches that we've seen in Public Preview. Asking about SLA I got confusing answers from Microsoft, something that it's a standalone app etc. So it's not considered part of Office 365 and it's SLA? At least I got it this way.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UHp-k9M65wA/WJMZum0yKYI/AAAAAAAAG8k/Zg0aHRoJwpYfv_HjYdj_gxxGxFwABOx5wCLcB/s1600/Flow%2B404.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="402" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UHp-k9M65wA/WJMZum0yKYI/AAAAAAAAG8k/Zg0aHRoJwpYfv_HjYdj_gxxGxFwABOx5wCLcB/s640/Flow%2B404.PNG" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Although it's just the front-end that was lost, there was no way that a user could know if their flows are running in the background or not. There weren't any messages in the Office 365 Portal or Azure Status portals indicating any issue with the services. After I've asked Microsoft, they've fixed it on the next day, and mentioned that it was a regression after a code update. At least they assured me our flows were running in the background, which is good.<br />
<br />
So, as an outcome, take your time before starting to use Flow for production scenarios. It is a very powerful tool, but it's just not mature enough yet and hasn't reached parity with SharePoint Designer workflows (no matter how un-innovative it is). If you ask me, my advice is play with Flow and start learning it - it's obvious it's the future and especially now when it's integrated into modern lists and libraries. Keep your legacy workflows in SharePoint Designer, there's no migration path, but they'll be supported until 2026 (parity with the SharePoint Server 2016 support lifecycle), and there's no end date for support in SharePoint Online.<br />
<br />
<b>2. Limited Runs</b><br />
<br />
Another bad news is that Flow now has limited runs (depending on your Plan). You can check all plans <a href="https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/" target="_blank">here </a>as well as find out which Office 365 plan contains Flow.<br />
<br />
In the Preview, we've had thousands of runs for free. It was indicated in the very beginning, however that the pricing will not be available until General Availability. So this is more of a neutral point.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<b>3. Premium features</b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I've subscribed to Flow (Plan 1) on a trial basis in order to explore some of the paid, premium features like connecting to JIRA, Salesforce, etc.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I've had nothing but a bad experience with those so far - they are so unreliable - your flow runs one day and fails on the next without an obvious reason.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ppZydobfb_8/WJMsksF4P1I/AAAAAAAAG9g/efHwRig0vKg52E3EP5fAdAx-ECLlqJWSgCLcB/s1600/jirafail.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ppZydobfb_8/WJMsksF4P1I/AAAAAAAAG9g/efHwRig0vKg52E3EP5fAdAx-ECLlqJWSgCLcB/s400/jirafail.PNG" width="358" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Raising a ticket to Microsoft is useless as the Flow would already work before they answer you. The functionality that I wanted to achieve with JIRA is quite limited in the Flow - it can only capture 2 triggers, which is not sufficient at all if you plan some kind of integration:</div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jLIqmoYGMlU/WJMd1cHPqEI/AAAAAAAAG9E/rFLplMj1E4Ao_HiMUqlM6xAhV6ak46z7gCLcB/s1600/JIRA.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jLIqmoYGMlU/WJMd1cHPqEI/AAAAAAAAG9E/rFLplMj1E4Ao_HiMUqlM6xAhV6ak46z7gCLcB/s320/JIRA.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Hopefully, Microsoft will invest heavily in Flow as they say and the premium features will bring more value in the coming months. It's good to know that almost any major software is there right now...if your scenario is simplified enough, it might even get the job done for you prior you hire a team of developers to do the integration you need for your organization.</div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<b>4. Sharing</b></div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Finally, and surprisingly you can now invite a new owner to your Flow. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TmaD0JdFweo/WJMbIH2sfJI/AAAAAAAAG8w/zSRHwPHgqp8GY2rlyv-myaLu4A3cmmcNACLcB/s1600/Capture.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="114" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TmaD0JdFweo/WJMbIH2sfJI/AAAAAAAAG8w/zSRHwPHgqp8GY2rlyv-myaLu4A3cmmcNACLcB/s640/Capture.PNG" width="640" /></a><br />
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Once you do this, your Flow will get this green label "Team Flow" under its name. And to edit the owners, just go to the icon with the 2 people on the right hand-side.</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-l7PATl7ZNZc/WJMbpibMeAI/AAAAAAAAG80/Kzvl3vOJoq8aYzfbcIulMTd3h4v-ENN9wCLcB/s1600/111111.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="52" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-l7PATl7ZNZc/WJMbpibMeAI/AAAAAAAAG80/Kzvl3vOJoq8aYzfbcIulMTd3h4v-ENN9wCLcB/s640/111111.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
What are the benefits?<br />
<br />
- All Flows are attached to user accounts. This means the user who created it (and was practical enough to share it with their backups) can now go on vacation...undisturbed :)<br />
<br />
- The Flows are storing connections of user accounts and if you'd like your HR to come insert their password in order for them to achieve that nice little automation they've requested from you - they might not feel confident about it. Now you can share the Flow with them and they can insert their username and password from their device and be confident you don't have access to that.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>5. Environments</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_3-QcOeWhXg/WJMfjNHavjI/AAAAAAAAG9Q/QdPJcFfnLUkw8Vnyf_YWVsuPEWVbcMFbQCLcB/s1600/env.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_3-QcOeWhXg/WJMfjNHavjI/AAAAAAAAG9Q/QdPJcFfnLUkw8Vnyf_YWVsuPEWVbcMFbQCLcB/s1600/env.PNG" /></a>After GA, you'll notice you now have 2 Flow environments when you log in.<br />
<br />
One from the preview (which is over) and one listed as default.<br />
<br />
A few surprises:<br />
<br />
Your Flows are living.... in the Preview environment!<br />
<br />
There is no copy or migration of Flows into the live one... confirmed by Microsoft. That means recreation :) hopefully you didn't invest too much efforts in building Flows with the preview (like I did :)<br />
<br />
As a dessert, Microsoft is not going to kill the preview environment (again confirmed by them), so there's no hard deadline on when to recreate your flows. There's also no limit on the runs on the preview environment as of this day, but I didn't tell you that :)<br />
<br />
<br />Dimitar Miriyskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413044946456573336noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-512679844769087810.post-40620478975375006922016-09-27T14:21:00.001+03:002016-10-11T13:00:23.475+03:00InfoPath forms not displaying correctly in Chrome / FireFoxRecently I noticed that every form that I've created with Info Path 2013 (I know it's old-school, but no Nintex in this case) that contains Multiple Lines of Text fields was not displaying correctly in Chrome / FireFox e.g. the text was displayed on a single line and not wrapped.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4thjsOAXeMk/V-o9mvJeiYI/AAAAAAAAG6Y/al6RqCxbBFIBgMHsNhzHvJZ4gsg8lS_qwCLcB/s1600/wrong.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="57" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4thjsOAXeMk/V-o9mvJeiYI/AAAAAAAAG6Y/al6RqCxbBFIBgMHsNhzHvJZ4gsg8lS_qwCLcB/s640/wrong.PNG" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
In Internet Explorer, things look like this:</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rP7Sbmky9LM/V-o-GYvnt-I/AAAAAAAAG6k/Q4RXLyXHwe41Swb7EcKIZZyKWG055S5EwCLcB/s1600/right.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="51" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rP7Sbmky9LM/V-o-GYvnt-I/AAAAAAAAG6k/Q4RXLyXHwe41Swb7EcKIZZyKWG055S5EwCLcB/s640/right.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Another issue is that in FireFox, on editing the form noone could insert a few spaces - only one. The Enter key did not insert a new line in a Multi-line text field either. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I managed to find the reason quickly - the text area that contains the field has the following property:</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<b>white-space: pre. </b>Changing this to <b>pre-line </b>would work fine - you need to use a custom CSS file for that.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fEQMdlcYzCM/V-pVaoaEUNI/AAAAAAAAG68/8IoskUNebvIGe2MCwNHmrVfXxx1s0XZSwCLcB/s1600/CSS.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="86" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fEQMdlcYzCM/V-pVaoaEUNI/AAAAAAAAG68/8IoskUNebvIGe2MCwNHmrVfXxx1s0XZSwCLcB/s640/CSS.PNG" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Of course you need the SharePoint Server Publishing feature enabled on the sites in order to inherit the CSS from the top-level site. Another one-off solution is to add this in a Content Editor webpart on the page(s) that contain your form...but I guess it's not one form with that kind of field that you'd use...</div>
Dimitar Miriyskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413044946456573336noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-512679844769087810.post-26978131622963068332016-08-19T10:29:00.004+03:002016-08-23T10:20:25.316+03:00Link sharing in SharePoint Online just got tricky!<b>Update 23/08/2016: Activating the Document ID Service feature on the site collection level will fix that. The links will then work for any file types and not just Excel, Word, PPT.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-u4PDNAscLdA/V7v5HpggsiI/AAAAAAAAG6A/LI102AZAy5s61omJnbMQo992LyB9QMqMQCLcB/s1600/5.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="20" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-u4PDNAscLdA/V7v5HpggsiI/AAAAAAAAG6A/LI102AZAy5s61omJnbMQo992LyB9QMqMQCLcB/s640/5.PNG" width="640" /></a></div>
<b><br /></b>
<br />
Just recently (like 10 days ago) Microsoft has deployed some changes to SharePoint Online and specifically to the links to individual documents that you could obtain by just clicking on the context menu. This way of providing a link to someone was very quick and easy, hence heavily used by lots of people. It's just a click, compared to using the Share function or "Get a Link".<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-75LyE34cb10/V7azJIemEfI/AAAAAAAAG5s/dpL56tqPp2M2f4pul2BNvtQqy0B8JWjIgCLcB/s1600/1.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="342" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-75LyE34cb10/V7azJIemEfI/AAAAAAAAG5s/dpL56tqPp2M2f4pul2BNvtQqy0B8JWjIgCLcB/s640/1.PNG" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The only thing you need to be sure of is that the person that you give the link already has access to this document. Otherwise using the "Get a Link" feature would be more useful. But it also has the disadvantage - you are breaking the permission structure using these links and you don't know where your link will travel after you give it to the person... if it's an anonymous link this can even get out of the boundaries of your organization! Not a good deal of control there...<br />
<br />
Few days ago, when I tried to share a document (a project plan in the Microsoft Project .mpp format) in this way - the user got "Page not found" error. Same thing when I tried to open the link :) Both of us have access to that document anyway.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uPVIyVMYE2o/V7azkSmsXZI/AAAAAAAAG5w/gD8wdXrdIJ4ec4_CsqqZpR-28WZGiiQcQCLcB/s1600/2.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="130" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uPVIyVMYE2o/V7azkSmsXZI/AAAAAAAAG5w/gD8wdXrdIJ4ec4_CsqqZpR-28WZGiiQcQCLcB/s320/2.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
So... I looked up the link and saw that it looks like this:</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
https://********.sharepoint.com/projects/mytestproject/Shared%20Documents/Project%20Plan.mpp<b><span style="color: red;">?d=w7c7a7782c60d4480ad0db7a8cd231f60</span></b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
Now, that's the new thing. In these auto-generated links, there's a new bit - "document ID" as Microsoft called it. This is what's breaking the functionality.<br />
<br />
An interesting fact is, that when I tried the same thing with Word / Excel / PowerPoint documents - all workred like a charm (like in the good old days - 10 days ago :). The links contain the same document ID, but they open fine in the browser.<br />
<br />
After some research on the topic and a quick call with MS support, they advised me that this behavior is "by design" - great job Product teams. So from now on, every document that can't be open in Office Online (Office Web Apps) e.g. anything but Word, Excel, PowerPoint would fail and<b> the user has to manually modify the link before providing it to another user</b> - how usable is that?<br />
<br />
There's also a <a href="https://www.yammer.com/itpronetwork/#/Threads/show?threadId=748242666&scoring=linear1Y-prankie-group-private-higher&match=any-exact&search_sort=relevance&page=1&group_ids=3903794&search=link&search_origin=global&trk_event=search_click&trk_result_index=-1&trk_entity_model=Message&trk_entity_id=748242666" target="_blank">Yammer hot thread</a> on this... you can check it out in the next 12 days... before the IT Pro Yammer network becomes history, which is another sad topic and a poor decision in my view.<br />
<br />
Of course... meanwhile we could still use the "Get a Link" feature and forget about the good permission practices in the organization. At least I recommend not using the anonymous links, unless you absolutely need this shared with someone outside of the organization.Dimitar Miriyskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413044946456573336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-512679844769087810.post-13334344359248175602016-05-10T13:31:00.002+03:002016-05-10T13:31:26.436+03:00Microsoft Flow first impressiosIt's been an interesting week of follow-ups after last week's <a href="https://blogs.office.com/2016/05/04/the-future-of-sharepoint/" target="_blank">"The Future of SharePoint"</a> event held at San Francisco. The world is excited about the many new (really new) functionalities and tools that were presented. Today I tested one of them - <a href="https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/" target="_blank">Microsoft Flow</a>, which is still in Preview and is available to Office 365 FR tenants (or select FR people only).<br />
<br />
Flow is similar in concept to <a href="https://ifttt.com/" target="_blank">IFTTT </a>('If This Then That'), but aimed at organizations rather than the individual, which means you can't get to it if you don't have a work or school account (Office 365).<br />
<br />
Similar to Planner, the tool is not yet integrated into SharePoint, but feels like standing a little bit aside from it with its own domain: https://flow.microsoft.com.<br />
It does, however suggest future tighter integration with Office 365 and SharePoint Online, as today I saw the Flow tile in the App launcher.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Y7U6kAdTpak/VzGz-93BZ4I/AAAAAAAAG3Y/bxMLp_QcqdYcq76RxqttKmQArLbTxSPUACLcB/s1600/1.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="303" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Y7U6kAdTpak/VzGz-93BZ4I/AAAAAAAAG3Y/bxMLp_QcqdYcq76RxqttKmQArLbTxSPUACLcB/s400/1.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Going to the Flow website, very similar to Power BI and Planner, you need to Sign Up.<br />
<br />
Once signed in, you can either browse the available <a href="https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/" target="_blank">Templates </a>("recipies ready to cook") which will allow you to connect about 35 services or you can start a <a href="https://flow.microsoft.com/manage/flows/new" target="_blank">new flow</a> from scratch. In my example, I'd like to be emailed every time someone creates a new project in Project Online (which is the cloud brother of the newly released <a href="https://blogs.office.com/2016/05/05/project-server-2016-born-in-the-cloud/" target="_blank">Project Server 2016.</a><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WJw9bTYbLYY/VzG2bRoQiQI/AAAAAAAAG3o/PVSuzjp5AG87Ca62v-sJg37zZnuMU8npwCLcB/s1600/3.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="118" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WJw9bTYbLYY/VzG2bRoQiQI/AAAAAAAAG3o/PVSuzjp5AG87Ca62v-sJg37zZnuMU8npwCLcB/s320/3.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Here you'd need to provide the URL for your PWA site collection, then you have just two basic options - "Add a condition" or "Add an Action" - just like the old school workflows for WSS 3.0.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
That's understandable as Flow is designed to be simple in its core. So it's definitely not a full-blown Business Process Automation solution (like Nintex, for example) and the flows here are per user, so no centralized store and management of those.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NGfFBIGaKvk/VzG3S5QTQPI/AAAAAAAAG30/3QDvSL7VXrIdqH-S7ZsYBF-Od77J8_jfACLcB/s1600/5.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="280" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NGfFBIGaKvk/VzG3S5QTQPI/AAAAAAAAG30/3QDvSL7VXrIdqH-S7ZsYBF-Od77J8_jfACLcB/s320/5.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
When you choose "Add an action", you see the available hardcoded actions, sorted by the service they're related to. Send Email is under Office 365 Outlook. You'd need to sign in.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DsLkyF-0BSs/VzG3euQSCjI/AAAAAAAAG34/a2W07PHON6k8NBe_6Ph94ckxyBFfeg-vACLcB/s1600/6.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="277" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DsLkyF-0BSs/VzG3euQSCjI/AAAAAAAAG34/a2W07PHON6k8NBe_6Ph94ckxyBFfeg-vACLcB/s320/6.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
You can then configure the recipients, subject and body of the email - the basics. There are some predefined lookups to the current item that you can insert like Project Name, type, etc. That's cool, you just click on them and add them where appropriate.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YuvIBz9XudU/VzG4CK7-a4I/AAAAAAAAG4A/6qIJQ7hSBTAIhb4iTUeJ3a5sDAEg-fevQCLcB/s1600/8.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YuvIBz9XudU/VzG4CK7-a4I/AAAAAAAAG4A/6qIJQ7hSBTAIhb4iTUeJ3a5sDAEg-fevQCLcB/s400/8.PNG" width="285" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Then all you need is a name for this new simple flow, you click Create Flow and Done.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bFjcxwTJoIw/VzG4Mvi8f_I/AAAAAAAAG4I/h9brlUw2wM00rGHpfCuNblfwa7FlPNJLQCLcB/s1600/9.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="52" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bFjcxwTJoIw/VzG4Mvi8f_I/AAAAAAAAG4I/h9brlUw2wM00rGHpfCuNblfwa7FlPNJLQCLcB/s400/9.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1LoZ7QU9jwQ/VzG4PP5PHxI/AAAAAAAAG4M/_Q3lZ2srAroXOZZOY8l3aK4W47Jdqod9gCLcB/s1600/10.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="62" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1LoZ7QU9jwQ/VzG4PP5PHxI/AAAAAAAAG4M/_Q3lZ2srAroXOZZOY8l3aK4W47Jdqod9gCLcB/s400/10.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
On the next Project that gets created in Project Online, I get this:</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WYfleaRWBi8/VzG4YsII5aI/AAAAAAAAG4Q/NVUWetc6HAs293NW5mXWUJdHYhygEPUngCLcB/s1600/12.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="153" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WYfleaRWBi8/VzG4YsII5aI/AAAAAAAAG4Q/NVUWetc6HAs293NW5mXWUJdHYhygEPUngCLcB/s640/12.PNG" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Looks simple and clean to me. What are your thoughts? Have you signed up for Flow and tested it yet?</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<br />Dimitar Miriyskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413044946456573336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-512679844769087810.post-156152623754249442016-05-05T10:56:00.002+03:002016-05-05T10:59:57.829+03:00Big changes coming to SharePoint Online!<span style="background-color: white; color: #343a41; font-family: "segoe" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">After the new<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8tgKBXmmPg" target="_blank"> Microsft Mechanics episode</a> with Adam Harmetz was published last night, I am completely stumped at what Microsoft are bringing forward!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #343a41; font-family: "segoe" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #343a41; font-family: "segoe" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">Straight to the point:</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #343a41; font-family: "segoe" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #343a41; font-family: "segoe" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">- A mobile app for SharePoint is finally on the way (iOS, Android & Windows)! </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #343a41; font-family: "segoe" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #343a41; font-family: "segoe" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">That's a bit overdue, but great news. Lots of users preferred OneDrive these days due to the great mobile experiences.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #343a41; font-family: Segoe, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #343a41; font-family: "segoe" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">- Microsoft Flow - a brand new product, that allows users to build logic around documents and items in a super friendly way. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #343a41; font-family: "segoe" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #343a41; font-family: "segoe" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">That brings a couple of question - what would happen to the existing SharePoint Designer workflows? With the decision taken earlier to not introduce a new version of SharePoint Designer and considering the almost no changes that happened to it and the workflows since 2010 - I think those will be killed. The question is more likely until when they'll be supported?</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #343a41; font-family: "segoe" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #343a41; font-family: "segoe" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">How would Flow compete to veteran 3rd parties like Nintex and K2? Would it be the free quick go-to solution if you're after something simple or would it try to compete with them?</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #343a41; font-family: Segoe, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #343a41; font-family: "segoe" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">- Power Apps - a tool that will allow users to create simple, yet powerful mobile apps that can be run on mobile devices and work with SharePoint items.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #343a41; font-family: "segoe" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">That's really nice. Something similar to what Nintex were already offering as part of their Nintex Forms product.</span></span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #343a41; font-family: Segoe, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #343a41; font-family: "segoe" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">- Easier, user-friendly site creation process - click and have a new site in a few seconds.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #343a41; font-family: "segoe" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #343a41; font-family: "segoe" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">Only 2 templates availabe - team site / publishing site. We were advised that site templates are not good a while ago... here's the reason why. I've always avoided them as a best practice, but a lot of people use them, especially in large organizations.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #343a41; font-family: Segoe, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #343a41; font-family: "segoe" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">- Easier page creation and editing - each new page will automatically be responsive to look great on any device.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #343a41; font-family: "segoe" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #343a41; font-family: "segoe" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">Cool, but again - what would happen to the current pages? </span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #343a41; font-family: Segoe, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #343a41; font-family: "segoe" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">- Each newly created SharePoint site will also create an Office 365 Group with an e-mail address so that conversations can be started around files easily.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #343a41; font-family: "segoe" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #343a41; font-family: "segoe" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">Does that mean that the existing sites will also have groups created? I doubt it considering the number of sites organizations may already have. So this will bring some inconsistencies between "old" and "new" team sites. We're about to find out.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #343a41; font-family: "segoe" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">- Users will be able to add links to anything in Document Libraries, not just files that are stored in the library.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #343a41; font-family: "segoe" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #343a41; font-family: "segoe" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">Simple, yet useful. Doclibs were kind of limiting as of today.</span></span></span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #343a41; font-family: Segoe, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #343a41; font-family: "segoe" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">- Users will be able to pin files that must be highlighted and they'll appear on top of the library.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #343a41; font-family: "segoe" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #343a41; font-family: "segoe" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">Kind of like what Facebook brought as Featured Photos.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #343a41; font-family: Segoe, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #343a41; font-family: "segoe" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">- The Sites tile in the App Launcher will be renamed to SharePoint, so no confusion on what's SharePoint anymore.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #343a41; font-family: "segoe" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #343a41; font-family: "segoe" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">I love that :) No more questions like "How do I get to SharePoint in Office 365"?</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #343a41; font-family: "segoe" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #343a41; font-family: "segoe" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">And last, but not least.... what would happen to all the branding that's already in place? Looking at the new beautiful and responsive UI I don't think there's any way to automatically adapt the custom branding. More likely there will be "old" and "new" experiences going on simultaneously until the IT Pros and developers can adapt their Intranets and users to the new one. What are your thoughts?</span></span></span>Dimitar Miriyskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413044946456573336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-512679844769087810.post-72891139047182515002016-04-21T10:18:00.001+03:002016-06-15T15:24:21.369+03:00Yammer External Groups live today<b>Update 10/05: </b>After deep dive-in with Microsoft, it turned out some domains like GMail, Hotmail etc. are blocked. I was however able to sign up in the free Yammer network of abv.bg (which is a free email service provider in Bulgaria) and surprise, surprise - there were already 335 members!<br />
<br />
So... it's a hit or miss whenever you invite external partners if they're not using their corporate domains. So... working with freelancers anyone? Use external networks instead - no restrictions there. Or we should wait for the Office 365 Groups to allow external users...<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Kg6vjqeko3M/VzHlb_IZREI/AAAAAAAAG4k/bt1RE9NL7GUP5Dg4exs-h6qEpXLrCb6uACLcB/s1600/1223231.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="174" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Kg6vjqeko3M/VzHlb_IZREI/AAAAAAAAG4k/bt1RE9NL7GUP5Dg4exs-h6qEpXLrCb6uACLcB/s640/1223231.PNG" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Update:</b> It seems you can't invite external users to the external groups, unless they are existing Yammer users (e.g. they have a home Yammer network), which makes the service 50 % useless.<br />
Going back to External networks if you need to collaborate with just anybody out there without knowing or asking them if they already belong to a Yammer network...<br />
<br />
<br />
Starting today, we got a hold of the Yammer External Groups feature.<br />
<br />
Previously, when people had to collaborate with external parties, they had to go through creating an external network and then create groups in there and invite people. That worked, however it was hard to keep track of which networks are you in and it was tough when you just had to post a quick message, you had to switch networks...<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Sr6Yx88vp5k/Vxh6M-o_QNI/AAAAAAAAG2c/LBsOUGCjJl0NL-7ccJ87YOqOxB6RfP-EACLcB/s1600/image_1agrpfioq3pt1ripgkq40f1eund.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="335" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Sr6Yx88vp5k/Vxh6M-o_QNI/AAAAAAAAG2c/LBsOUGCjJl0NL-7ccJ87YOqOxB6RfP-EACLcB/s400/image_1agrpfioq3pt1ripgkq40f1eund.png" width="400" /></a></div>
I've already tested the feature and it works surprisingly well - the external groups are clearly listed as such below all the internal groups. When you invite someone, they get the email invite, join and only see the external group they're invited to. Nothing else.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eVQFTC5oG_k/Vxh7GUR72BI/AAAAAAAAG2o/ZvpQvpAMv483EeyQwaEgvoZIUaHvQr8tACLcB/s1600/all.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eVQFTC5oG_k/Vxh7GUR72BI/AAAAAAAAG2o/ZvpQvpAMv483EeyQwaEgvoZIUaHvQr8tACLcB/s1600/all.PNG" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
This is the experience for the external user when they join. They see your group along with the network name under their All Company group.</div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-T2upH1KO3xU/Vxh9L7xcoLI/AAAAAAAAG20/EYHkZvlf6GosoHrOTydWiJb04mjKBL6fQCLcB/s1600/%255EAD0B80A45B16D73450B8908B542185D87D0A7F27C947869D33%255Epimgpsh_fullsize_distr.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-T2upH1KO3xU/Vxh9L7xcoLI/AAAAAAAAG20/EYHkZvlf6GosoHrOTydWiJb04mjKBL6fQCLcB/s1600/%255EAD0B80A45B16D73450B8908B542185D87D0A7F27C947869D33%255Epimgpsh_fullsize_distr.png" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
With external networks, a Network Admin could configure whether those external groups could be created by all users or by the admins only. So far I don't see the option to control the external groups creation, but the regular users can't create them in our network. I can also see that the option to create an external network is now gone.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4Dtk2rs9N1U/V2FI6_Ce4_I/AAAAAAAAG5Q/cG5H9k7sHf0x4z-_GO3f-7jvMXk_WyspwCLcB/s1600/1234.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="143" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4Dtk2rs9N1U/V2FI6_Ce4_I/AAAAAAAAG5Q/cG5H9k7sHf0x4z-_GO3f-7jvMXk_WyspwCLcB/s320/1234.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
So... enjoy the external groups and say goodbye to external networks.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
Dimitar Miriyskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413044946456573336noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-512679844769087810.post-83081831715868813302016-04-07T16:20:00.002+03:002016-04-07T16:20:11.112+03:00Overdue date not marked in red in SharePoint Online Task ListsHi folks,<br />
<br />Been a while since I've posted anything SharePointy.<br />
One reason is the <a href="http://www.moresharepoint.net/2016/02/migrating-to-exchange-online-part-1.html" target="_blank">migration to Exchange</a> that I was recently involved with and it's in fact still not completed, so expect Part 2 of the post anytime soon(ish) - it will include GMail to Office365 stuff.<br />
<br />
Now, I've found out that whenever your dates in an out of the box task list become overdue, they are NOT marked in red if you've changed the Due Date column to include the time (and not just date).<br />
<br />Strange, isn't it? Yes, so you can't really use this as a very precise task/time tracking solution (yet).<br />
<br />Default (Due Date = Date Only) and today's date = 07/04, so any task before that should be RED.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LAjwA5DS96A/VwZeGBZ_9OI/AAAAAAAAG1w/00xYQDhA1v80x41GmxqodMJgFIbWDJlcg/s1600/1.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="152" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LAjwA5DS96A/VwZeGBZ_9OI/AAAAAAAAG1w/00xYQDhA1v80x41GmxqodMJgFIbWDJlcg/s640/1.PNG" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Including the time, and the task is no more overdue :) I've talked to MS about it, and hopefully it will be changed in the future by the product team (which happens to be Project for that one).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Piodx1j5lkE/VwZeNCNHiwI/AAAAAAAAG10/-HHusdmGC2Au1FKf__IG8K4W0dhCXnO7A/s1600/2.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="128" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Piodx1j5lkE/VwZeNCNHiwI/AAAAAAAAG10/-HHusdmGC2Au1FKf__IG8K4W0dhCXnO7A/s640/2.PNG" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
So... alternatives are for you to use some list conditional formatting...which is another big topic I might write about in the future as I've had to do it as part of a project management solution.Dimitar Miriyskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413044946456573336noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-512679844769087810.post-13763608255080515432016-02-17T11:14:00.000+02:002016-02-17T11:18:35.820+02:00DO NOT use Project Pro 2016 when syncing to SharePoint Online just yetProject Pro for Office 365 2016 was released ~2 months ago.<br />
<br />
As it came out slightly later than the whole Office 2016 suite (which had quite some troubles with OneNote syncing and OneDrive for Business), you would assume that it's a healthy product :)<br />
<br />
Wrong.<br />
<br />
In a synchronization with SharePoint Online, this thing simply won't work in your production.<br />
If you sync a task or two, works fine. If you sync more than 50 (confirmed by MS) than it breaks the whole thing - your resources columns don't sync, same with the predecessors and that's just enough to stop you... there are other bugs with recurring tasks crashing the whole software, dates being messed up and so on.<br />
<br />
I've raised this to MS a month ago and there's still no fix, they promised there will be a fix coming in one of the next public releases. To visualize what I mean..<br />
<br />
All the resources are created in both the resource sheet in Project Pro and in the People Directory in SharePoint.<br />
<br />
Project Plan in Project Pro 2016:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sOL3dCtY8Pc/VsQ4PtUnttI/AAAAAAAAG0k/iTEShMtfu6s/s1600/1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="450" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sOL3dCtY8Pc/VsQ4PtUnttI/AAAAAAAAG0k/iTEShMtfu6s/s640/1.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
After the sync in SharePoint Online:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-iAeEE3b2pfo/VsQ4UVRBmKI/AAAAAAAAG0o/dBHIomoWaGs/s1600/2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="254" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-iAeEE3b2pfo/VsQ4UVRBmKI/AAAAAAAAG0o/dBHIomoWaGs/s640/2.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
I'm not even going to start on the dates / times / completion stuff that breaks.<br />
<br />
Now, after a downgrade to Project Pro 2013 - all works fine, however the installation of it is quite painful - you need to contact MS to get a link as it's not really available in the Office 365 portal as of today (unless you have applied for First Release on your whole tenant).<br />
<br />Dimitar Miriyskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413044946456573336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-512679844769087810.post-65704759899689085162016-02-02T16:31:00.001+02:002016-02-12T12:42:58.981+02:00Migrating to Exchange Online (Part 1)Yep, you got that right.<br />
<br />
I volunteered and got involved in a migration to Exchange Online these days and I thought it would be quick, nice and easy job to help the IT team in a mid-sized organization. Not even close!<br />
<br />
The scope is the following:<br />
<br />
3 IMAP e-mail solutions (5 domains, 3 geo-locations of the servers) -> Exchange Online<br />
<br />
No migration tools and no external consultants will be involved in the migration.<br />
<br />
The first thing you'd need to know when you plan and estimate your migration is speed. Depending on how important this is for you, you can choose the different options ahead.<br />
<br />
<b>Option 1: PST Import service </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Caveat: If your e-mail servers can't export a PST, then you need a 3rd party tool to do that.<br />
<br />
Limitation: You can't import PST files larger than 10 GB or containing more than 1 000 000 items. So you might as well need a tool to split your largest mailboxes into multiple PST files.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>1.1. Copy your PSTs to a secure Azure BLOB storage and then import them through the Admin Panel (you need to be a Global Admin)</b><br />
<br />
We were considering to use the new Office 365 Import service launched last year (and still free, MS are planning to charge for it if you ship your drives) and we were very frustrated to find out the capping of <a href="https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn592150(v=exchg.150).aspx" target="_blank">0.5 GB / hour </a>when you import your PSTs. There's an additional prerequisite step to that, first you'd need to copy your PSTs in an Azure Blob, which for us worked as a charm - over 300 Mbps - and that's when the speed traffic police comes in and your happy face is gone :)<br />
<br />
By speed traffic police I meant the Office 365 User Throttling - I still dunno how the PST import of 500 mailboxes, for instance could be considered user import. It's purely the migration team's job to export all PSTs, prepare PST mapping files and all that. I totally don't see it the same as if you'd import your data through Outlook - this is where there should the throttling apply, and not if these actions are associated from the Office 365 interface, but anyway... you do get the perks like calendars, tasks, contacts. It's never perfect.<br />
<br />
<b>Tip:</b> If you run multiple PST import jobs at the same time - you get 0.5 GB / h for each of them.<br />
<br />
<b>1,2. Ship your hard drives to the nearest Microsoft data center and then import through the Admin Panel (still, you need to be a Global Admin)</b><br />
<br />
This is usually the preferred method if you have slow bandwidth to Azure. On our tests, 300 Mbps were more than satisfactory and we don't use an <a href="https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/expressroute/" target="_blank">ExpressRoute</a> to Azure, This means that we can transfer 1 TB for ~13 hours. So in our particular scenario, shipping the hard drives would definitely take more than the copying to Azure, but if you have 10 TB of e-mail and slower connection to Azure, your choices are different.<br />
<br />
If you still decide to go that dirt road (PST import in general), the official <a href="https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms.o365.cc.ingestionhelp.aspx#BKMK_NetworkUpload" target="_blank">MS Import guide</a> is here.<br />
<br />
<b>Option 2: IMAP migration</b><br />
<br />
Obviously the only other option (I'm excluding user-handled migration through Outlook and all that, of course) is the IMAP migration. It comes in two flavors.<br />
<br />
<b>2.1. DIY e.g. get one of the many free 3rd party scripts out there and run it on your own environment - why would you do that?</b><br />
<br />
This will get the source and target mailboxes in sync, but a big trouble with that is you need your source e-mail account passwords, and the destination (Office 365) passwords for the users as well. Not a big deal, unless your users are already in Office 365 and using stuff like SharePoint, OneDrive, Yammer, etc. A no-brainer to reset or ask them for their passwords.<br />
<br />
<b>2.2. Initiate the IMAP migration from the Exchange Admin Center</b><br />
<br />
Before you start, a good <a href="https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj874015(v=exchg.150).aspx" target="_blank">survival guide</a> about it is found here. The most obvious limitations:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Only items in a user's inbox or other mail folders can be migrated. You can’t migrate contacts, calendar items, or tasks.</li>
<li>A maximum of 500,000 items can be migrated from a user’s mailbox.</li>
<li>The maximum message size that can be migrated is 35 MB.</li>
</ul>
<div>
Provided this works for you, let's imagine you've already tried the PST import and you want to clear all stuff that you've imported and start anew. The most intuitive thing will be to delete the users - but they will be retained for about 30 days. A workaround is to rename and delete them :) </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Or... as a best practice empty those mailboxes through PowerShell.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Use the <a href="https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd298173(v=exchg.160).aspx" target="_blank">Search-Mailbox</a> cmdlet and pipe it with DeleteContent.<br />
<br />
Example: Search-Mailbox
-Identity "John Doe" -DeleteContent</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It's a bit slow, but maybe faster than opening the user's mailbox through Outlook (and for that you'd need to grant yourself Full Access to that mailbox first - lame and unprofessional approach).</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So... the trouble with IMAP migration. If you run a single mailbox - the speed is still not much better - <b>between 0.5 and 1 GB per hour</b>. A disaster I'd say.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The key is concurrency - you'd need to run at least 20 mailboxes per batch so you can get your migration done in some realistic schedules that you can present to the business.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
With the concurrency, we've easily reached speed of <b>10 GB per hour</b> with 15 concurrent mailboxes. This totally corresponds with the Microsoft provided data, so you can bet on it. Of course, this excludes a lot of other factors which might block you from reaching such speeds - your ISP, your firewall, your current e-mail server bandwidth and so on and so forth.<br />
<br />
In the process of setting this up we've found a nice little <a href="http://o365info.com/mail-migration-office-365-measure-estimate-mail-migration-throughputs-part-44/" target="_blank">calc </a>that helps you do the math.<br />
<br />
So once you have your estimations and you prepare your CSV file for the IMAP migration, you start your sync. Everything goes well over the weekend, the Spring flowers are blooming and etc. NO!<br />
<br />
There are many reasons why the IMAP sync can fail - wrong CSV format, wrong passwords, your e-mail server goes down, Microsoft Exchange Online goes down...but all of those you can either fix or just hope for Microsoft to fix as quickly as possible. But what to do when the sync fails and you want to start afresh?<br />
<br />
Well, first the sync will not always stop if some of the above problems occur. It will continue running even if it runs fine for 1 mailbox and all the rest fail. So you need to stop it manually. From the GUI - I've noticed that stopping it manually leaves it in "Removing" state for more than 12 hours - dunno if it's a bug on our tenant or not, but then your only way is to kill it with PowerShell. The <a href="https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj219167(v=exchg.160).aspx" target="_blank">Remove-MigrationBatch</a> command comes handy in this case. If you miss this part, your new sync with all the correct data will NOT run as the same mailboxes are already part of another sync which is not totally gone. Use the "-force" parameter, otherwise there is no result (at least in our tests).<br />
<br />
Once you clear the migration job, you go to the GUI in EAC, you see it gone and you import your same CSV file and hope to get this running. No! 2 reasons:<br />
<br />
If you import the same CSV file, EAC tries to be smart and doesn't detect the mailboxes which were part of the previous synchronizations. So <b>rename your CSV file</b>.<br />
<br />
Your next attempt would also fail. Even if your mailboxes get detected and they go into the batch, they will fail. Don't ignore the error report, but download it and read the following:<br />
<br />
The user "dimitar.miriyski@abc.xyz" already exists, but the migration batch that includes it couldn't be found.<br />
<br />
Does that make sense? Yes, of course. Your Office 365 user is not deleted. But the migration batch is. So what's the problem with that? There's a history of all those batches... which you need to sweep off manually with the <a href="https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj218717(v=exchg.160).aspx" target="_blank">Remove-MigrationUser</a> command. Hopefully you haven't messed with too many users in your failed batch :) Ideally it should never have failed, but things like that happen.<br />
<br />
Another trick when running the migration batches is not to use CAPS in the batch title.<br />
<br />
<b>Option 3: A mix of 1 and 2.</b><br />
<br />
It seems as the perfect cocktail - you do the bulk stuff with IMAP sync to gain the speed advantage and then you do the calendars, tasks and contacts through PST export and import. Not tested yet.<br />
<br />
<b>Conclusion</b><br />
<br />
So... from the short time of research and testing this, I'd say there are a lot of things you'd need to consider and Exchange Online is not a toy. No wonder the Exchange Administrators are still out there, but in the next post from this series I'll see if I can prove that a SharePoint guy with some Office 365 knowledge and experience can do the trick for a small to medium sized company.<br />
<br /></div>
Dimitar Miriyskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413044946456573336noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-512679844769087810.post-58544450531380339442016-01-26T15:54:00.004+02:002016-01-26T16:49:37.606+02:00Syncing fields from Project Pro to SharePoint Online<span style="font-family: inherit;">Something that started as a quite simple requirement turned out into a more hefty task, so I decided to share it here.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So the requirement: Be able to <b>sync fields from Project Pro to a SharePoint Task List</b> in SharePoint Online. All great, works out of the box, with the exception of 2 things:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">- If the column in SharePoint is of type "<b>Multiple lines of text</b>" and the type of text to allow is "<span style="font-size: inherit;"><b>Enhanced rich text (Rich text with pictures, tables, and hyperlinks)</b>" that doesn't work correctly.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: inherit;">- If the column is of type "<b>Person/Group</b>" then this doesn't work as expected. Some resources are missing on consecutive synchronizations from Project Pro to SharePoint Online. I've taken this with MS to see what's going wrong, but for now if it happens to you - configure your resource or "<b>Assigned To</b>" (named by default) column to be of type "<b>Single line of text</b>" or think of it as just a string.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: inherit;">You will loose the functionality to check the person's status in Skype for Business (if you use that) and to click on the user profile and go to their Delve page (in Office 365). But you'll still be able to sort and filter on that column if you want to view a particular person's tasks.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: inherit;">I'll describe the steps needed to match the requirement to sync Task Descriptions to SharePoint Online. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: inherit;">By default, the Description column in the Task Lists (coming with the default Task Content Type) is of type Multiple lines of text and has the </span>"<span style="font-size: inherit;">Enhanced rich text (Rich text with pictures, tables, and hyperlinks)" as the allowed type of text. I've just renamed the column in this example:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LHV_YpbBBKw/Vqd2J1yBTpI/AAAAAAAAGyI/NzRT4OBLHWc/s1600/tasks7.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="464" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LHV_YpbBBKw/Vqd2J1yBTpI/AAAAAAAAGyI/NzRT4OBLHWc/s640/tasks7.PNG" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Fill in some tasks if you're the PM (or just one if you're a lazy blogger like myself):</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-z-veXQai1pM/Vqd2evaoXBI/AAAAAAAAGyQ/E0L23h_6LZ0/s1600/task2.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="290" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-z-veXQai1pM/Vqd2evaoXBI/AAAAAAAAGyQ/E0L23h_6LZ0/s640/task2.PNG" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Then open the Task List with Project Pro (provided you do have the license assigned and the software <a href="https://portal.office.com/OLS/MySoftware.aspx" target="_blank">installed</a> from the Office 365 Portal):</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pRkYaZ3Er9I/Vqd235LCLcI/AAAAAAAAGyY/iRaC7E-vPhA/s1600/task3.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="164" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pRkYaZ3Er9I/Vqd235LCLcI/AAAAAAAAGyY/iRaC7E-vPhA/s640/task3.PNG" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">You won't see your description column:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--slWw_hIkTY/Vqd3VRhNcLI/AAAAAAAAGyg/8pdZbIKR4pM/s1600/111.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="236" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--slWw_hIkTY/Vqd3VRhNcLI/AAAAAAAAGyg/8pdZbIKR4pM/s640/111.PNG" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">When you go to File -> Info -> Map Fields, you won't be able to map anything to it:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GOFk43OIM7U/VqeHJmRX2cI/AAAAAAAAGz4/J19N_0jRw2s/s1600/test.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="274" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GOFk43OIM7U/VqeHJmRX2cI/AAAAAAAAGz4/J19N_0jRw2s/s640/test.PNG" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Now, part of the solution is to change your column allowed text type to Plain Text in SharePoint.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0fOnWm9rUlo/Vqd4GnWZENI/AAAAAAAAGyw/KJ5SIfHryH8/s1600/tasks7.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="464" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0fOnWm9rUlo/Vqd4GnWZENI/AAAAAAAAGyw/KJ5SIfHryH8/s640/tasks7.PNG" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But even then, you won't see it in Project Pro the next time you open your project plan.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The key is in the mappings. Add a new column in Project Pro. You can choose some of the predefined text columns, e.g. Text1:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ny7ZigsvHTU/Vqd4ao7XunI/AAAAAAAAGy4/D69vEAe-YJc/s1600/task4.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="220" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ny7ZigsvHTU/Vqd4ao7XunI/AAAAAAAAGy4/D69vEAe-YJc/s640/task4.PNG" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Name it whatever you want, let's do Task Description to avoid any confusion. Hint: the columns in Project Pro and SharePoint Online don't really have to be using the same naming convention, as long as they're mapped. Right click on your newly created column and go to Field Settings (and no, double clicking on the column doesn't do what double-clicking on a row does, sorry):</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3rGZxO1p_L8/Vqd4rDT9nnI/AAAAAAAAGzA/sTjvkpmFiXw/s1600/tasks5.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="260" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3rGZxO1p_L8/Vqd4rDT9nnI/AAAAAAAAGzA/sTjvkpmFiXw/s640/tasks5.PNG" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tile field - self explanatory:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cn6Y5yd1qm4/Vqd49Z3cXaI/AAAAAAAAGzI/u35rdreQpmc/s1600/tasks6.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="178" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cn6Y5yd1qm4/Vqd49Z3cXaI/AAAAAAAAGzI/u35rdreQpmc/s320/tasks6.PNG" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Now, when you go back to the Map Fields you can definitely map your newly created column in Project Pro (although its name is not reflected in the mapping list - dunno why) to your SharePoint Online column which appears nicely as Task Description:</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-W6OeSeYgtVQ/VqeHeekkxwI/AAAAAAAAG0A/nMOM_IRa_fk/s1600/tasks9.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="259" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-W6OeSeYgtVQ/VqeHeekkxwI/AAAAAAAAG0A/nMOM_IRa_fk/s320/tasks9.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Once you're done with all your mappings, just click the huge Save button.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">If you've tried to break things like me and inserted different values in the field in SharePoint Online and Project Pro, then you'll get this good warning. Skip this if you're a good user and didn't do that :)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The warning basically is quite liberal - it gives you the option to choose whether you like your Project Pro or your SharePoint Online value better and it's even displaying them and color-coding them for you. I'll keep the Project Pro value which says "Sync this description":</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-abemXNWjiaU/Vqd5wt9MBLI/AAAAAAAAGzY/Z7AhtuJqZGA/s1600/tasks10.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="350" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-abemXNWjiaU/Vqd5wt9MBLI/AAAAAAAAGzY/Z7AhtuJqZGA/s640/tasks10.PNG" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Boom! It's done.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zst2N40Wrbo/Vqd6FjCEFlI/AAAAAAAAGzg/F6WYXh5aMPU/s1600/tasks11.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="138" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zst2N40Wrbo/Vqd6FjCEFlI/AAAAAAAAGzg/F6WYXh5aMPU/s640/tasks11.PNG" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(Optional) If you want to break things even further, you can go back to your column in the SharePoint Online Task List and change it to allow Enhanced Rich Text again and then open the Task List with Project Pro. You'll see this (and believe me, it gets even uglier when you include some links, etc.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-whEi0T8sENc/Vqd6WR_5YWI/AAAAAAAAGzo/THj3nCGuDZs/s1600/tasks12.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="52" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-whEi0T8sENc/Vqd6WR_5YWI/AAAAAAAAGzo/THj3nCGuDZs/s640/tasks12.PNG" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Hope that's helpful if you stumble upon it, I'll keep another post once I sort out the issue with syncing resources without using the string field workaround with MS (if at all).</span>Dimitar Miriyskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413044946456573336noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-512679844769087810.post-43599894070760739312016-01-06T21:38:00.001+02:002016-02-01T12:14:05.846+02:00New Year...OneDrive new UI and a bug in it<b>Update 01/02/2016: It seems that through the new UI you can now even upload folders (one by one for now) with drag & drop! Great functionality that has been missing so far...</b><br />
<br />
Hey, it's been a while since my last post...holiday season got us all, right? :) Happy New Year, everyone! Let it bring you a lot of new tech, gadjets, innovations and of course health and happiness!<br />
<br />
It's been more than a month since we all could use the OneDrive new UI and I've decided to share my first positive impressions of the it and a very unpleasant bug unfortunately, so you can take an informed decision whether to use it or switch back to the classic experience.<br />
<br />
First, it looks really nice, based on HTML5 and it's even responsive! Good job so far for the OneDrive team. There must be something with Jeff Teper going back to leading the SharePoint and OneDrive divisions @ MS :)<br />
<br />
The menus are arranged in a better way, even though the Version History is still kind of hidden in the context menu.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0pce0Q6mlvI/Vo1rX9Vr-JI/AAAAAAAAGx4/plkz1qgWhs0/s1600/versionhistory.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="152" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0pce0Q6mlvI/Vo1rX9Vr-JI/AAAAAAAAGx4/plkz1qgWhs0/s640/versionhistory.JPG" width="640" /></a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
You can now drag & drop stuff in the browser... e.g. move a file or folder into another one - how cool is that? Let's hope we'll see that in SharePoint some day... which is still using some old-school XHTML 1.0.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-A1f_eQyXXqM/Vo1rWtpHYZI/AAAAAAAAGxs/xuv3uCtHV4s/s1600/dragdrop.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="232" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-A1f_eQyXXqM/Vo1rWtpHYZI/AAAAAAAAGxs/xuv3uCtHV4s/s640/dragdrop.JPG" width="640" /></a><br />
<br />
There's also a file size column now added, which I don't use that much, considering the 1 TB storage limit, but anyway... another small improvement.<br />
<br />
Now tot he bad news...<br />
<br />
Whenever you try to share a folder (and it happens with files sometimes) and share it with more than 1 person they DON'T all get the notifications over email. E.g. you share it with Peter, Joe and Dean, then you check your mail (as you're in cc of those notifications by default) and realize that only Peter got the email with the link to the file.<br />
<br />
Unpleasant.<br />
<br />
After I've talked with one of my friends at Microsoft, I got a confirmation that this issue is only present in the new UI and is being worked upon, however it's now taking a few weeks and there's no resolution.<br />
<br />
It all works just fine if you do share the file/folder with one person. And of course you can always forward the notification to the appropriate people once you see it in your inbox, but this is what OneDrive's for - avoid shooting a bunch of emails about the same file.<br />
<br />
I'm hoping to see this resolved soon, otherwise we'll just have to use the classic experience...which is not that sophisticated to be honest, but at least one of its basic functionalities (the notification) works.<br />
<br />
I might write another post about the NGCS (Next Generation Sync Client) that I was testing as part of the preview for more than a month now... still some mixed feelings about it, if you plan to use both the new UI and the new client organization-wide, maybe you should hold on...<br />
<br />Dimitar Miriyskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413044946456573336noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-512679844769087810.post-71000858146527394512015-12-03T14:00:00.001+02:002015-12-03T14:00:45.249+02:00Office 365 down in EuropeToday Office 365 went down in Europe and it's down since more than 3 hours at the time of this post.<br />
<br />
OK, Microsoft, it's technology - we get it, and you'd still make the numbers in the SLA report due to the high number of users you've got.<br />
<br />
But there's something more worrying in today's scenario - communication!<br />
<br />
Wouldn't it be nice to put up something on the http://status.office365.com page rather than the bogus message below? And not asking people to login to their tenants and check their dashboards? When in fact they CAN'T login at the time of calling you...<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-s4RAF0y7Crc/VmAtrdBRCpI/AAAAAAAAGxI/8zzDda28gVI/s1600/33.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="288" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-s4RAF0y7Crc/VmAtrdBRCpI/AAAAAAAAGxI/8zzDda28gVI/s640/33.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
People are relying on this platform for their daily jobs, and a good communication would have been key in user satisfaction with the products. The communications today is absolutely ridiculous.<br />
<br />
I even got a call from one of your support reps asking me to do a remote session and see one of our other issues we're experiencing, so I kindly had to inform him everything is DOWN in Europe!<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, we had to find the hard way what's working and what's not, e.g;<br /><br />
- OneDrive sync is working<br />
- OneNote sync is working<br />
- Yammer mobile app is fine (if you haven't logged out)<br />
- Everything else is FINE if you were logged in and haven't logged our prior to 11:00 this morning.<br />
<br />
I'd say this is a complete communication failure on your end today...<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-I6796ILqdpE/VmAumovVjnI/AAAAAAAAGxU/YCd6qElQqPQ/s1600/44.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="98" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-I6796ILqdpE/VmAumovVjnI/AAAAAAAAGxU/YCd6qElQqPQ/s640/44.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />And while you've put this nice little "warning" message on the Azure portal status, it's still unclear and doesn't mention Office 365 (you need to be aware it's dependent on Azure) and it's saying North and West Europe...while NO ONE in Europe can't go to the Login Portal.<br />
<br />
<br />Dimitar Miriyskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413044946456573336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-512679844769087810.post-9300804808085302682015-11-23T11:16:00.003+02:002016-02-18T10:04:26.055+02:001 TB space in SharePont Online! /not OneDrive/<b>Update 18/02. The space has reappeared (this time as 1 TB - expected) although the feature on the roadmap is still "In Development".</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VyExBMEu-ok/VsV63aSECYI/AAAAAAAAG04/hIOiK6fXI8M/s1600/storage.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="62" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VyExBMEu-ok/VsV63aSECYI/AAAAAAAAG04/hIOiK6fXI8M/s400/storage.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
<b><br /></b>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4Jb7GLvl93w/VsV7Av5mbDI/AAAAAAAAG08/_APmPvXZlHo/s1600/222.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="131" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4Jb7GLvl93w/VsV7Av5mbDI/AAAAAAAAG08/_APmPvXZlHo/s400/222.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
<b><br /></b>
<b><br /></b>
<b>Update: Microsoft has reclaimed this space and when talking to them, they said this was "a test 2 TB rollout to select tenants", and ours is not a First Release one. Shame.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Anyway, they said by the end of January all tenants (first they claimed Enterprise only) should get upgraded to 1 TB.</b><br />
<br />
On this foggy November morning, I've logged in to the admin panel in one SPO tenant and saw this!<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1zmv18YCSrk/VlLY6zCshmI/AAAAAAAAGws/e3w6Pn2d_HI/s1600/1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="34" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1zmv18YCSrk/VlLY6zCshmI/AAAAAAAAGws/e3w6Pn2d_HI/s320/1.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Prior to Friday afternoon, that space was ~130 GB, based on the well-known formula 10 GB + 0.5 GB per licensed user. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The <a href="http://success.office.com/en-us/roadmap#I-15675" target="_blank">O365 roadmap</a> says Office 365 tenants will now get 1TB + (500MB * # of E/A/G users) but this feature is still in development, and our tenant is not a FR one.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Have you already observed the storage increases in your tenants?<br />
<br />
By the way, thanks Microsoft! Really generous :)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Dimitar Miriyskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413044946456573336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-512679844769087810.post-18992686209232030042015-11-06T17:59:00.002+02:002015-11-06T18:01:55.271+02:00People Directory with CSWPToday I started to work on a mock-up of a People Directory which is not utilizing anything else, but a Content Search Web Part due to the easy customization Display Templates and the powerful features it offers. It already has som good templates like Large picture for example, that will be all I need + Department and Job Title (which will be managed properties, linked to a term set).<br />
<br />
Even though this Web Part is heavily promoted and is supposed to enhance/replace the good old CQWP, it doesn't work right away as you'd expect (at least in SharePoint Online).<br />
<br />
Let's imagine you create a blank page and you add the Web Part.<br />
<br />
You then configure your query - it'll be very simple "@*onmicrosoft.com" so that I can get all the people from my demo tenant<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JxPdT4S0VzA/Vjyppz9DGWI/AAAAAAAAGvk/reKAqI-jT3I/s1600/1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="462" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JxPdT4S0VzA/Vjyppz9DGWI/AAAAAAAAGvk/reKAqI-jT3I/s640/1.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
As you can see, the query is tested and it simply works. Then you save your Web Part and get this:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GYKb9yhTG9c/VjyqgvYT_jI/AAAAAAAAGvs/-1WRNjafvww/s1600/2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="136" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GYKb9yhTG9c/VjyqgvYT_jI/AAAAAAAAGvs/-1WRNjafvww/s640/2.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Some people suggested that this Web Part is not available in SharePoint Online Plan 1 and they've been in touch with Microsoft Support .... which I have to use in production... but I couldn't find an official source stating that. I think that's old information, I think the web part was not even available in SharePoint Online in the beginning. I know it's definitely not available on-premise if you don't have the Enterprise version.<br />
<br />
I've also tested this on my demo tenant which is on SharePoint Online Plan 2... and I got the same results. Turns out pretty simple, I just had to enable the Cross Site Publishing feature on the site collection and the web part works. <br />
<br />
+ a little bit of CSS = a sample of my desired outcome:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HLrQ3A7eyM4/VjzO5cwXM-I/AAAAAAAAGwQ/cnmAGeOYzO8/s1600/6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HLrQ3A7eyM4/VjzO5cwXM-I/AAAAAAAAGwQ/cnmAGeOYzO8/s640/6.jpg" width="438" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
The next thing is to find out which properties we want displayed in these boxes, if they're custom ones they should be mapped to a managed property first before we can stick them in here.<br />
<br />
<br />
But that will be another blog post :) <br />
<br />Dimitar Miriyskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413044946456573336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-512679844769087810.post-7674898939457142712015-10-15T10:58:00.004+03:002015-10-15T11:00:39.452+03:00Using "#" in SharePoint Navigation items<div>
Morning folks, that's going to be one of my favorite blog post types - a short one :) </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Yesterday I've had to design a Help Section for our Intranet. I thought that this shouldn't be a static Word or PDF document, but instead wanted to make it a bit more dynamic and engaging to the users. That means a page or a site... whatever you choose, based on how big your Help Section would grow... and what's the current level of training of your users. I'll use a site for my solution having in mind it's easy to scale this up. So... what I want to have in there is something like this nice and modern-looking <a href="https://codyhouse.co/demo/faq-template/index.html" target="_blank">FAQ template </a>by CodyHouse.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The functionality to click on a category (Basic) for example and automatically scroll to the respective section on the page (ul with id #basic) is what I found challenging with the current setup in SharePoint.</div>
<div>
Instead of using a custom categories list in the page, my goal is to use the container for the Current Navigation (Quick Launch) which is already there. This will give us consistent look & feel across the whole site.</div>
<div>
<br />
<div>
The problem I've found today is that "#" is actually not working in the links of the SharePoint navigation...if you're using Structural Navigation for your site. No matter where you insert it, on save your links will always default. To see what I mean, here's the link that I insert and save.</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-n6pdZhr3TQ0/Vh9ZwMAtTUI/AAAAAAAAGuE/4cyyIFjofdo/s1600/1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="203" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-n6pdZhr3TQ0/Vh9ZwMAtTUI/AAAAAAAAGuE/4cyyIFjofdo/s320/1.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div>
In the reality, I get this in the browser (all of them):</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pCKlKFgdGrU/Vh9ZyBdF8VI/AAAAAAAAGuM/t00ybqjLFW0/s1600/2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="24" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pCKlKFgdGrU/Vh9ZyBdF8VI/AAAAAAAAGuM/t00ybqjLFW0/s640/2.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So... my solution was a quick win this time - switch to Managed Navigation for this site, create a termset for it and use Simple Links for the navigation terms. Works as a charm.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
What you see...</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YD5LsF2aAy0/Vh9cmw_dToI/AAAAAAAAGug/qO_ltLUxWHQ/s1600/3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="104" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YD5LsF2aAy0/Vh9cmw_dToI/AAAAAAAAGug/qO_ltLUxWHQ/s320/3.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div>
...is what you get:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bFoNtyJTd1Y/Vh9ciDUX9pI/AAAAAAAAGuY/olKhMwjs0sA/s1600/4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="20" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bFoNtyJTd1Y/Vh9ciDUX9pI/AAAAAAAAGuY/olKhMwjs0sA/s640/4.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Dimitar Miriyskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413044946456573336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-512679844769087810.post-10029111363930051632015-10-05T16:47:00.001+03:002015-10-06T15:26:47.393+03:00Injecting JavaScript in a SharePoint Online site collection the proper wayWith recent changes in Office 365 branding guidelines, it has become significantly more difficult to insert small bits and pieces of functionality like a 10-line JavaScript, for example. I had to do this in order to bring the same global navigatoin that we use in our main site collection into the Search Center site collection (the requirement is even more difficult if you use Managed Navigation, but that's not the topic of this post).<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
By default, the navigation is missing from the Search Center in SPO and SharePoint 2013.</div>
<div>
A great way to get it back is described in this post by <a href="http://www.eliostruyf.com/display-the-title-row-top-navigation-in-the-search-centers-of-sharepoint-2013/" target="_blank">MVP Elio Struyf</a>. But how would you inject the JS in the whole site collection? By default, we have 7 different result pages in this site, and we plan to create more... so here are our options:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
1) Insert the script in a CEWP or a Script Editor webpart - manually in each of the pages... time consuming and the need for manual adjustments arises each time you create a new results page.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
2) Use custom master page for the site collection - a big No-No for SharePoint Online since a few months.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
3) <a href="https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Office-365-Dev/JavaScript-injection-in-SharePoint-Online-Office-365-Developer-Patterns-and-Practices" target="_blank">Build a provider-hosted app</a> that can inject your customization :) Great video by the Office 365 PnP team, but it sounds to me like killing the fly with a hammer! </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
4) Register it through another .js and forget about supportability and removal with no code... <a href="http://www.timferro.com/wordpress/archives/841/comment-page-1" target="_blank">Quick & Dirty approach by Tim Ferro </a>that I'd only ever use as a PoC.. (tested it and does the job by the way).</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
5) Using PowerShell! Wait, what!? Yep. After some head-banging last Friday afternoon, my friend and PowerShell guru <a href="http://spyankulov.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Ivan Yankulov</a> has reminded me that there was a pretty good cmdlet from the <a href="https://github.com/OfficeDev/PnP-powershell" target="_blank">PnP-PowerShell project</a>. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
All you need to do is... </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
1) Download the project locally</div>
<div>
2) Have WiX toolset installed (at least 3.10 if you use VS2015)</div>
<div>
3) (Optional) Have Windows Management Framework 4.0 installed if you want to generate the cmdlet Help</div>
<div>
4) Install the binaries (\Binaries\PnPPowerShellCommands16.msi) for SharePoint Online</div>
<div>
5) Run PowerShell 3.0 as an admin...</div>
<div>
6) Have a look at the <b><a href="https://github.com/OfficeDev/PnP-PowerShell/blob/master/Documentation/AddSPOJavaScriptLink.md" target="_blank">AddSPOJavaScriptLink</a> </b>documentation.</div>
<div>
7) Connect to your SPOnline tenant (<span class="pl-c1" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #0086b3; font-family: Consolas, 'Liberation Mono', Menlo, Courier, monospace; font-size: 13.6px; line-height: 1.45;">Connect-SPOnline</span><span style="background-color: #f7f7f7; color: #333333; font-family: Consolas, 'Liberation Mono', Menlo, Courier, monospace; font-size: 13.6px; line-height: 1.45;"> –Url https:</span><span class="pl-k" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #a71d5d; font-family: Consolas, 'Liberation Mono', Menlo, Courier, monospace; font-size: 13.6px; line-height: 1.45;">//</span><span style="background-color: #f7f7f7; color: #333333; font-family: Consolas, 'Liberation Mono', Menlo, Courier, monospace; font-size: 13.6px; line-height: 1.45;">yoursite.sharepoint.com –Credentials </span><span class="pl-k" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #a71d5d; font-family: Consolas, 'Liberation Mono', Menlo, Courier, monospace; font-size: 13.6px; line-height: 1.45;">(</span><span class="pl-c1" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #0086b3; font-family: Consolas, 'Liberation Mono', Menlo, Courier, monospace; font-size: 13.6px; line-height: 1.45;">Get-Credential</span><span class="pl-k" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #a71d5d; font-family: Consolas, 'Liberation Mono', Menlo, Courier, monospace; font-size: 13.6px; line-height: 1.45;">)</span></div>
<div>
8) Execute the command...</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Let's assume I want to inject something called elementshide.js to my whole site collection. So whenever someone creates a site or a page inside, they'll get the JavaScript loaded automatically for consistent site collection-wide user experience. The key parameter is like an identifier for your script - take a note of this if you want to <a href="https://github.com/OfficeDev/PnP-PowerShell/blob/master/Documentation/RemoveSPOJavaScriptLink.md" target="_blank">remove the script reference</a> later on :) The url is basically the path to the script (relative URL is always recommended) and then the scope could be Site for a site collection, or web for a subsite in SharePoint Online. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<i> Add-SPOJavaScriptLink -key ElementsHide -url "~sitecollection/SiteAssets/elementshide.js" -Scope Site -Web https://dimitarm.sharepoint.com</i></div>
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
<div>
9) Verify. Go to your page and view the source code... you'll have the following piece if the injection went through:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
if (scriptsSrc.indexOf('/SiteAssets/elementshide.js') === -1) {</div>
<div>
var newScript = document.createElement('script');</div>
<div>
newScript.type = 'text/javascript';</div>
<div>
newScript.src = '/SiteAssets/elementshide.js'; </div>
<div>
headID.appendChild(newScript);</div>
<div>
scriptsSrc.push('/SiteAssets/elementshide.js');</div>
<div>
}(function(){ </div>
</div>
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
<div>
<table><tbody>
<tr><td class="line-number" value="363"><br />
So this is it... in a little bit less than 10 steps we've managed to make our Search Center navigation show up...and we're ready for a lot more customization done this way. Hopefully the guidelines by the O365 team do not change to something even more complicated in the next months...</td><td class="line-content"><i><br /></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
Dimitar Miriyskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413044946456573336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-512679844769087810.post-53075202773312432732015-09-18T17:38:00.000+03:002015-09-18T21:33:29.303+03:00Collapsible Current Navigation in SharePoint...and my new jobBig news in the beginning of this week. No, I'm not back to school :) I recently accepted a new job as an internal SharePoin employee for a company which is not yet an enterprise, but not a startup either. It will be very different than all of my past experience at service providers and consultancy engagements, but I am excited as it's a very innovative organization and we met when it's just about time for some SharePoint(ing).<br />
<br />
Now to the point... one of my first tasks is to create the organization's navigation structure for an Intranet portal. We will use Managed Navigation after an evaluation and demos of all the possible methods. I will do this on SharePoint Online for the example, but the method is the same for SharePoint 2013 as well.<br />
<br />
The decision to use Managed Navigation is not the scope of this post, a <a href="https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn850367.aspx" target="_blank">very good comparison</a> by Microsoft is published here, which evaluates performance, needs and in fact all pros and cons.<br />
<br />
One of the main requirements is for the Current Navigation to become collapsible, imagine a Windows Explorer style...like the following example. Now, if you have users that will be switching from file shares to SharePoint, that type of navigation might come handy. I personally don't really like the fact that it does go very big when you expand a lot of nodes, but there's a solution for that.<br />
<br />
If the SharePoint site structure becomes deeply nested e.g. Site Collection -> Site -> Site -> Site ... this will also be a pain to navigate in, and most users would most likely prefer the Search option (I got this feedback after conducting a few user interviews and demoing this type of navigation).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Eos2m0izXjs/Vfqd_BeKHmI/AAAAAAAAGrc/uSeEDJ7eTZg/s1600/Capture.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Eos2m0izXjs/Vfqd_BeKHmI/AAAAAAAAGrc/uSeEDJ7eTZg/s320/Capture.JPG" width="113" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Let's review the options to achieve the closest functionality in the SharePoint Current Navigation.<br />
We assume we'll only have one site collection, which is nowadays common for small to medium sized organizations. Especially if you go the SharePoint Online route.<br />
<br />
<b>Option 1: Tree View</b><br />
<br />
The way to enable this is simply going to Site Settings -> Tree View -> Enable Tree View.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gm9FsjIpO6Q/VfqfR2Bon7I/AAAAAAAAGro/lSH9Ai1mt_U/s1600/2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="201" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gm9FsjIpO6Q/VfqfR2Bon7I/AAAAAAAAGro/lSH9Ai1mt_U/s320/2.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_3r1kOT-BlM/VfqfUWOtMCI/AAAAAAAAGrw/-0zKpdC8HA4/s1600/3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="38" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_3r1kOT-BlM/VfqfUWOtMCI/AAAAAAAAGrw/-0zKpdC8HA4/s320/3.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
The Tree View looks like this in a site collection (left) and respectively in a site (right):<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-stCUjQXby4E/Vfqj-bTRtHI/AAAAAAAAGsE/lIrcKU8js6Y/s1600/5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-stCUjQXby4E/Vfqj-bTRtHI/AAAAAAAAGsE/lIrcKU8js6Y/s1600/5.JPG" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jNHLQ_jVbYg/VfqfvrSp2kI/AAAAAAAAGr4/fvo_XG5-Vq4/s1600/4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jNHLQ_jVbYg/VfqfvrSp2kI/AAAAAAAAGr4/fvo_XG5-Vq4/s1600/4.JPG" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Now, I'll share my view, based on experience around this functionality.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
Pros:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
- Sites are automatically added, no admin overhead</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
- OOB solution. No custom master page need, hence sticking to the Office 365 best practices.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
- Displays lists and libraries in addition to the sites</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
- Easy to use, nice icons on the left, indicating the type of each node - that's all OOB again.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Cons:</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
- NOT security trimmed!</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
- Displays the Apps (add-ins) as well, no way to hide those. The regular user might not need them.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
- Can take a large part of your screen and becomes unusable if you need too much scrolling</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
- Enabled per site level only, e.g. you need to save your site as a template and create new sites based on that if you need Tree View enabled by default</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
- NOT consistent accross sites. E.g. does not show the parent navigation when you're in subsites. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
- NO way to customize it OOB, needs custom CSS (not a big deal, you still don't need to modify the master page for that and the OOB view might suit you just fine in some scenarios.)</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<b>Option 2: Managed Navigation + custom CSS</b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
The Managed Navigation requires some planning, manual work and a lot more maintenance then the Tree View. The way to enable it will be out of the scope of this post, but just don't forget to enable the Publishing feature on your sites before you switch to this navigation. It's a prerequisite. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
The way it looks in a very quick and simple demo is this:</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-i5OGBbUqqic/Vfqm8avsNII/AAAAAAAAGsQ/G0MLNEOHivE/s1600/6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-i5OGBbUqqic/Vfqm8avsNII/AAAAAAAAGsQ/G0MLNEOHivE/s1600/6.JPG" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
But it's not collapsible by default!... Even though there are some articles online suggesting the use of <a href="http://blog.advisicon.com/2013/12/03/right-way-enable-quicklaunch-fly-menu-sharepoint-2013/" target="_blank">fly-out menu</a> I personally didn't feel it's good enough (e.g. a lot of levels will take a lot of space oon the right of the designated navigation menu control)</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
There's<a href="http://borderingdotnet.blogspot.bg/2013/04/accordion-left-navigation-for.html" target="_blank"> another solution</a> which uses jQuery and provides the "accordion" feeling. But this will generally work if your items that you want to expand don't have a hyperlink. E.g. if in the above screenshot Operations doesn't point anywhere, then it would make sense to expand it with a click and see its children. But in our scenario the 1st level items would be links to actual sites...the solution still works... but in order to expand the children, you'd need to wait for the parent link to load. Not good, could be annoying for users and the link might point you to a site which doesn't inherit the same navigation. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
So... to just quickly review the Managed Navigation against Structured Navigation and the alternative Tree View option... read further.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Pros:</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
- Consistent across all sites if you inherit navigation in the subsites</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
- Very good for public sites or extranets, where you don't want it to definitely reflect your site structure.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
- Better performance than the structured navigation</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
- More compact than the Tree View and very good looking when customized</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Cons:</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
- Sites are not automatically added, it requires some maintenance</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
- Not security trimmed.</div>
- Not collapsible OOB for use in Current Navigation. Needs custom CSS and potentially JavaScript.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
- By default it's set to display only 2 levels of hierarchy - e.g. Projects site -> Project X subsite. If you want to display libraries and lists for example, or anything else... you need to touch the master page.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Now on the collapsing functionality... you can achieve that by using some simple css. Take the example a few lines below and save it somewhere on your SharePoint site. For the demo I've used a file, called sideNavBox.css and I've put it in the Style Library.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
I got the original idea from <a href="http://www.broculos.net/2014/06/sharepoint-2013-branding-collapsible.html#.Vfwdj9-qpBc" target="_blank">Dércia Silva at broculus</a>, but that solution seems to work well only for small navigation structures. I don't see it working with more than 2 levels and it requires you to click on a menu item (e.g. a site) to see its children.By default SharePoint will load the site if there's a valid link behind the navigation menu item. Not too good, you might have clicked on it by mistake, and you might not want to wait the load time (imagine it's a heavily customized site). It also uses jQuery, while I think this functionality can be achieved by CSS only. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br />So I decided to use the :hover pseudo selector instead of the .selected class to address the need for the click issue.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<i>/* Do not show nested ul by default */</i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<i>#sideNavBox .ms-core-listMenu-verticalBox ul ul {</i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<i> display: none; !important</i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<i>}</i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<i>/* Show nested ul on hover only */</i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<i>#sideNavBox .ms-core-listMenu-verticalBox ul li:hover ul {</i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<i> display: block; !important</i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<i>}</i></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Now you need to refer your site to the custom CSS file. Go to Site Settings -> Master Page -> Alternate CSS URL (preferred solution): </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oibBXmApkvw/VfquCuCBruI/AAAAAAAAGsg/O-W2hZOD9h0/s1600/7.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="87" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oibBXmApkvw/VfquCuCBruI/AAAAAAAAGsg/O-W2hZOD9h0/s400/7.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
...or if for some reason you can't do the above, then as a last resort insert it in a custom Master Page directly by putting this line in the <head>. (change the path to your CSS). Please have in mind that custom Master Pages in SharePoint Online should be used if no other customization option exist. The reason behind this is that you''ll end up not getting regular updates on master page functionalities released by Microsoft (they only deploy these to the oslo and seattle master pages).</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
If you're interested in the way Office 365 Sites branding is going forward, I recommend this great explanatory <a href="https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/Europe/2014/DEV-B308" target="_blank">session by Vesa Juvonen</a>. Then you can decide... to brand... or not to brand :) </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
If you do decide to ignore the recommendations, here's the control you need to insert in your master page...</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<i> <SharePoint:CssRegistration Name="Style%20Library/en-us/Themable/sideNavBox.css" runat="server" /></i></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So, with the hovering trick and some more customizations I've added the nav menu looks like this. Currently I am hovering over the PMO link which is a site in a site collection (could be anything) and Project 1/2/3 are sites under PMO (again could be anything you add in the Managed Navigation through the term store management tool)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The extra styling is just for some similarity to the Tree View menu (the icon is a shameless steal from there)... The "Edit Links" item is hidden and colors/sizes are slightly changed. Some cheeky icons added on the left to make it look more intuitive, too. Pretty basic for the means of our example today:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pt5bBNoxxTY/VfwYuAPi02I/AAAAAAAAGtI/Tq3ckbivmy8/s1600/1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pt5bBNoxxTY/VfwYuAPi02I/AAAAAAAAGtI/Tq3ckbivmy8/s1600/1.JPG" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Here's the additional CSS I applied:<br />
<i><br /></i>
<br />
<i>/* Any style you want for the left-hand nav control*/</i><br />
<i>#sideNavBox {</i><br />
<i>background-color: #DBE8F3;</i><br />
<i>}</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>/* Making some room for the icons on the left */</i><br />
<i>.ms-core-sideNavBox-removeLeftMargin {</i><br />
<i><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>margin-left: 5px; !important</i><br />
<i>}</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>/* Insert the plus icon for the ul */</i><br />
<i>#sideNavBox ul {</i><br />
<i>list-style-image: url('/Style%20Library/Images/Expand_01.gif'); !important</i><br />
<i>}</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>/* SP treeview expand icon for the nested ul */</i><br />
<i>#sideNavBox ul li ul{</i><br />
<i>list-style-image: url('/_layouts/15/images/tvclosed.png'); !important</i><br />
<i>}</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i><br /></i>
<i>/* Hide the Edit Links button in the current nav */</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>.ms-listMenu-editLink {</i><br />
<i> display: none; !important</i><br />
<i>}</i><br />
<br />
And now to the levels... we have the requirement to display more than the two level of hierarchy on the screenshot above. Now if you get to this, and you definitely want to use Current Navigation (rather than Global Navigation) for this (regardless of the fact if you use Structured or Managed Nav in the background) then you need to edit your Master Page e.g. use a custom Master Page in SPO.<br />
<br />
So, in a bit more details:<br />
<br />
1. Create a blank master page<br />
2. Open your seattle master page and copy all the code to the new one.<br />
3. Go to the V4QuickLaunchMenu control.<br />
<br />
<SharePoint:AspMenu id="V4QuickLaunchMenu" runat="server" EnableViewState="false" DataSourceId="QuickLaunchSiteMap" UseSimpleRendering="true" Orientation="Vertical" <b><span style="color: red;">StaticDisplayLevels</span></b>="3" AdjustForShowStartingNode="true" <b><span style="color: blue;">MaximumDynamicDisplayLevels</span></b>="0" SkipLinkText="" />
<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
To properly achieve your goals, you might need a bit of clarifications on this above piece of code.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: red;">StaticDisplayLevels</span></b> are the hierarchical items that will show in the navigation control. You would imagine that this solution will work like a charm and display the navigation representing the term store hierarchy. The problem is, if you increase that to 4, for example, you'll get this due to the lack of space in the OOB control. To visualize what I mean I've shown a small part of the term store managed navigation and the way it was represented after I've increased the <b><span style="color: red;">StaticDisplayLevels.</span></b><br />
<br />
So the expectation would be to see the same structure as on the left hand-side.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ad-DvHjZBSg/VfwbXiTWnzI/AAAAAAAAGtU/ADPsH8ZDam0/s1600/expectation.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ad-DvHjZBSg/VfwbXiTWnzI/AAAAAAAAGtU/ADPsH8ZDam0/s1600/expectation.JPG" /></a> ... but the reality is different: <a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xtkfn2_pymY/VfwbhMlhCgI/AAAAAAAAGtc/3TcJ--va71Q/s1600/reality.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: right;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xtkfn2_pymY/VfwbhMlhCgI/AAAAAAAAGtc/3TcJ--va71Q/s1600/reality.JPG" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;">
<br /></div>
Let's look at the solution for this:<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>MaximumDynamicDisplayLevels </b></span>are the hierarchical items that will show outside of the control.<br />
Increasing that number will give you the items, but outside of the Quick Launch menu. Not too bad.<br />
This functionality works OOB in the Global Navigation, so it's a good idea to consider that as well.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8FBXtHhExs0/VfwcRB_R9vI/AAAAAAAAGto/DIbizrbatvY/s1600/5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="151" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8FBXtHhExs0/VfwcRB_R9vI/AAAAAAAAGto/DIbizrbatvY/s320/5.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
So... just a slight tuning here, in order to achieve the same styling as on the regular list items, I've had to apply the below CSS (not needed if you didn't use custom styling for this at all).<br />
<br />
<i>/* customize the dynamic ul */</i><br />
<i>#sideNavBox .ms-core-listMenu-verticalBox .dynamic {</i><br />
<i> background-color: #DBE8F3; !important</i><br />
<i></i><br />
<i>}</i></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
That's it folks, hope you enjoy your new collapsible current navigation. If not, you can always switch to the Global Managed Navigation - it will collapse by default, it kind of uses the space on the screen in a more rational way and could be customized to the same extent. It's the user preference -horizontal or vertical menus... you could even go for the trendy mega menus in the Global Navigation (more suitable for public websites in my personal opinion anyway).</div>
Dimitar Miriyskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413044946456573336noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-512679844769087810.post-37288274120933328552015-08-21T16:26:00.002+03:002015-08-21T16:26:37.372+03:00SharePoint Online: Can't save a site as template if you have Nintex apps installedToday I tried to save a SharePoint Online site as a template when it had the Nintex Forms and Nintex Workflow apps added. That's obviously not supported (I hope yet). In that specific case, I'll have to use on-premise infrastructure...<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--1vLndxLNms/Vdcm5JSrSQI/AAAAAAAAGqw/J0IqRzAeOnc/s1600/1111.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="318" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--1vLndxLNms/Vdcm5JSrSQI/AAAAAAAAGqw/J0IqRzAeOnc/s640/1111.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />Dimitar Miriyskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413044946456573336noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-512679844769087810.post-7064815313816290992015-08-17T11:43:00.002+03:002015-10-06T15:27:06.943+03:00Automating group assignment for external users in SharePoint OnlineI have this requirement as part of a site that will be built specifically for external users in SharePoint Online.<br />
<br />
It's basically an automation need for users to be granted access to certain areas of the site by adding them to appropriate SharePoint Online groups. Users should also be automatically created by a workflow when their details are picked up from a list.<br />
<br />
I've done an attempt to do this in SharePoint Designer, but it turns out there's no such action in there.<br />
<br />
A couple of alternatives exist - Nintex Workflow which I have in place and Plumsail Workflow Action Pack which I don't have in place but a <a href="https://plumsail.com/workflow-actions-pack/" target="_blank">quick overview </a>can be found on their website.<br />
<br />
With Nintex, there is the handy action "Office 365 add user to group", which is usually working well. For external users, however, I found it impossible to resolve them like any Office 365 user.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qTg4Q2WoTFw/VdGeETI_aiI/AAAAAAAAGqQ/ZiL2oL-5bXs/s1600/22.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="96" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qTg4Q2WoTFw/VdGeETI_aiI/AAAAAAAAGqQ/ZiL2oL-5bXs/s640/22.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
I understand this might be due to the licensing part of the whole picture (external users can't be assigned a SharePoint Online license), but I am hoping that Nintex would address this issue in any of the future releases.<br />
<br />
The only alternative I found so far is to create this user in the Office 365 tenant, assign a license to it (all automated through the workflow) and then add it to the group. Unfortunately, my requirements involve no licensing for such users, so I'll have to find another possible automation approach.<br />
<br />
Has any of you managed to accomplish this? Would be happy to hear oppinions.Dimitar Miriyskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413044946456573336noreply@blogger.com0