The Modern Experience – Part I

For better end-user usability and additional customization options, SharePoint Online as begun rolling out “modern” experiences.  The modern experiences currently supported include Modern Team Sites, Modern List and Library Experiences, and Modern Site Pages.  Each of these can be controlled at the tenant or site levels. 

Adopting Modern Experiences

There are several recommended steps for preparing and deploying modern experiences, especially for those who have existing customizations that are business critical for your deployment.  The adoption process recommended is as follows:

1. Readiness:  It is important to thoroughly understand and comprehend the “modern” experiences, their features and, especially, which features are not currently available.

2.  Assess:  Assess your current customizations and determine which customizations and features can work within the “modern” experience and those that cannot.  Those that cannot work within the “modern” experience should be updated or be retained in the “classic” format.  For those that can work within the “modern” experience, determine to what extent they will work. 

3.  Solution Planning:  Analyze, develop and finalize the plan on the requirements needed to prepare your custom solutions and sites to be used with “modern” experiences. 

4.  Develop and Test:  Develop, apply and test the changes required for your customizations.  Confirm that they will work, and if they do not, then repeat Steps 2, 3 and 4. 

5.  Deploy:  Roll out the updated changes to your SharePoint environment. 

Existing Sites and Converting to “Modern” Team Sites

Currently, existing collaboration sites cannot be converted to “modern” team sites with an associated Office 365 group. However, “modern” experiences can be used in the “classic” collaboration sites by enabling the capabilities at the tenant level, then, modifying the sites based on functional requirements.

For newly added pages in “classic” SharePoint sites, the default will be a “modern” page with the option of changing the welcome page to a “modern” page. Setting a new “modern” page for a “classic” SharePoint site can be done programmatically in CSOM or REST APIs.  For “modern” lists and library usage, control is available at the tenant, site, web and list/library levels. 

SharePoint On-Prem and “Modern” Experiences

Currently, “modern” experiences for SharePoint On-Prem are not available.  They are planned to become available for SharePoint 2016 in an upcoming feature pack and will be available with a step by step guide. 

“Modern” experiences in SharePoint Online focus on end-user usability and appearances and offers more centralized, easily accessible information from multiple platforms while on the go.  In the next installments, we will discuss Modern UI and Modern Team Sites in greater detail.