Microsoft Ignite 2023: SharePoint Premium

At this year’s Microsoft Ignite, it was brought forward that Microsoft Syntex has been evolving into a new content management and experience platform. This new platform, Microsoft Premium, combines the powerful features of SharePoint and Microsoft Syntex by integrating AI and machine training to understand content, processing, and compliance services to automatically classify and organize documents in an organization’s SharePoint library. Microsoft Premium will leverage Intelligent Document Processing (IDP), or content intelligence service, to transform data into knowledge. AI-driven solutions will not only prepare content for AI and Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 but will also automate workflow at scale and empower users for greater productivity and collaboration.

Key SharePoint Premium Capabilities

Focused on content services and intelligence, the key capabilities of SharePoint Premium include:

  1. Content Processing

    SharePoint Premium is ready to tag, classify and secure documents, streamline workflows, and maximize content value through the use of AI-driven automation. This includes document processing and content assembly services, and eSignature capabilities, and it offers pay-as-you-go services for handling sensitive information and translation. By classifying, building, and tagging documents, content is being prepared for Copilot, the next-generation, productivity-transforming AI assistant.
  2. Content Experiences

    Productivity is enhanced by driving file collaboration and keeping content fresh and discoverable. Critical business document processes, including invoices, contracts, SOWs, and more, can be optimized, with workflow, AI, and security. These experiences will be elevated further with the integration of Microsoft Copilot into SharePoint Premium.
  3. Content Governance

    With simple but powerful tools, content creators and owners will manage content at scale, prevent oversharing, control access, and manage content lifecycle. To enhance security and compliance, tools such as Data Access Governance (DAG) insights, sensitivity labeling, and site access reviews are included with SharePoint Premium.

Key SharePoint Premium Features

The key features of SharePoint Premium include:

  1. Premium Content Centre

    The starting point of setting up and enabling SharePoint Premium is the creation of a content center. The content center is a special site for managing the Premium models, previously known as the Syntex Document Understanding Models. The content center will also provide the ability to integrate workflows and metadata while allowing configuration for compliant automation. Within the content centre, there is a model creation tool. The model creation tool provides the capability to teach SharePoint Premium to read and process documents in the same manner that a user would manually do so.

    These models are then used by SharePoint Premium to automatically recognize content, extract key and important information, and apply metadata tags. The effectiveness of each of the models is tracked by the integrated visual analytics in SharePoint Premium.
  2. Object Recognition

    By accessing a visual dictionary that contains thousands of commonly recognized objects, SharePoint Premium can automatically tag images. Additionally, it can recognize and convert handwritten text into tags. These tags are then used for further processing by the search engine.
  3. Document Understanding

    SharePoint Premium can be taught how to read content in the way that the organization wants it to be read. These AI models can be built without the use of code. SharePoint Premium can also automatically create or suggest metadata, attach compliance labels to enforce retention, invoke custom Power Automate workflows, or record management policies.

    Document understanding models are based on Language Understanding models in Azure Cognitive Services. As these models are managed and created in a SharePoint Premium content center, publishing, and updating models can be done in any library and any content center throughout SharePoint Premium.
  4. Form Processing

    Based on AI Builder, SharePoint Premium’s powerful forms processing engine will automatically recognize and extract common values from semi-structured or structured documents. Common values can include dates, names, figures, or addresses. These models are also built without code and require few documents to produce reliable results. Of note, this is separate from Machine Teaching models.
  5. Advanced Taxonomy Services

    Through SharePoint hub sites, shared content types can be published to Microsoft Teams and SharePoint. By publishing content types from the central gallery to hub sites, commonly used content types can be quickly and easily deployed and upgraded across broad sections throughout an organization when and as needed. The sites connected to the hubs will automatically receive updated content types as well as content that is being published. Enhanced with content understanding and flexibility, this is the fastest way to enhance the deployment of content.

Every organization’s success is dependent on the management, accessibility, and currency of its content. Content is the basis and result of collaboration between teams and individuals.  It drives customer satisfaction and corporate growth. But content can become overwhelming, lost, unruly, and useless if it is not managed correctly. With SharePoint Premium and AI assistance, the content will automatically have metadata inserted, documents will be tagged, sensitivity labels applied, lifecycle governance and security, and access managed to prevent oversharing. For users, ease of accessibility to the most current and valued content will ensure improved productivity, improved workflows, and faster delivery of deliverables. With content being prepped for Copilot, the future of SharePoint as the go-to cloud platform for collaboration and content management is becoming more and more exciting.

Microsoft Syntex SharePoint Advanced Management Setup

SharePoint administrators will administer Microsoft Syntex SharePoint Advanced Management from the SharePoint Admin Centre. It should be noted that this is a Microsoft 365 add-on. While features are administered by SharePoint administrators, some of the features can be utilized by site owners. The suite of tools available through Microsoft Syntex SharePoint Advanced Management Setup will not only help enhance secured collaboration in Microsoft 356 but will help manage and govern SharePoint and OneDrive compliance.

Microsoft Syntex SharePoint Advanced Management Setup provides advanced policies for access, ensuring secure content collaboration and advanced lifecycle management of site content.

Advanced Access Policies: Secure Content Collaboration

The advanced access policies include:

  1. Site Access Restriction for SharePoint Sites: Access to SharePoint sites can be restricted to users in a specific group with the application of a site access restriction policy. Users who are not part of the specified group will not have site access or access to the site content, even if they previously had permission to access or have a shared link. Site access restriction policies can be applied to Teams-connected, Microsoft 365 group-connected, and non-group-connected sites. Users will see files in the search results only if they have permission to the file. If they do not have permission (if they are not part of the specified group), they will not be able to access the file.

  2. Restrict OneDrive Access to a Security Group: OneDrive access can be limited to members of specific security groups if they are the only ones to have access to the OneDrive content. For licensed OneDrive users outside of these security groups, access to shared OneDrive content or their own OneDrive will be denied. Applying a OneDrive restriction policy can prevent oversharing of OneDrive content.

  3. Data Access Governance Reports for SharePoint Sites: as data and content continue to grow, the Data Access Governance Reports provide data to help admins discover which sites and, more importantly, what sensitive content is being overly shared.  Utilizing this report, admins can assess, review, and apply compliance policies that provide appropriate security.

  4. Conditional Access Policy for OneDrive and SharePoint Sites: Greater and more stringent access policies can be applied when users access SharePoint sites with Microsoft Entra authentication context. Applied directly to sites or enlisting sensitivity labels, authentication contexts connect Microsoft Entra Conditional Access policies to labeled sites. Note: this capability cannot be applied at the root site in SharePoint.

  5. Secure SharePoint Document Libraries: A default label for document libraries can be configured but only if sensitivity labels are enabled for SharePoint. Once enabled, any new files that are uploaded to the library will have this label applied on the condition they do not already have a sensitivity label. For existing files that are edited in the library and do not have a sensitivity label, the default label of the document library will be applied. For documents that already have been assigned a sensitivity label, they will have a lower priority.

    A default label provides a baseline level of security and protection and without content inspection, the default label is automatically assigned. There is a difference between this feature’s default label and the default label in label policies:

    Default Sensitivity Label for a Document Library: Overrides lower priority labels but manual override can be applied. This is location-based labeling and applies only to SharePoint.

    Default Sensitivity Label From a Policy: A policy sensitivity label never overrides existing labels. This policy applies to all locations and is not location-based.

    This brings us to the question: Will an existing label be overridden? This is best answered in the following table:
Summary of Outcomes
Existing LabelOverride with Library Default Label
Manually applied, any priorityNo
Automatically applied, lower priorityYes
Automatically applied, higher priorityNo
Default label from policy, lower priorityYes
Default label from policy, higher priorityNo

Advanced Sites Content: Lifecycle Management

Advanced Lifecycle Management for site content includes:

  1. Block Download Policy – SharePoint Sites and OneDrive: Users who try to download files from their SharePoint sites and OneDrive can be blocked from doing so. Once the Block Download Policy is applied, users will only have access to browse their files and they will not be able to download, print, or sync files. Files that can be blocked include recordings from Teams meetings. If a user tries to download a file, a message at the top of the site will state “Your organization doesn’t allow you to download, print, or sync from this site. For help, contact your IT department.” It should be noted that this policy can be achieved without using the Microsoft Entra Conditional Access policies.

  2. Recent SharePoint Admin Actions: The Recent Site Related Actions panel will provide the most recent site-related actions made in the SharePoint admin centre in the last 30 days. This report can be either viewed or exported and will provide site property change information including site creation, site name, site deletion, sharing of settings, site URL, and storage quota. Note that organizational-level changes and changes made by other administrators will not appear on the panel.

  3. Manage Site Lifecycle Policies: From the SharePoint Admin center, inactive sites can be managed across the admin’s tenant. With an inactive site policy, the detection of inactive sites is automated. When an inactive site is detected, an email notification is sent to the site owner, and the site owner can then confirm if a site is active or inactive.

    A simulation policy can be converted to an active policy. An active policy runs every month and generates a report. It will send email notifications to inactive site owners to have them confirm the status of the site. Site owners can confirm the site is active by the Certify Site button in the mail and by doing so, the site will remain confirmed for one year. If the policy fails for any month, it will run again the following month as scheduled.

  4. Create Change History Reports: Review SharePoint site property changes that have been made within the last 180 days with the Create Change History Report. Five reports can be generated for a given date range and filters can be applied for sites and users. Accessed from the SharePoint admin centre, this report can be downloaded or exported as a .cvs file.

Microsoft Syntex SharePoint Advanced Management Setup adds several more layers of security through sensitivity labels and policies addressing site and OneDrive restrictions, sensitive content access, blocking downloads, and group security. As an add-on, this suite of powerful features and tools provides seamless end-to-end compliance and security for additional content security and prevention of data loss.

Microsoft Ignite 2021 Announcements:

Security and Compliance in SharePoint, OneDrive, and Microsoft Teams

With the majority of the world working in various combinations of on-site and/or remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, cyberattacks have, unfortunately, become more common and more successful because of the quick pivoting businesses had to do in order to change from being the traditional onsite workforce to the new hybrid-style of workforce that combines both onsite and remote workers. Businesses are targeted as breaches of privacy and security, as their workforce use their own devices and points of access into their business’s systems. In response, Microsoft has worked with customers and partners to innovate and design a unique and comprehensive approach to cybersecurity, compliance, and privacy.

Secure External Collaboration

  1. Control SharePoint External Sharing Policies with Sensitivity Labels: Leveling up on the Microsoft Information Protection (MIP) sensitivity labels for a SharePoint Site or a Team, Administrators can now tailor external sharing policies. These policies are based on the sensitivity of the data and include labels like “Top Secret” that blocks external sharing and a “General” label that allows external sharing. By choosing the appropriate security level label, site owners will have the ability to manage how their sites handle external sharing of data.
  1. Access Governance Insights in SharePoint and OneDrive: As many businesses have pivoted to become more digital with their remote staff, a natural result has been the exponential growth of the external sharing of data, especially data that is sensitive. As the footprint of the digital estate grows, so does the need for ease of governance. Microsoft, in its roadmap announced at the 2020 Ignite, began planning to address this issue. This year, it was announced that a governance insights dashboard, located in the SharePoint Admin Center and accessible by Admins, will provide insights including policy settings and external sharing activities for the most important sites. What are the most important sites? These include sites that use anyone links for content sharing, sites that have the most sensitive data including the volume of data, top sites, have access policies appropriate to the business’ security policies, and sites that require tailored policies. This insights dashboard will all Admins to easily monitor these activities and modify the policies as needed to ensure the security of the externally shared data.
  1. Microsoft Teams Connect and Secure Files Collaboration: Microsoft Teams has become one of the major methods for remote and onsite staff to collaborate. Microsoft Teams files collaboration is powered by SharePoint, so it is of no surprise that there are announcements today of enhancements to Microsoft Teams. One of these focuses on external collaboration and sharing of data, especially that of sensitive data. Microsoft Teams Connect addresses this issue by granting Admins access to granular control. By doing so, Admins retain control over how information and data are accessed by external users within Teams. Microsoft Teams Connect provides the ability to share, collaborate, and access information with people, whether they are across organizations or within their own.
  1. Co-Authoring and AutoSave on Microsoft Information Protection (MIP) Labelled and Encrypted Files: In 2020, this capability was made available for Microsoft 365 apps on the web, including Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. This has now been extended to Microsoft 365 apps on the desktop for both Windows and Mac. With co-authoring, two or more users will have the ability to co-author on an encrypted file that automatically saves, ensuring it is intact. Labeled and encrypted files will also have autosave capabilities so that co-authors can focus on their work without worrying about constantly saving the file to prevent lost data.

Securing Access with Contextual and Conditional Policies

Implemented for many years now, labels-based policies for SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams are being taken another step forward in response to the security of sensitive data and external users. Securing sensitive sites with labels-based granular conditional access (CA) policies will provide Admins the ability to secure sensitive sites and provide users with the ability to assign appropriate labels to their sensitive sites.  

By adding another layer of security, passwordless technology has become the standard for authenticating users and for providing access to resources. Passwordless technology can be applied to sensitive sites. For these sites, access for a user can be assigned based on the sensitivity of the site and the authentication context of the site. For example, a multi-factor authentication (MFA) can be enforced for a site labeled “Confidential” if the user’s context does not meet the requirement of the site. These conditional access authentication contexts can now be created by Admins in the Azure Active Directory and can be tailored to their organization’s security posture. Additionally, these can then be associated with MIP sensitivity labels. Note that when a sensitivity label is assigned to a site, the associate policies are automatically enforced. 

As a User, the complexity of the security policies is now transparent. A User can now assign, to their sensitive sites, the appropriate labels while granular contextual and conditional policies are enforced in the background. Users can be productive without interruptions unless they are accessing a sensitive site that requires MFA.

Comprehensive Compliance

  1. Information Barriers Improvements in SharePoint and OneDrive: Implemented in 2020, Information Barriers provided Admins the ability to place a barrier that blocks collaboration and communication between segments of users. This will now be extended across to Administrators and Site Owners.

    From within the SharePoint Admin centre, Administrators can manage segments of information associated with the sites. With the information barriers compliance report, Administrators can view the compliance status of sites by implementing SharePoint admin PowerShell cmdlets.

    From within the Site Information pane, SharePoint Site Owners are now able to add to their sites explicit segments.

    Of note, information barrier policies in Microsoft 365 are honoured across Microsoft 365 Groups experience at groups’ members’ addition experience.
  1. Teams Multi-Geo Support: Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo addresses and assists customers meet their data residency needs as not all countries have the same policies for data storage and use. Already supporting multi-geo are Exchange, SharePoint, and OneDrive, and this support has now been extended into Teams as Teams Multi-Geo. 

These are just a few of the measures that Microsoft has taken as proactive steps towards keeping externally shared, sensitive, and confidential data secure between internal and external users, within their organizations and external organizations. With the majority of the world working remotely during this pandemic, it has forced organizations to rethink how technology can be leveraged to continue the productivity of their workforce. As always, Microsoft has been forward-thinking and proactive since its inception, and the response has been in place for years. Instead of responding, Microsoft is enhancing and adding to its repertoire of defences, staying ahead as the leader in collaboration and data security.

Microsoft Ignite Virtual 2020: SharePoint and Microsoft Teams

This year’s Microsoft Ignite 2020 has been full of excitement and energy with announcements for SharePoint and Microsoft 365 that are not only exciting and amazing but are raising the bar even higher by integrating AI to produce better results and an overall, smarter system. From new purchasable add-ons, like Project Cortex and products stemming from it, including the first available product, Project Syntex, leveraging AI to targeted accurate, prioritized, and relevant content for your audience, especially those working in Microsoft Teams.

Microsoft Teams is becoming more robust as global enterprises, from small businesses to global giants, embrace virtual and remote business as the pandemic has changed the face of how business interactions occur. With greater demand, comes higher expectations from users. Microsoft 365 and SharePoint are stable platforms, proven over decades of use, dynamic growth, and enhancements shaped by the users themselves.

Without any surprise, Microsoft Teams has received more attention, making it that much more welcomed in the virtual business world.

Teams – What We Can Look Forward To

SharePoint Home Sites in Teams: the new home site app brings into Teams directly, an organization’s intranet and the powerful SharePoint Home site. Available later this year, the app name and the organization’s branding icon can be pinned to the app bar.

Teams Templates: get started with Teams quicker with Teams templates that are industry-specific, representing common business scenarios. Customized templates can also be created by Administrators to reveal relevant apps, standardize team structures, and scale best practices.

Info Pane, Pinned Posts, and New Conversation Button in Channels:  the channel info pain is visually organized while being easily accessible It provides information such as a summary of active members, important pinned posts by members, and other relevant channel information. There is a new intuitive conversation button in channels that makes it easier to start a conversation as opposed to simply replying to existing ones.

Share News Across Teams: news articles will be able to be shared directly to your audience’s team, inboxes, or community directly from SharePoint.

New Search Results Experience: Finding people, messages, answers, and files will be faster and more intuitive in Teams as it will be powered by Microsoft Search.

Microsoft Lists Apps for iOS (Preview): Available offline and in dark mode, Microsoft Lists mobile app not only allows you access to your lists but also the lists others share with you. Microsoft Lists Apps for iOS provides on the go features for users including the ability to create new lists, share lists with other members, and edit list items.

Microsoft Lists – Offline Mode: In offline mode, Microsoft Lists allows users to instantly view, sort, filter, group, edit, adjust items, and add items.

New Together Mode Scenes: Virtual meetings take on a whole new feeling with the New Together Mode Scenes. Bring your team into a setting that sets the mood and the tone, whether it be a coffee shop, auditorium, or a conference room.

Custom Layouts: Presenters will be able to customize layouts for a dynamic presentation and viewing experience for participants in a meeting.

Meeting Recap: Not everyone is able to attend meetings, and not every bit of information can be retained after a meeting. Hence, the Meeting Recap. With the Meeting Recap, the meeting recording, chat, shared files, transcript, and more will be shared automatically at the end of a meeting. These shared files can be found by choosing the meeting Chat tab with viewability in the Details tab. Meeting Recaps will enable teams to keep moving forwards their goals after a meeting for participants and those who were unable to attend.

Webinar Registration and Reporting: Managing attendee attendance is simple with event registration with automated emails. This feature simplifies event participant management, especially for webinars or any structured meeting. It also provides to the organizer, a detailed, viewable reporting dashboard, assisting the organizer to understand attendee engagement.

New Calling Experience & Collaborative Calling: The calling experience is simplified and streamlined with a single view that displays contact, call history, and voicemail. With a single click, returning or initiating a call is effortless. An upcoming feature, collaborative calling, will allow a call queue to be connected to a channel in Teams by customers.

25K Member Teams: In the Teams tenant, there is no set limit for the number of people. However, Team membership is currently capped at 5,000 members and this will be increased to 25,000 members per individual team later this year.  

Approvals in Microsoft Teams: Microsoft Teams is becoming the central station for collaboration, and as such, approval flows will be able to start from a Teams channel conversation, chat, or the Approvals app. With the Approvals in Microsoft Teams, users will be to manage, create, share, and act on approvals directly from Teams.

Wellbeing Features and Productivity Insights: the goal of the new Wellbeing Features and Productivity Insights is to encourage remote staff to stay healthy through self-care and keeping to routines as if going into the office. By adding structure to the workday, such virtual commutes, it prepares the body and the mind for work. Incorporating Headspace, users can follow a guided meditation to unwind at the end of the day. Powered by MyAnalytics and Workplace Analytics, these features focus entirely on the wellbeing of an organization’s remote staff. The first phase begins in October with the second phase available in the first half of 2021.

Meetings Extensibility with Apps in Meetings: Integration of developer apps into Teams meetings will help to create scenarios that provide better meeting context, such as roles, permissions, and rosters.

With SharePoint, Microsoft 365, and AI powering Teams, this app’s potential has just grown exponentially and the potential of what it can do is limitless. Collaborating with Team members, whether on-site, off-site, or virtually, is a breeze. Seamless and smooth, Teams will continue to grow as it becomes the central station of collaboration.

Microsoft Ignite Virtual 2020: SharePoint Announcements

This year, for the first time, Microsoft Ignite 2020 came together on a virtual stage. Despite not being in person, we all had an excellent time learning, experiencing, interacting, and having fun with other attendees whether we were new to each other or we were reconnecting with familiar faces. As always, Microsoft Ignite is filled with tons of new, innovative, and exciting announcements. This year’s MS Ignite 2020 did not disappoint!

SharePoint touches on so many facets within Microsoft 365, and the number of announcements to new features and products is astounding. Breaking this down into three categories, we have the following:

SharePoint

SharePoint is the foundation for user collaboration within and without an organization, and is super dynamic, always changing to suit user needs but more importantly, paving new roads for others to follow. Let’s start here with SharePoint’s announcements:

SharePoint Syntex: combines AI and machine teaching by augmenting human expertise, automating the processing of content, and transforming this content into knowledge. Learn more in my article SharePoint Syntex.

Project Nucleus: working offline will now be possible with Project Nucleus. How you ask? You can learn more in my article Project Nucleus.

SharePoint App Bar: the SharePoint App Bar will not only be customizable in bringing relevant information to the user, but a consistent experience will be provided to every site in an organization’s intranet. One cannot help but wonder if this is a step towards the solution for the global hub site navigation menu.

Meeting Recordings & Stream Powered by SharePoint: Microsoft Teams Meetings recordings and Microsoft Stream are currently being modernized for the new innovative SharePoint storage, allowing staff to easily access their recordings after a meeting in OneDrive. Learn more in my article Microsoft Stream.

Boost News in SharePoint: with news boosts in SharePoint, important news and announcements can be prioritized to appear at the top of the Microsoft 365 news feed. The length of time of the appearance of the news and announcements can be controlled in three ways – on a set timed schedule, until the content is viewed by an employee, or the content is viewed by the employee and when the pre-determined number of views is met, the announcement or news is replaced by the next prioritized item.

Share News Across Email, Teams, and Yammer: news articles will be able to be shared directly to your audience’s team, inboxes, or community directly from SharePoint.

Built-in SharePoint Templates: SharePoint templates have been readily available, but now, templates can easily be selected and customized from within SharePoint. These built-in SharePoint Templates can be applied to any existing SharePoint site.

Communication Insights: analytics is the name of the game in understanding user engagement. Powered by AI, SharePoint analytics will provide information to help your company understand the user engagement across Microsoft 365 along with the reach and impacts automatically from analyzing user dwell time on content to heatmap views of user interaction. These insights can be combined with Live Events, Questions and Answers, and Yammer for a more detailed analysis of user engagement and impacts.

SharePoint Admin Centre Improvements: one of the improvements in the SharePoint Admin Centre are the settings for OneDrive. Managing OneDrive has just become that much easier! Other great improvements including updating of the admin centre homepage, actional insights, more options for migration, and improvements to site visibility.

Automatic Expiration of External Access: rolling out in September 2020, automatic expiration of external access becomes generally available. An expiration, like 30 days, can now be set for any external access in your organization, and the countdown begins once the external guest user is invited to a file or the site. Upon expiration of the access pass, access is automatically revoked.

External Sharing Policies with Microsoft Information Protection Sensitivity Labels: external sharing policies can be associated with sensitivity labels, making it that much more powerful to secure external collaboration.

Governance Insights for Files in SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams: centric insights for your company’s top sites with the most sensitive documents and share sites can now be accessed. These insights provide you the ability to validate access policy settings to ensure the security policies are proficient and/or to take actions to tweak them in the SharePoint Admin Centre.

Data Loss Prevention (DLP) Policy for Blocking Anyone Links for Sensitive Content: already available to the general public, this new DLP policy rule blocks anyone with the link option for sensitive content. Using anyone with the link, administrators can configure the DLP rule to take action to block access and sharing of the sensitive content.

Endpoint Data Loss Prevention (DLP): endpoint DLP provides protection and avoids the leakage of sensitive content for all endpoints on all Windows devices.

Unified Session Sign-Out: in the Microsoft 365 Admin Centre, the administrator can sign out a user instantly from all their sessions on all devices, whether they are managed or unmanaged. Unified Session Sign-Out is powered by continuous access evaluation.

Information Barriers for OneDrive and SharePoint: To avoid conflicts of interest, communication, and collaboration information barriers can be put in place between certain sets of users in the organization.

OneDrive

Add to OneDrive: When a folder is shared with you from either OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, or SharePoint, a shortcut to that shared folder can now be created from either the Shared with me or from your shared libraries, all in your OneDrive so it can be easily found later.

Mobile App Improvements: OneDrive home for Surface Duo, iOS, and Android has be updated.

Move and Keep Sharing: Reaching out to a broader group of collaborators can easily be achieved by relocating the file from an individual OneDrive site to a shared library in SharePoint.

Offline Edit Support for Office Docs in OneDrive for iOS:  Office documents that have been marked for Offline use on the iOS OneDrive mobile app will be editable offline by simply tapping Open in Word or tapping Edit. Editing will begin where you left off when you were online. Once back online, editing takes place where you left off offline.

Sync Admin Reports: Sync Admin Reports will provide admins the ability to monitor health and sync adoption by having access to machine syn insights, on a pay per use basis. Admins will be able to check sync app versions of individual devices and check sync status.

Known Folder Move Improvements: Update include the following:

– new policy to exclude specific file extensions or file names

– selective sync removed as a blocker

– Admins can choose specific folders to move to OneDrive. These folders include Documents, Desktop, and Pictures

Microsoft Teams in SharePoint

There we many new announcements for Microsoft Teams including SharePoint Home Sites in Teams, Teams Templates, Info Pan, Pinned Posts, Conversation Button in Channels, Search powered by Microsoft Search, and so many more exciting additions, enhancements, and features. Catch them all in my article SharePoint and Microsoft Teams.

Microsoft Search

The greatest engine created, designed, and implemented now powers search across all Microsoft 365 applications. Read more in my articles Microsoft Search – The Questions and Microsoft Search – The Answers.

As you can imagine, the excitement and the virtual buzz during Microsoft Ignite Virtual 2020 as it is packed with many new additions, features, and enhancements that touch SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, OneDrive, Stream, and Project Cortex and many more Microsoft apps.

SharePoint Online Multilingual: The Site Editor and Content Creator

In our previous article, SharePoint Online Multilingual: The Site Owner, Site Admin, and Translator, we reviewed the steps necessary to enable SharePoint Online Multilingual capabilities from the perspective of the Site Owner, Site Admin, and Translator. When creating the Communication Site, it is important to remember that the language chosen during the Communication Site creation will become the default language. Once the Communication Site is created, the default language cannot be changed.

Now that the site is created and the translators are assigned, we will continue the process as Site Editors and Content Creators in implementing SharePoint Online Multilingual. Editors and content creators will define the site structure and create the content in the native language of the Communication Site.

As new content appears, translators will be notified by email request to translate the pages. Once translated, translators will publish the content which in turn will generate an email to the site owner or site admin notifying them that the translation is complete.  

Creating Pages for the Languages You Want

Next, you can create the pages for translation by following these steps:

1. Go to the default language page that you would like to have translated;

2. Select Translation on the top bar; and

3. Choose one of the two options:

a. Create for All Languages which will create a page for translation in each of all the languages available for your site; or

b. Create for only specific languages.

After creating the translation pages, publish or republish the default language page. This will ensure that the translation pages will be shown in the corresponding language site, News web part and Highlighted content web parts will be displayed correctly, and all the languages you enabled will appear in the dropdown menu at the top of the site.

Now that the page or pages are created, the status of the page, such as draft saved or published, is displayed in the translation pane next to each language. Once the page is saved and published, an email will be generated and sent to the assigned translator informing him or her that there is a request for translation for the page or pages.

Viewing a Translation Page on its Site

At the top of the default site language page, select the dropdown. Choose the language for the translation page that you want to view. By choosing the language in this dropdown, the language will apply for all pages on the site for the duration of the browser session. This does not affect your user language preference or the language displayed for the site name, title, and navigation.

Checking Status of Pages

In the translation pane, the status of each page is displayed next to the language. These statuses may include draft saved, published, submitted, and so on. To check the status of pages:

1. Go to the default language page; and

2. At the top of the page, select Translation. Here, the translation pane will be on the right-hand side which will display the status of the pages. Additionally, there will be a link, View Page, that will take you to the page if you click on it.

More Tidbits

What about the menus – how do the site, navigation and hub navigation menus work?

On the site, when a user of the defaulted language navigates, the language will appear as the default language. However, if the user is a multi-language user and navigates the site, the site will automatically point that user to the translated pages.

If the site owner adds a node to the page, it will appear on all pages in the default language. The translator will need to go in and edit the node to read in the chosen multi-language. Users can switch between languages easily with the drop-down menu on the top right.

How does SharePoint know the user’s default language? In O365, the user profile has a language associated with this and in the active directory, this is what is used to determine the default language. If there is no language associated with the active directory or O365 profile, then the site web language is used.

A Communication Site is composed of two portions. The site structure itself which includes the site title, navigation nodes, and footers, which are defined by the Site Admin or Site Owner. The second portion is the content which includes pages and SharePoint news modern pages experience, which is created by the Site Editor or Content Creator.  Creating a multilingual experience from site structure through the delivery of curated content, and by providing the end-user the ability to switch between languages, the end-user will experience a full multilingual user experience.

SharePoint Online Multilingual: The Site Owner, Site Admin, and Translator

SharePoint Online Multilingual is a new feature that enables multilingual experiences for end-users. Organizations will be able to build out their portals on SharePoint communication sites, published pages and news, with important, multilingual content.

SharePoint Online Multilingual ensures employee engagement, providing modern workplaces the ability to be inclusive by catering to a diverse audience. The recognition, application, and utilization of multi-languages will provide the ability to deliver accurate and highly curated content in the preferred language of the end-user for consumption.

On a global scale, the targeted release will be in March 2020 with general availability in May 2020.

Available Out of the Box

With this roll-out, SharePoint Online Multilingual will be available out of the box. With great adoption of the base communication site platform, more advanced features are being enabled. These advanced features will continue and enhance employer/employee engagement and collaboration.

Site Creation

When creating a site, there are two options: Team Site and Communication Site. To create multilingual sites, choose the Communication Site followed by Design.

Next, choose the language of the Communication Site. It is important to understand that when you choose the language of the Communication Site, it becomes the default language for the site. For example, if you choose English as the language, then English becomes the default language and all pages will be created in English. Copies of these pages can then be translated into other languages.

A very important note: The default language of the Communication Site cannot be changed after the site is created.

SharePoint Online Multilingual is supported in Communication Sites only as Communication Sites are the primary portal for communication, which is done through publishing pages and news. Team Sites, on the other hand, are built for collaboration through communication.

Remember: the default language is defined at the site creation level.

Enabling SharePoint Online Multilingual Feature

Go to Site Information and then to View All Site settings. It is in the View All Site settings that you will find Site Language settings. Next, click on Site Language settings.

For existing Communication Sites and new Communication Sites, the Enable pages and news to be translated into multiple languages is defaulted to be disabled. Slide the toggle to turn on the Enable pages and news to be translated into multiple languages and choose the pages and the language that you want them to be translated into.

When SharePoint Online Multilingual is rolled out, existing Communication Sites will be able to access Enable pages and news to be translated into multiple languages. However, the default language of existing Communication Sites cannot be changed.

Once enabled, choose the pre-defined language or languages from the list that is provided by SharePoint, matching those that you want to be available for your end-users. Once the language or several languages have been chosen, assign a translator to each language. Assigning a translator will enhance the communication between the content creator in the default language and the translators who are responsible for translating the content in the site. Translators can be anyone in the Active Directory but not all members of the Active Directory are permitted to edit. If that person that is associated with the language does not have permission to edit but tries to edit the site, they will be redirected to a web page for them to request permission to access.

Once the languages and translators are determined and assigned, select Save to save the settings.

The Translator’s Role

The Translator has an important role in SharePoint Online Multilingual as the Translator manually translates the copies of the default language page into the language(s) specified. Translators are notified via email when copy(ies) of the pages are created. The email is a request for translation and embedded in the email is a link to the default language page and the newly created translation page. Upon receipt of the email, the Translator will:

1. Open the email and select the Start Translating button;

2. Select Edit at the top right of the translation page;

3. Translate the content;

3. Translate the content;

4. Select Save as Draft (if not ready to be visible to readers) or Publish or Post News (if ready to be visible for consumers of that language on the site);

5. Select Submit for Approval (if approval is required before publishing) or Publish Later/Post Later (if scheduling is turned on); and

6. Send email notification to the person who requested the translation.  

Page Updates

What happens when a page is updated after it is published?

If a page is edited and saved, an email will be generated, notifying the associated translator that there has been an update to the original page. Using version control, the translator will be able to see the changes that were done on the page and will be able to apply and translate the same changes on the translated page. 

Oops! I Need to Delete a Translation Page!

Deleting a translation page can be done, but it will require a few extra steps as the association between the default language page and the deleted translation page must be broken. To delete a translation page:

1. Go to the Pages Library for the site;

2. Go to the language folder that is adjacent to the default language page. Here you will find the page you want to delete. The language folder can be identified by the 2 or 4 letter language code;

3. Open the folder and select the page you want. Click the ellipses (…) to the right of the selected page;

4. Click Delete;

5. After the page is deleted, go to the default language page. Make sure you are in edit mode or the remaining steps will not work. At the top right, select Edit;

6. Select Translation which is located at the top of the page;

7. The Translation panel will open with a message stating that an association with the page has been fixed; and

8. Republish the default language page.

Your translated page has now been deleted.

Advanced Settings

The Override Translations has been in SharePoint for a long time and is hidden under the Advanced settings and is a legacy remnant with MUI. Override Translations will remove any rights to translators to perform translations, and therefore, it is not advisable to enable this if you are enabling multi-language and translators.

As a site owner or site admin, your responsibility for SharePoint Online Multilingual is enabling multi-languages and assigning translators. Once this is completed, the process continues with site editors and content creators. Join us in the next article SharePoint Online Multilingual: The Site Editors and Content Creators as we finalize and share content with SharePoint Online Multilingual capabilities.

SharePoint List: How to Add Formatting for Rows

It is a challenge to read monochromatic, long, scrolling lists on the screen, especially when searching and reading for any length of time. In SharePoint List, we can now format odd and even rows with a background colour. Alternating background row colours will help the user easily consume the content, especially when the list is lengthy.

Alternating the background row colours is advantageous for many reasons, including increased productivity as lists become more easily read and searched. Adding rows formatting in SharePoint Lists is straightforward and is easy.

Formatting rows with background colour can be done by following these steps:

1. Create a List;

2. Choose to either:

a. Create a New View; or

b. Edit the View for the default “All Items” view;

3. Click on the “Alternating row styles” button which is located at the top right-hand corner. By clicking on this button, you have now enabled the ability to edit the alternating row styles in your SharePoint List;

4. Once enabled, the default colour for alternating odd rows is grey. To change the default colour of the odd rows and the colour of the even rows, choose the “Edit Row Styles” link;

5. There are now two options for editing and choosing alternating background row colours:

a. Colour Palette Icon:

Choose either the Even or the Odd row to be assigned a colour. Click on the Colour Palette icon to the right. When you choose a colour, it will appear automatically within the list, providing you a preview of the colour combinations before you save it.

Keep in mind that certain colour combinations are difficult for the user to discern the difference in row colours, can be difficult to look at for long periods, can cause eye strain, can tire the eyes with brightness, and some combinations are difficult to work with. An example of a colour combination that poses difficulty in distinguishing the two colours is a blue and grey combination. If the blue is a cool grey-blue, then it can look similar to the grey, rendering difficulty in distinguishing between the rows. The intensity and hue of the colour will also affect the legibility of the content. For example, black font colour is difficult to read if the background colour is dark or too bright.

Choosing the background colours for the alternating rows requires an understanding of how colours affect productivity, psychology, and ease of use for your users.

Once you have completed this process for one type of row, repeat with the other type (ie. modify odd rows, then modify even rows); and

b. Customized Solutions:

Flexibility in creating advanced solutions is available by clicking on the “Advanced Mode” button. For this solution, you can add your custom JSON to create unique experiences. Customizable solutions allow you to choose relevant colours, such as underscoring your organization’s branding and creating a uniform experience for your user. As an example, alternate background row colours can be your organization’s two dominant brand colours.

When applying customized solutions, it is still important to take into consideration the factors that are discussed above regarding colour contrast for ease of discernment, colour intensity for eye strain, and colour hues for psychological impact on your users.

If feedback from your users indicates that there is too high of colour contrasts, it is straightforward to revise your colour selections.

As you can see, assigning and applying alternating even and odd row background colours for SharePoint lists can be easily accomplished but there are factors to consider when choosing the background colours. If chosen correctly, the application of the alternating even/odd row background colours in your organization’s SharePoint list will provide your users with easily consumable content.

Modern Search in SharePoint Online: The Search Administrator

In our previous article, Modern Search in SharePoint Online: The User Experience, we explained how the Modern Search experience provides powerful search capabilities for users to curate relevant, important, and personalized content to the user while the Microsoft, or Classic, Search experience provides organization-specific information.

From an administration point of view, deciding when to use which one of the search experiences is a consideration when planning the implementation of Modern Search. Both search experiences require content that has been indexed but because Modern Search uses the same index as Classic Search, nothing is required to be done if your organization is already using Classic Search. Additionally, the modern search boxes are defaulted to appear on the SharePoint homepage and modern sites, eliminating the need for configuration by a search administrator.

There are two options when it comes to the launching portal into different search experiences. Where to launch the portal from is directly related to the end goal of what is being achieved. Launching from the Search Centre will provide different results than from the SharePoint homepage.

Launching from the Search Centre (Classic Search) will allow custom refiners and search verticals for organization-specific content. This also provides the ability to display organization-specific content results differently than other content for it to stand out. The second method of launching is from the SharePoint home page and this can be done by encouraging and promoting users to use the SharePoint start page to initiate Microsoft Search (Modern Search in SharePoint Online). By launching from the SharePoint home page, content delivered will be user-specific.

Migrating from a classic to a modern site will impact the search experience if you have a customized search. Remember that a classic site has a classic search box while a modern site will have a Microsoft search box. With classic sites, the search box can be customized, such as redirecting to a custom Search Centre to display filtered and formatted results that are organization-specific based on content types. The Microsoft search experience cannot be customized in this fashion and it is recommended to use modern sites if the search box does not need to be customized. This method would provide user-relevant content.

An efficient way for users to search across all sites of an administrative unit is to use a hub site to organize the sites. Hub sites use Microsoft search boxes which means that searches target people, files, news, and sites across all associated sites of that hub. This can also be achieved with the classic search box, but it would be time intensive and not the most efficient method.

On the plus side, Microsoft search can be used in combination with cloud hybrid search. On-premises and online content for cloud hybrid search are indexed in the same index that is accessed for classic and Microsoft search experiences.

Keep in mind when migrating or deciding when to use the Classic Search or Modern Search experiences that the Modern Search experience shows results only from the default result source. If the default result source is changed, then both search experiences are impacted. Likewise, removing a search result, even temporarily, will remove it from both search experiences.

Earlier, we discussed how a search administrator can use Microsoft search to promote information and answers that are targeted to specific groups or teams. For the Classic Search experience, search administrators define the promoted results that provide users with relevant and important content. Unlike the classic search experience, Microsoft Search experience requires the search administrator to use bookmarks to achieve the same result.

Promoted results can be created at an organizational level. At this level, if a user was to search across the whole organization, the promoted results might appear in the All tab on the Microsoft search results page.

As an example, let’s say a user searches from the search box on a hub site. Performing a search from the hub site garnishes results from sites associated with the hub only and will not see any of the promoted results in the All tab. However, if the user had performed the search from the SharePoint home page, then the promoted content may appear on the All tab. If the promoted result was defined and the same content was bookmarked with the same URL, then only the bookmark would appear in the All tab.

As one can see, planning the implementation of Modern Search with Microsoft Search requires a thorough understanding of the relationship between them as well as how sites function, particularly hub sites, classic sites, and modern sites.

Modern Search in SharePoint Online brings personalized content to the user while Classic Search provides the ability for search administrators to customize promoted content that can be targeted to specific groups or teams within the organization. Microsoft is rethinking, redefining, and changing how search is used by combining Modern Search in SharePoint Online, Microsoft Search, and AI.