First public developer preview of the SharePoint Framework

Microsoft has lanced the first public developer preview of the SharePoint Framework.

Key points:

• Release for developer tenancies.
• Some documentation is provided.
• Preview will be updated frequently over upcoming weeks / months.
• Full support to office 365 tenancies later in the year.
• You can start building client-side web parts using modern script development tools and the SharePoint Workbench (a new development test surface).
• You can deploy your client-side web parts to classic web part pages in Office 365 Developer tenants.
• It Works alongside common scripting frameworks, such as AngularJS, and we’re expanding our tools for these frameworks.  For example, you can use React along with components from Office UI Fabric React to quickly create experiences based on the same components we are using in Office 365. 
• SharePoint Framework client-side web parts are good for projects where code is trusted to run directly within SharePoint pages with broad access to SharePoint data.  
• Microsoft have also reiterated their commitment to improving the SharePoint add-in functionality. SharePoint add-ins are great for a variety of other use cases, including support for more fine-grained permission and data access controls, responding to remote events and webhooks, and Office Store distribution.

If you still find this a little bit confusing it is ok. I do too but it is still all very new and as is typical to MS they drip feed the information to you as they themselves work out what it all means.

Comeplete microsoft post SharePoint Framework Developer Preview Release

Office365 Modern SharePoint Lists, Microsoft Flow and PowerApps

SharePoint Online is continually evolving and I am trying to get to grips with it. Microsoft just released a post on the new SharePoint lists, Microsoft Flow and Power apps.

Modern SharePoint lists:

• New interface on lists makes it easier for users to add columns and do bulk tasks. It is also easier to modify things like properties and metadata. Pretty rapid and will help end users.
• When a list renders in the browser, a check is conducted to see how customised the list is. If it is felt the page would break due to compatibility issues (i.e the page is customised and the new modern view cant handle it) the page will revert to the old classic list view. I feel this is most needed and I had heard rumours they were going to do this and stops the change breaking your entire library.
• You can create links to things outside the library easily. This could be a YouTube video for example. That's pretty neat.
• Custom tool bar actions are still possible like the good old days.
• Admins can apparently still default the list to classic view if they want and users can switch back to classic if they choose. I would like to try this out. MS have confirmed they have no intentions of removing classic mode soon. Perhaps they actually listened to their user base :)

Microsoft Flow and PowerApps:

• Microsoft Flow aims to automate data exchange between systems.
• An example would be that when an item is added to sales force, something happens in the document library. Its essentially another workflow tool which probably aims to replace SharePoint designer workflow. At face value it looks good and fairly straight forward. Will be interesting to get a good look under the hood.
• There are extensions for Exchange, SQL, Dynamics, Salesforce, Google, Mail Chimp, Twitter, Wunderlist and more. 
• Powerapps helps create apps for lists which work on any device, especially mobile apps. You hace open an app from the desktop on your iphone. Once again this is quite easy and looks really cool. We have to bare in mind that this is all taken from a Microsoft Article.

Defo worth checking out the Microsoft article and video

Have fun and never stop learning.

Office365 SharePoint Online New site content page

I just found out that there is a new site content page online. It hasnt been rolled out yet but I'm sure the good people at Microsoft will be pushing it shortly. The changed to appear to be as menacing as the ones in the new look document libraries but worth noting anyway.

Find the full details at The SharePoint Site Contents page

Head of Cloud Productivity Tools

So over the last few years we have been seeing a shift from On-Premise solutions to Cloud solutions. At the same time Office 365 has really been taking off and Microsoft are adding more and more features to their offering as time passes.

In April 2016 I was promoted to "Head of Cloud Productivity Tools". A grand title in itself however what is it? This is something we are still determining however it means that I have been having to build on my skills a SharePoint Consultant and make them pretty hot as being an Office 365 consultant. With this in mind I am hoping to generate some value adding content to www.sharepointshowboat.com which relates not only to SharePoint but also Office 365.

Hope everyone is great.

Phil

Office 365 modern document library extensibility.

Hello there,

It has been such a long time since my last post but I really wanted to get the ball rolling again and start adding some value. Things have been changing a lot and recently there has been a lot of discussion about the new modern library views in Office 365. We have been concerned that the they break existing customisations and are limited but a statement from Microsoft suggests that they are fully committed to making things work appropriately.

More inform found at Update on Modern Document Libraries and Extensibility

Now if they could only stop releasing these things with bugs in we might actually be on to something.

SharePoint O365 Top Tip : Right clicking the "..." on a list item

I haven't done a blog post in a long time. Something I am disappointed with but we must move forward. Unfortunately this post will not change your life but it might be mildly interesting if you have not come across it. I was a bit surprised I didn't know this but there you go. My theory is that if I didn't know it then there must be others.

From within a list, if you right click the "..." next to the item, you will automatically be shown the options for Open, download, Delete etc.. This essentially saves you a whole click.

Perhaps everyone knew this....but perhaps not.

SharePoint 2013 : “Sign in as different user” has gone

Hello SharePoint lovers,

This is another one for my own reference really as I know I will use this until I have learn it parrot fashion.

.

We used to like the old “Log in as different user” option from within the browser. It was very handy for quickly testing different accounts. This has now gone from the UI in 2013 but it hasn’t actually gone…only the link has gone.

It is still there at http://site/_layouts/closeconnection.aspx?loginasanotheruser=true

Another approach out there is to Right click Internet explorer with shift held down and select “Run as different user”.

It should be noted that this cannot guarantee that everything with the previous user will disappear. I would at the very least hammer shift f5 to clear the browser cache down.

From my own experience if you are doing stuff with Office then you really need to login to windows as that user to get all the functionality working correctly. However there is still a place for the old “sign in as a different user” for us oldschool geeks.

MS post reference : "Sign in as Different User" menu option is missing in SharePoint Server 2013

Hope to start posting more in general. Been so busy SharePointing recently.