I recently ran into an issue where I was getting the dreaded “failed on start” error for some of the workflows in a SharePoint 2010 environment. At first I was concerned that some sort of Microsoft KB had killed workflows again as described here and here.
However, that didn’t appear to be the case. After some investigation I noticed that the files that make up a particular list/ library workflow were checked out!
The problem(s)
This first issue was the “failed on start” error message in the workflow field within the list. It was a pretty niche edge case though as it appeared to only affect newer workflows that contained a send email action.
Another interesting issue was that when creating brand new workflows to test if the error persists brought its own set of problems. Once published, the new workflow would appear as normal to be ran manually for a new list item and would proceed to fail on start.
Workflows failing on start from within SharePoint 2010.
However, any new list items would not have the workflow listed to be ran against. Jumping back into SharePoint Designer proved equally useless as clicking on the workflow within the list just brought you to a SharePoint error.
Then I found that digging deeper into the workflow files within SharePoint Designer showed that some of the files that make up a workflow were in a checked out state – what?
You are unable to check these files in, as when you try you receive a message stating:
“Server error: you cannot discard check out because there is no checked in version of the document. please delete this document instead”.
After googling this, as I’d never seen this before led me to this brilliant post on SharePoint stack exchange which brought me to a resolution. Specifically, this comment:
I also would like to thank TashasEv for his answer. It provided the key clue I needed for troubleshooting a similar problem. In my case, it was not the Document content type which had the title set to Required, but the User Workflow Document content type.
This is one of two content types that are shown listed when (in SPD) you right-click on the Workflows folder in the left Navigation panel (the other being Folder). I used the Administration Web Page (it’s a button in SPD when on the Properties tab for the Workflows folder). Changing the Title property of this content type to Optional solved the issue.
So as described in the above post, here are the steps involved:
1. Find the hidden properties menu
Open SharePoint Designer 2010 and open the site where you workflow is running
Press All Files > Workflows
Open Workflows from with All Files in SharePoint Designer.In Workflows, after clicking on the affected workflow you will see all the files associated that are in a checked out state.
Right-click on any workflow (I selected the affected one) > press Properties
“Hidden” properties button can be found by right-clicking on a workflow.
2. Set the title of the user workflow document content type to optional
Within Properties, under Content Types > select User Workflow Document
Under Customization > press Edit content type columns
Within the User Workflow Document, press the edit content type columns button.
Select the Title column > then press Administration Web Page
This will open a browser window, under column settings set the column to Optional
Make the hidden title column optional from the administration web page.
3. Re-publish the affected workflow(s)
Navigate to the affected workflow(s) via the Lists and Libraries section
Open your workflow, make a small amend > Save and Publish
Now, when you run the workflow(s) affected they should complete as normal, and if you check the files within the All Files > Workflows section in SharePoint Designer they should be checked in and all OK.
Microsoft Information Protection: Exact Data Match supported for SharePoint Online – Organizations will be able to use EDM (Exact Data Match) to better protect content on SharePoint online. Roadmap ID: 64558
Navigation update for narrow screens – In SharePoint and OneDrive, the location of the hamburger navigation menu is being moved to the header area for your site and command bar for files instead of in the suite bar. Roadmap ID: 62448
🚂 ROLLING OUT
Acronyms answers with Microsoft Search – Organizations don’t always have a single reference for their standard terminology. Lack of a single reference makes it hard to find definitions or expansions for these acronyms. Microsoft Search solves that problem with Acronyms. Roadmap ID: 64865
Audience targeting in site navigation – Filter items within the navigation menu based on people and groups. This applies to communication sites and hub sites. Roadmap ID: 34251
Shy header – Modern SharePoint site and hub site header states will collapse upon scroll. Roadmap ID: 62754
⌛ IN DEVELOPMENT
Release – June 2020
Enable modern communication site experience on classic sites – Using PowerShell, admins can now enable the modern communication site experience on any classic team site, including the root site. Roadmap ID: 46338
Microsoft Lists: visual updates for Quick Edit – In Quick Edit, you’ll see new grid lines, an improved on-hover experience, themed color bars on the side of list items, a “Create New Item” button and updated column header drop-downs. Roadmap ID: 64871
SharePoint lists and libraries: Sticky column in Quick Edit – As users scroll horizontally across a list in Quick Edit mode, the far-left column remains in place – improving context while viewing and editing. Roadmap ID: 64866
SharePoint lists and libraries: Fixed row height in Quick Edit – When in Quick Edit, you will see a new layout option “Fixed Height” within the view drop-down menu. Roadmap ID: 64867
SharePoint lists and libraries: updated Quick Edit row selection – When in Quick Edit, people will see an updated way for selecting single or multiple items in a list or files in a library. Roadmap ID: 64868
Microsoft Search in classic SharePoint sites – Microsoft Search in classic SharePoint sites brings the Microsoft Search experience to classic SharePoint sites and moves the search box to the application header in Office 365. Roadmap ID: 57131
Release – July 2020
SharePoint lists and libraries: Save a view in Quick Edit – People can save their view in Quick Edit for any list or document lib in SharePoint for Microsoft 365. Roadmap ID: 64229
Fluent design coherence updates for SharePoint – Fluent will be applied to modern SharePoint which will result in some visual changes i.e. larger/ bolder typefaces, opacity etc. Roadmap ID: 63777
Release – August 2020
SharePoint lists and libraries: Improved Image columns – Upload a new image – including mobile camera support. You can add a new Image column to lists and libraries. Roadmap ID: 64872
SharePoint Online search query volume limits when using app-only authentication – When this change is implemented, queries using the Site.Read.All permissions level or greater will be throttled at 25 QPS. The search query will return with a 429 response and you can simply retry the query. Roadmap ID: 64963
Home sites are now generally available! Home sites are communication sites that you can set as the top landing page for all users in your intranet. It brings together news, events, embedded video and conversations across your intranet.
Home sites are also automatically setup to be an organizational news site and have org-wide search pre-configured.
SharePoint home sites & start page from the My SharePoint link.
Run this PowerShell command in the latest version of the SharePoint Online Management Shell to enable a home site: Set-SPOHomeSite -HomeSiteUrl
This new web part should be familiar to most, as be found elsewhere in Microsoft 365, but can now the save for later web part is available to be added to specific modern pages in SharePoint.
The save for later web part for modern SharePoint pages.
The new Yammer experience is now embedded into SharePoint pages as part of this web parts update. You can now create any type of Yammer post, start a conversation, upload images and files into Yammer conversations all directly in SharePoint.
The Yammer Conversations web part, shown above on a SharePoint home site.
You can now schedule pages and news posts to go-live at a future date and time. This feature is enabled by SharePoint site owners and is disabled by default.
Schedule pages and news posts for publication at a future date and time.
The pre-publish panel for SharePoint pages and news, is a new experience that will give an overview of the key details of your page when publishing, re-publishing or posting news.
Get actionable insights before you publish your page or news article in SharePoint.
A new layout option has been added to the site footer in modern communication sites to allow for up to eight links or labels to be shown at the bottom of your site pages. You can also set the background color of the site footer.
You can now choose an Extended layout for the communication site page footer.
Templates will begin rolling out in the next few months and come with pre-defined channels, apps, and guidance on how to utilize and customize them. Team’s templates will be available automatically.
Teams templates will being rolling out in the next few months.
Microsoft Lists are the latest innovation and new kid on the block as announced by Microsoft at Build. Those familiar with lists in SharePoint should have no issue with Lists – they can help you track issues, assets, routines, contacts and much more, but also can work directly inside Teams.
Create a new list directly inside Teams or bring in one that already exists in Microsoft 365.
Microsoft Teams now allows you to bring more people together. Group chats will now be able to accommodate up to 250 users and teams can now have up to 10,000 members.
Now generally available, Users can now streamline their workflow and pop out chats into separate windows. This allows people to move more easily between ongoing conversations.
Gradually being rolled out over the coming weeks, this feature will provide you with clearer options for how to join the meeting from a link. You will be prompted with an option to join on the web, download the Teams client, or join with the native Teams client.
Easily access meeting options during a Teams meeting
Microsoft are making it easier for meeting organizers to quickly and easily change their presenter and lobby settings once a meeting has started by providing a link directly in the participants pane.
Easily access meeting options during a Teams meeting.
Set tenant-wide default selection for “Who Can Present” in Teams meetings
Tenant admins can now update their Teams meeting policies to allow for a new default selection when choosing who can present in new Teams meetings (everyone, people in my organization, specific people, or only me).
Currently the default selection is “everyone” unless the meeting organizer selects otherwise. This can currently be changed via a PowerShell cmdlet, with a view to be configurable in the Admin portal shortly.
Background effects policy for tenant administrators
Tenant admins can soon assign a user-level policy to control how users engage with background effects in Teams meetings. Options include: offer no filters; background blur only; use background blur and default provided images; and all, which includes the ability for users to upload their own custom images.
Screen share from chat allows you to immediately start sharing your screen in a 1-1 chat or group chat. This entry point was previously governed by the AllowPrivateCalling policy. If this policy is disabled, users are not able to screen share from chat.
Teams and Skype interoperability will enable collaboration with more partners, customers, and suppliers who rely upon Skype for Consumer (SFC) as their communication app. On either platform, customers will be able to discover users via email search, then chat or call using audio/video.
Microsoft Teams Rooms, app version 4.4.41.0 now available
The latest update, app version 4.4.41.0, is now available on the Windows store and is coming to every Teams room over the next few weeks. New features include: Modern authentication support, New application splash screen, Ability to project content to a single display when using a HDMI cable in a dual display configuration, Support for dynamic emergency calling, and more.
The newest Advisor for Teams, the Skype for Business Upgrade plan, has launched within the Microsoft Teams Admin Center. Whether you’re just getting started with Microsoft Teams, already using Teams alongside Skype for Business, or ready to upgrade, this provides everything you need for a successful transition.
Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code Extension for Teams (public preview)
Developers can use the new Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code Teams extension to quickly build project scaffolding, configure features, create app package manifest and setup hosting, validate app package manifest, and start the app publishing process (for yourself, to your organization’s catalog, or to the Teams app store).
The OneDrive activity feed has been improved to now include a snapshot view of recent activity and comments from the past 30 days on all your OneDrive files. In this feed you’ll see a log of recent activity such as file renaming, deleting, moving, restoring, and sharing, along with comments and edits.
Multi-page scanning for OneDrive personal accounts
Scanning via the OneDrive mobile app has long been available to premium subscribers to Microsoft 365 services. However, this is no longer a barrier for entry as multi-page scanning is now available for everyone using a OneDrive personal account.
Multi-page scanning for OneDrive personal accounts.
Manage the Power Apps Portal from the Power Platform admin center
With this change the Power Apps portal management options are now available in the Power Platform admin center from either the Environment or Tenant view. You can also see information such as how many days a trial portal has, before it expires.
Manage the Power Apps portal using environment view.
You can now set the timeout for the Notify function, controlling how long the banner appears, from 1 millisecond to infinity. You can also now sign out the current user with the Exit function.
The Power Apps team have added two new features to canvas formulas – launch to self and the self operator. The launch to self formula can replace a canvas app with another app or web page in the same browser tab. The self operator can refer to itself in formulas.
Enhanced integrated calendar experience (Calendar Control V2) for model-driven apps
Microsoft are introducing a new Calendar Control V2 for model-driven-apps. The new calendar control provides productive and intuitive ways to manage tasks across the team, provides sellers a peace of mind knowing that team tasks are organized, prioritized and delivered.
The new calendar control (V2) for model-driven apps.
Tabular Data Stream (TDS) Protocol endpoint for Common Data Service (CDS) (preview)
Currently in preview, the Tabular Data Stream (TDS) endpoint for the Common Data Service (CDS) provides an additional way to access read-only data in the CDS. The TDS enpoint – managed by admins, provides read-only access to the system for reporting and analytical purposes.
Recognize undetected fields in form processing with AI Builder (Preview)
Now available in preview, the Power Apps team have announced that you can now draw rectangles over name and confirm fields if they were not automatically detected by AI Builder.
Detect Fields that are not detected automatically in AI Builder (preview).
AI Builder now supports predicting multiple outcomes (Preview)
The AI Builder prediction models now support the ability to predict multiple outcomes. Now in preview, you can use AI builder intelligence to predict things like is shipping going to be early, on time or late.
Create a prediction model that supports multiple outcomes with AI Builder in Power Apps.
AI Builder Invoice Processing Automation Starter Kit available on App Source
The Invoice Processing Automation Starter Kit is a solution package to help automate invoice processing, and deployment bootstrapping and is now available to download on App Source.
The Invoice Processing Automation Starter Kit is now available on App Source.
In this month’s update to the UI flows installer see’s the a new preview feature to record and play back automation’s on Remote Desktop sessions, without the need to install additional software on the remote computer.
Adding a sensitive text input to a UI flow.
Also included as part of this update is a new type of input called sensitive text inputs. These inputs are similar to other text inputs, but their values will not be stored in the UI flow or logged as part of the UI flow run history.
Microsoft announced the acquisition of Softomotive, a world-leading provider of robotic process automation (RPA) with over 15 years of experience and the creator of WinAutomation.
With WinAutomation and Power Automate together, the combined offering will also enable RPA connectivity to many new apps and services including SAP and traditional green-screen terminal applications.
With several new triggers and action built specifically for Teams adding to Power Automate, new business process scenario templates have also been added to the new flow start screen.
New business process scenario templates built for Teams.
These templates relate to unlocking custom message extensions, allowing for automated @mentioning, and provide a customized bot experience actions and triggers for teams.
The Power BI team have announced that – now in preview, you now connect directly to a dataflow without first requiring to import the data into a dataset with Direct Query Support.
Power BI Dataflows Direct Query Support (Preview).
This months report server feature summary includes updates for all aspects of Power BI including the hierarchical slicer and decomposition tree visuals, query diagnostics, and much more.
A new page view option for Paginated Reports is now available in the Power BI service. With the new page view option, users can also change parameters, click on links in the reports and more.
Shared and certified datasets in Power BI enters GA
In preview since June 2019, shared and certified datasets are now generally available in Power BI. With shared and certified datasets, Power BI users can easily discover and reuse enterprise-wide semantic models. They can be shared across workspaces, fostering reuse and maintaining the single source of truth.
Microsoft have announced that Azure Synapse Analytics is now available for public preview. Azure Synapse, the next generation of Azure SQL Data warehouse provides incredible performance over large data volumes and has built-in capabilities for data ingestion, preparation, machine learning, and visualization.
On-premises data gateway May 2020 update now available
The May update for the On-premises data gateway (version 3000.40.15) is now available. The update also includes an updated version of the Mashup Engine, which will match the Power BI Desktop May update.
the Refresh Summary page in the Admin Portal is where capacity admins get an overview of all scheduled refreshes activity on their premium capacity. The page is powered by a New REST API for refresh monitoring that can be extended using existing automation tools .
Lots of great features this month for Power BI desktop including: curate featured tables for Excel, new Apply button for the filter pane to apply all changes at once, enhancements to change detection and page navigation action, support for images in buttons, and more!
The Power BI team have announced the public preview release of Power BI Deployment pipelines, a new and improved way for BI teams to manage content lifecycle within Power BI Premium. Some of the benefits of deployment pipelines include:
Improved productivity
Faster delivery of content updates
Reduced manual work & errors
Introducing Power BI deployment pipelines (Preview).
Premium Capacity Overload Alerts are timely automated emails that are sent whenever Power BI senses a Premium capacity is overloaded, that are sent to users subscribed to Service Interruption Notifications.
Bring low-code bots to Teams, with Power Virtual Agents
New features will make it easier to create and manage low-code chatbots from within Teams and more streamlined for end users to use Power Virtual Agents bots in Teams. These new features are:
Bot Template: FAQ bot template available in GitHub
Single sign-on: Power Virtual Agents bots will be available, removing the need for users to sign in again when using a Power Virtual Agents bot in Teams
The last Office Hours meeting took place on June 3, looking at the administration and configuration controls available in Project Cortex. The next meeting is scheduled for July 22.
Microsoft Lists is an evolution of SharePoint lists, expanding on the ability to support work management scenarios so you can stay on top of what matters most to your team – like tracking issues, asset management, managing events, inventory tracking and more using customizable views and smart rules to keep everyone in sync.
Video creators can record any window or screen, add mic or system audio, and include webcam video. There is no need to download any additional software; the tool is web based and works with latest version of Edge or Chrome.
Fluid Framework components and workspaces in Outlook and Office.com
Fluid, Microsofts open-source framework designed to make collaboration adaptable, flexible, and focused by breaking down the barriers between apps is coming to Outlook and Office.com.
Dynamic content such as tables, charts, and task lists can be easily inserted in Outlook for the web and Fluid workspaces can be created and managed, including within your document activity feed, Recommended list, and @mentions—or search for them across Office.com.
Fluid components and workspaces in Outlook and Office.com.
These experiences will be available to those with a Microsoft 365 enterprise license in the next few months.
Outlook on the web can help compose email messages with text predictions. Using intelligent technology to infer meaning and intention, Outlook can help you compose faster, avoid typos, and craft polished email messages.
Sidebar search & automatic profile switching in Microsoft Edge
Microsoft are introducing sidebar search so you can search for things without opening a new window or tab.
Sidebar search in Microsoft Edge.
Microsoft are also introducing Automatic Profile Switching, which will detect that the link you’re trying to open needs work credentials, and then switch you to your authenticated work profile.
Auto classification with sensitivity labels – Now in public preview, auto classification with sensitivity labels is now available in OneDrive, SharePoint and Exchange Online. Roadmap ID: 57312
Edit metadata from within the Document Library and List View web parts – You can now Now edit item metadata properties displayed in a library or a list from within the corresponding web parts: the Document Library and List View web parts. Roadmap ID: 61030
SharePoint Integrations with Power Automate and Power Apps to GCC-High Tenants – Enables you to create/manage custom flows and forms/apps with Power Automate and Power Apps. Roadmap ID: 62437
Extended layout for site footer – Modern communication sites will now include a new layout option, extended, to show more content in the footer section. Roadmap ID: 61063
SharePoint Recommendations – You will see SharePoint Recommendations at the bottom of pages and news posts to help users discover new content powered by machine learning. Roadmap ID: 52604
Site owners can now associate their sites with a SharePoint hub – Now site owners are able to associate their sites to a hub, this was previously only available to site collection admins. Roadmap ID: 53903
🚂 ROLLING OUT
Schedule SharePoint pages & news posts – You will be able to schedule a page or news post to be published at a specific date and time in the future. Roadmap ID: 62892
SharePoint news email notifications – Receive notifications for comments, replies and likes via email from SharePoint news. Roadmap ID: 49603
Save for later web part – New web part to display a user’s saved for later items. Roadmap ID: 57810
Conditional show or hide columns in a form – This feature allows users in lists and libraries to show or hide columns in a list form based on another column’s value by specifying a formula. Roadmap ID: 63518
⌛ IN DEVELOPMENT
Release – July 2020
Microsoft Lists: Lists app in Microsoft Teams – Team members will be able to both create new lists and add existing ones as tabs in Teams’ channels. Roadmap ID: 64162
Microsoft Lists: forms customization – Adjust what information shows on the out-of-box forms and include custom header and footer imagery and information. Roadmap ID: 64165
Microsoft Lists: calendar view – Visualize any list with items that use date column information in a calendar view. Roadmap ID: 64167
Microsoft Lists: sticky first column – As you scroll left and right, the first column of your list remains in place; similar to the sticky header that is already a part of Lists. Roadmap ID: 64168
Active time spent reports on SharePoint Site Usage – You can now get reports with aggregated data on the amount of time that users are spending on your intranet sites. Roadmap ID: 57159
Cumulative analytics for Hubs in SharePoint – Hub owners can now analyze aggregate usage analytics for their SharePoint hub sites, including all associated sites. Roadmap ID: 57160
New SharePoint admin center home page – Updates to the SharePoint admin center to align it to the Microsoft admin center, including more tiles and graphs. Roadmap ID: 57318
Migration manager – Admins can now add and manage multiple migration machines, and use task view to track progress of migrations.Roadmap ID: 57308
Migration manager is now generally available.
Move SharePoint sites to a new location – This feature will allow administrations to move a site to the location of an existing site. Roadmap ID: 51259
Connect sites to a Team in one click – A new Connect to Teams button in bottom-left corner of your sites. Roadmap ID: 30685
Connect SharePoint sites to Teams in just one click.
SharePoint news notification configuration – Configure personal email notification settings for SharePoint news updates. Roadmap ID: 49604
🚂 ROLLING OUT
Auto classification with sensitivity labels – Now in public preview, auto classification with sensitivity labels is now available in OneDrive, SharePoint and Exchange Online. Roadmap ID: 57312
Modern term store – Use the updated term store to create and manage terms and term sets in SharePoint. Roadmap ID: 57315
SharePoint Integrations with Power Automate and Power Apps to GCC-High Tenants – Enables you to create/manage custom flows and forms/apps with Power Automate and Power Apps. Roadmap ID: 62437
⌛ IN DEVELOPMENT
Release – June CY2020
Default site theme color is changing from blue to teal – SharePoint’s new teal theme will automatically update new and existing communication sites and team sites. Roadmap ID: 60592
Set Default Page Templates – This feature will allow site owners to set a page template as the default when a user creates a new page or news post on the site. Roadmap ID: 64529
Schedule SharePoint pages & news posts – You will be able to schedule a page or news post to be published at a specific date and time in the future. Roadmap ID: 62892
Release – Q4 CY2020
Site header updates – You will be able to choose to show/ hide the site title and a choice between a square site logo thumbnail or a non-square site logo. Roadmap ID: 63776
This is a simple one, but a really effective way of managing teams you are a part of. Once you start using teams in anger, it can become easy to lose track of what teams you frequent if you don’t manage teams gallery or your notification/ activity feed.
On notifications and the activity feed, notifications are actually turned off for teams by default, so it’s up to the members to manage their own notifications. Naturally, you still see updates by the channel being in bold and any @mentions will notify you.
It’s worth pointing out the distinction that you actually cannot pin an entire team, but only channels within it. Here’s how you pin a channel
Click on the ellipsis button … next to the channel you want to pin
Press Pin
Pin a channel for easy access from the teams gallery.
NOTE: To unpin a channel, follow the same steps as above button the option will be Unpin.
#2 Use post formatting, there’s cool stuff in there
One thing I’ve definitely starting using more and more is post formatting. There are several extra features post formatting gives you that you don’t get with the standard reply, such as
Add a subject – give you new post a prominent subject that stands out
Extra formatting options – heading options, text highlight colours, font colours
Announcement option – similar to a news post in SharePoint, but adds background colour or image to headline
Reply options – allow everyone to reply or just the you and/or moderators
Post in multiple channels – allows you to post a message in any of the channels you have access to
Format links – display text instead of a full URL, particularly useful if sharing links from Teams, as they are long and pretty ugly
There are several post formatting features that you don’t see in a regular reply.
#3 Get to know the general channel
The general channel is provisioned as standard when you create a new team. It’s generally the place where all communication within a team takes place.
The general channel comes with Posts, Files and Wiki tabs “out the box” to allow you to start collaborating straight away. That said, the general channel does have it’s limitations, such as:
You cannot use moderation in the general channel
You can’t delete the general channel
You can’t rename the general channel
You can’t hide the general channel or change the order of the channels to move it down
The general channel comes with Posts, Files & Wiki tabs as standard.
This post I wrote goes into more detail on using the general channel within the context of an org-wide team.
#4 Standard vs. private channels
There are two types of channels you can create in teams:
Standard – accessible to everyone on the team
Private – accessible only to a specific group of people within a team
When creating new channels you can choose between standard and private.
However, both options are not created equally. Here’s a look at the differences between the two:
Standard
Private
Number of channels in a team
200
30
Number of members in a channel*
10,000
250
Can team owners manage the channel?**
Yes
No
Can guest create channels?
Yes
No
Support for connectors & tabs?
Yes
Yes
Support for Stream, Planner & Forms?
Yes
No
Create’s additional SharePoint site collections?
No
Yes
Creates additional Microsoft 365 Group?
No
No
* The number of members within a standard channel derives from the team membership.
** Team owners can’t see the files, conversations or members list in a private channel unless they are members themselves. Owners can see the names of the private channels in teams they own and also delete them.
Here are some more resources teams limits and standard/ private channels:
Just to add to the point in the table about of additional SharePoint site collection, each private channel has it’s own, slimmed down version of a SharePoint site optimised for file sharing and fast provisioning.
The key differences between these site collections and standard ones is that private channel site collections are created in the same geographic region as the site collection of the parent team, have a a custom template ID, "TEAMCHANNEL#0" and cannot be accessed via the SharePoint admin center – only through PowerShell and the Graph API.
An example site collection for a private channel.
The URL for a private channel URL concatenates the team name with the private channel name, meaning it will look like this:
So this point is really to understand what gets provisioned when you create a new team, the different ways you can create them and any limitations with creating in those different ways.
What else do you get when you create a new team?
There is an absolutely brilliant everyday guide to Microsoft 365 Groups by Matt Wade at jumpto365 that does a better job explaining what you get when you create, well anything in Microsoft 365 than I can, but here’s the overview from his site:
What I wanted to highlight was depending on how you create a team, the Microsoft 365 group behaves differently – particularly in Outlook.
What I have noticed is that teams created via the client app or web browser are will not appear in Outlook groups or the global address list.
Teams created any other way, be it from the Teams admin center, Outlook, Exchange, Azure or Groups will appear in Outlook groups and in the global address list.
Multilingual page publishing –Create, publish and consume modern SharePoint pages/news in multiple languages.Roadmap ID: 50217
Multilingual page publishing in SharePoint.
Home sites – This feature lets you designate a communication site as the “home site” for your intranet.Roadmap ID: 26842
SharePoint home sites.
🚂 ROLLING OUT
SharePoint admin center: migration manager – Admins can now add and manage multiple migration machines, and use task view to track progress of migrations. Roadmap ID: 57308
Extended layout for site footer – Modern communication sites will now include a new layout option, extended, to show more content in the footer section. Roadmap ID: 61063
⌛ IN DEVELOPMENT
Microsoft Lists: home page – The Microsoft Lists home page is your home for all your lists across Microsoft 365. Roadmap ID: 64160
Microsoft Lists: rules – Create simple if/then rules based on changes to list information to set reminders and send notifications. Roadmap ID: 64163
Microsoft Lists: sharing – Share entire lists, or list items with individuals or groups with view or edit permissions and the ability to manage access. Roadmap ID: 64164
Microsoft Lists: ready- made templates – Create a new list from ready-made templates that accelerate list creation, structure, forms and flows. There will be 8 templates at initial launch. Roadmap ID: 64166
Bulk edit list items and file properties in the form – Soon you will be able to select multiple items and edit their list items or documents properties all at once in the default form. Roadmap ID:64228
Save a view in Quick Edit – Soon you will be able to save a view in Quick Edit for any list or document library. When saved, the list or library will always render in quick edit for easy inline editing. Roadmap ID: 64229
Open a list or library item within the view form from Quick Edit – Users will see their list and document library view forms inside of the Quick Edit experience. Roadmap ID: 64230
Quick Edit page size expanding from 30 items to 101 – People will now see up to 100 items per page on their document library or list when using Quick Edit. Roadmap ID: 64231
Create a new list item via a form in Quick Edit – Users will see the “New” button on their command bar in lists when they are in Quick Edit to create new items via the default form. Roadmap ID: 64232
(This post was written using a SharePoint 2010 environment)
In this post we look at how differing versions of Microsoft Office ProPlus affects SharePoint 2010 and the ability to open and edit Office files, plus how to fix them.
The situation
I began to get reports from users that were trying to open Office files from SharePoint that the files would only open read-only. These users have historically always had permissions to edit the files and have previously been able to open the files in edit mode from libraries within the SharePoint environment.
In this scenario we were running Microsoft Office 365 ProPlus version 16 and updates were on the monthly channel.
Clearing the Windows credentials of the MicrosoftOffice16 credentials
Turning off the “require documents to be checked out before they are edited” option in the a libraries settings
However, neither of these things worked completely. I didn’t notice any difference clearing credentials, and with the checking out files feature – this wasn’t turned on for the majority of the libraries I tested. Plus I didn’t really like the idea of having to turn off the checking out functionality in every library within our SharePoint environment!
So I continued to investigate and found the following:
The read-only issue appeared differently depending on the Office file
For Word and PowerPoint files, I saw that files would show this window when opening:
Word & PowerPoint files would open read-only after clicking open from this prompt.
Then the files would be read-only, if you tried to save the file it would ask you to save a copy. If you tried to overwrite the file saved in SharePoint it would tell you it is read-only and cannot be saved.
For Excel files, again you get the above prompt before the file opened, however when you opened the file a yellow banner would appear, allowing you to edit the workbook:
Excel files performed differently to other Office files when opening form SharePoint.
If you press “Edit Workbook” you could edit the file and save back to SharePoint no problem.
Some users could edit files from Open with explorer, but not all
So in this example some users could work around the issue by opening the file in explorer, which would allow them to edit the file and save back to SharePoint.
This wasn’t consistent for everyone, in some cases when users opened a file from explorer view, they would be prompted to check out the file from a yellow message in the ribbon, which would then error to tell them they can’t as the file is read-only.
Older versions of Office updates did not experience this issue
Not all of the users in this scenario had the same Office updates. One user who was running version 1611 on their machine was able to open and edit the same files from SharePoint that users running 2002 and above Office updates could not.
Solution
Im calling this a solution, but really it feels more like a sticking plaster as I’ve personally noticed this issue has been presenting itself in varying ways since at least the 1908 Office update, but this latest issue presented itself with the 2002 and 2003 Office updates. Anyway, here’s what we did to get files opening again:
Uninstall any Access Database Engine downloads you may have installed (2007, 2010 is what I noted)
Run an Office repair on the machine(s) with the issue
Install, or re-install Infopath 2013
Once Infopath was installed, when opening the same Office files (Word, PowerPoint or Excel) the above prompt changed to look like this:
Once Infopath 2013 was installed, the above prompt would appear when opening files from SharePoint.
I continued to test, going so far as to switch on the “require documents to be checked out before they are edited” setting just to see if that had any bearing on things, which it didn’t as the prompt just changed slightly:
With the check out option configured, the prompt to open and edit files in SharePoint slightly changes.
Like I mentioned earlier, this is by no means a solution to this problem, but it’s got us out of a jam for the past few Office updates, so hopefully it will help someone else too!
I’ve decided to compliment my Microsoft 365 monthly updates with a closer look at the Microsoft 365 roadmap. I will focus mainly on the core technology I personally keep an eye on (SharePoint, Teams, OneDrive, Power Platform), but will add other roadmap updates where they fit in.
I’m going to try to do this weekly roundup to track the new additions and changes to the 365 roadmap as items enter development, roll out and launch.
This first roadmap roundup will cover from 4 May through to 17 May 2020, but i’ll leave out anything that was covered in last month’s update:
Auto-save column operations in lists – Show, hide or reorder columns in a SharePoint list without explicitly saving the current view or creating a new one. Roadmap ID: 59732
Make changes to the current view without explicitly saving in SharePoint.
Format list and library JSON using Monaco code editor – Use Visual Studio code editor as the preferred coding tool when formatting JSON. “Monaco Editor” is what powers Visual Studio code. Roadmap ID: 59733
Per site sharing links can now default to People with Existing Access Links – Microsoft are introducing support to set the default sharing link to “People with Existing Access”. Roadmap ID: 60335
Image resize – Page editors are able to resize images in the image web part. Roadmap ID: 57812
Resize an image from within a modern page.
Page Difference Visualization – As well as the existing version history you can already see, you can now compare changes visually on a page. Roadmap ID: 57813
You can now compare changes visually when editing SharePoint pages.
Root site swap – Swap the location of a source site with another target site using the new Swap site button in the SharePoint admin center. Roadmap ID: 57309
Click on the current root site to replace it with another.
Mover migration worldwide availability – Microsoft have announced that new service Mover is available to customers worldwide. Roadmap ID: 61190
Next steps panel – Expanding on the in-service help that appears at the top of a team site – where the actions that are suggested are driven more and more by the use of the site itself. Roadmap ID: 46832
Integrations for GCC Tenants – SharePoint Integrations with Power Automate and Power Apps to GCC Tenants: Roadmap ID: 33770
Auto classification with sensitivity labels – Now in public preview, auto classification with sensitivity labels is now available in OneDrive, SharePoint and Exchange Online. Roadmap ID: 57312
“Flow” renamed “Automate” in lists – The flow button in SharePoint lists now reads “Automate”. Roadmap ID: 62855
Automate flows can run on individual items – Automate flows that can run on individual items contained within a document library or list. Roadmap ID: 62856
URL rename – You can now rename the SharePoint site URL from within the admin center. Roadmap ID: 56205
Rename a SharePoint site URL from the admin center.
Support for sensitivity labels with protection – SharePoint & OneDrive now support sensitivity labels with Microsoft Information Protection-based encryption. Roadmap ID: 57311
Lists/ library web parts consume dynamic data – You will be able to configure list web parts to send its property values to the List Properties web part. Roadmap ID: 57307
🚂 ROLLING OUT
Updated Yammer Conversations web part for SharePoint – The Yammer conversations web part is being updated to contain the new Yammer experience. Roadmap ID: 63385
Multilingual page publishing – Create, publish and consume modern SharePoint pages/news in multiple languages. Roadmap ID: 50217
Home sites – This feature lets you designate a communication site as the “home site” for your intranet. Roadmap ID: 26842
Increased site collection limit – You can now have up to 2,000,000 site collections per tenant, up form 500,000. Roadmap ID: 57316
Global reader role in SharePoint admin – SharePoint admin center now supports the Azure Active Directory built-in “Global Reader” role. Roadmap ID: 59984
People cards for SharePoint list and library web parts – Now, when you see a person’s name or face within a SharePoint List or Library web part, you can hover over it and reveal their people card. Roadmap ID: 57814
Information barriers (private preview) – Now in private preview, Information barriers are policies that can be configured to prevent individuals or groups from communicating with each other. Roadmap ID: 57313
Conditional formatting rule builder with new rich-text capabilities in lists – You will have the ability to use If/Then logic to format rows and columns based on attributes like numerical, date, etc. Roadmap ID: 57305
Updating modern home pages for classic team sites – Classic homepages will be automatically updated to a modern home pages if they have not been customized. Roadmap ID: 60405
Edit metadata from within the Document Library/ List View web parts – Now you will be able to edit the metadata properties on items displayed in a library or a list from within their corresponding web parts. Roadmap ID: 61030
Updates to sharing page in Admin center – Admin sharing settings from the classic sharing page are being added to the modern sharing page. Roadmap ID: 61116
Easy page and news publishing experience from sitepages library – Adding the ability to easily publish and republish a page or news post from the sitepages library in a site via the command bar or the file card experience. Roadmap ID: 61191
SharePoint Migration Tool supports SharePoint Server 2016 migrations (Public Preview) – Migration support from the SPMT now covers SharePoint server 2010, 2013 and 2016. Roadmap ID: 63258
Query alterations using SPFx for custom results page – Allows for query alterations in Microsoft Search for custom results pages with the SharePoint Framework. Roadmap ID: 57135
⌛ IN DEVELOPMENT
Enable modern communication site experience on classic sites – Using PowerShell, admins can now enable the modern communication site experience on any classic team site, including the root site. Roadmap ID: 46338
Configure header, footer and body of a form for lists/ libraries – This feature allows users in SharePoint lists and libraries to add a custom header and a footer to the associated form. Roadmap ID: 63519
Create all column types directly within Quick Edit – Replacing the legacy column creation in Quick Edit, this feature will allow you to create all column types directly from Quick Edit. Roadmap ID: 64171
Site header updates – You will be able to choose to show/ hide the site title and a choice between a square site logo thumbnail or a non-square site logo. Roadmap ID: 63776
Fluent design coherence updates for SharePoint – Fluent will be applied to modern SharePoint which will result in some visual changes i.e. larger/ bolder typefaces, opacity etc. Roadmap ID: 63777
Conditional show or hide columns in a form – This feature allows users in lists and libraries to show or hide columns in a list form based on another column’s value by specifying a formula. Roadmap ID: 63518
Improved page/ news publishing experience – A new pre-publish panel that gives authors an overview of key information about their pages or news posts. Roadmap ID: 63257
Schedule page/ news posts – You will be able to schedule a page or news post to be published at a specific date and time in the future. Roadmap ID: 62892
Extended layout for site footer – Modern communication sites will now include a new layout option, extended, to show more content in the footer section. Roadmap ID: 61063
Default site theme color is changing from blue to teal – SharePoint’s new teal theme will automatically update new and existing communication sites and team sites. Roadmap ID: 60592
Saved for later web part – New web part to display a user’s saved for later items. Roadmap ID: 57810
You can now access thousands of free-to-use stock images from the SharePoint image file picker experience, alongside recent, web search, your organization, OneDrive, site, upload and from a link.
Modernized filtering & tagging in the Managed Metadata Service
The updated term store experience allows you to create/ manage terms and term sets in SharePoint and makes it easier to manage your company’s taxonomy, plus with the addition of a new content type gallery manage custom content types from the SharePoint admin center.
NOTE: These changes do not affect existing term customizations or the classic term store management experience, nor does it affect the classic experience for managing content types. Content types are also still stored in the content type hub.
The new term store experience (left) and content type gallery (right) in the SharePoint admin center.
Site navigation & footer now has audience targeting
SharePoint site owners can now filter navigational links to specific audiences by using audience targeting – in the same way you can for news and pages. Once switched on by site owners, any site editor can target menu links to specific audiences using Microsoft 365 Groups or security groups.
Now you will notice that as you scroll down a modern or hub site, the header will shrink to maximize the reading space on a page. This shy header feature works on both desktop and mobile versions.
The shy header (right) shrinks dynamically as you scroll down the page.
SharePoint spaces, Microsoft’s web-based, immersive, mixed reality experience is in preview. Space’s allow you to build sites and add web parts for your 3D objects, 360° images and videos, 2D images and text, and more.
Microsoft have announced they are increasing the number videos displayed within the Teams meeting stage from 4 to 9. This new experience optimizes for attendees who have enabled video and places the remaining audio-only participants below the meeting stage.
Now generally available, background effects allow meetings attendees to change their video background from a list of images. Coming mid-May, users will be able to upload their own custom background images.
Live captions allow participants to follow along with what is said during Teams meetings. This feature is now available for iOS and Android in English.
Just like for meetings, you can now record your 1-1 calls in Teams. Functionality is the same as for meetings, in which the call participants will be notified the call is being recorded.
Yammer now has its very own app for Teams. The Yammer app is fully interactive within Teams, allowing you to watch live events, share announcements, pin conversations, and mark best answers just as you would in Yammer directly.
Microsoft have released three new badges as part of Praise – courage, optimism and inclusive to celebrate people making a difference during challenging times.
Three new praise badges are now available in Teams.
Cross-channel posting now supports editing a message after it has been posted. Additionally, you can add or remove channels to reach a wider audience or have a focused conversation.
Microsoft are offering guidance on how teachers can continue to connect and support students by using Teams.
Get the latest on which Teams meetings features to use now and what is coming soon from this webinar here.
Set up a Microsoft Teams meeting for your online classroom directly from within Canvas, Blackboard, Schoology, and other LMSs. Learn how with this guidance.
Starting in early May, Microsoft Teams live events host capabilities will be available to education users with a Microsoft Office 365 A1 faculty license, at no extra cost.
That means users with A1 faculty licenses, which is free to accredited educational institutions, can host and broadcast live events.This will be automatically disabled on July 1, 2020.
Limit which team members can see the conversation and content within a particular channel. You can right-size channel participation and exposure without having to create discrete teams to limit visibility. Private channels in GCCH and DoD are coming soon.
Advisor for Teams GCC (preview)
Advisor for Teams assists IT admins in planning a successful Teams deployment for their organization, offering recommended plans and a collaboration space for the deployment team to streamline the roll out of all the Teams workloads. This feature is currently in public preview.
Meetings dashboard for Teams admins
The new meetings dashboard gives admins insight into usage, user feedback, network health, meeting details, devices, and more from a single place.
Local Media Optimization for Direct Routing improves voice quality by keeping media streams local within the boundaries of corporate networks. It also supports streams between Teams and SBCs even if they are behind corporate firewalls not visible to Microsoft directly.
Teams admins will soon be able to see each app in their tenant, their type, and how many users and teams are actively using the app. Additionally, app policies and settings allows admins to manage permissions, define how apps are displayed in the Teams experience, and control availability of custom apps.
Teams admins can use batch policy assignment to streamline the process of assigning policies or policy packages to a large group of users. A batch can contain up to 20,000 users and admins can specify users by their object Id, user principal name (UPN), Session Initiation Protocol address, or email address.
Microsoft have introduced the following new controls to help manage Teams meetings:
Default lobby setting – the default Teams policy has changed to make external users wait in the lobby before joining a Teams meeting
Lobby settings for PSTN participants – Any user who schedules a Microsoft Teams meeting will now see a separate setting to control the lobby for Audio Conferencing (PSTN) participants in the Meeting Options page of a given meeting
OneDrive
Sensitivity labels in OneDrive
Sensitivity labels with protection for Office files is now generally available in OneDrive and SharePoint.
Sensitivity labels for Office files in OneDrive and SharePoint.
This new feature allows you as the file owner to override that lock and delete an Office file in your OneDrive while someone (or yourself) has it open, intentionally or not.
Microsoft have released updates to the sync app for Windows and Mac, through the Insiders, Production and Deferred rings of validation. Deferred Ring was previously referred to as the Enterprise ring.
With this preview feature the Power Apps team are introducing a simplified experience to create and manage authentication settings and identity provider configuration. The experience aims to provide better discovery of supported providers, in-app guidance for makers / administrators and reduce common configuration errors.
Simplified identity provider configuration in Power Apps portals.
For Power Apps portals, included as part of the April 2020 release wave 1, global search will support additional entities, including custom.
The portal global search is accessible using the search icon in your portal and allows you to search across different entities, but was limited to cases, articles, forum posts, blogs and web pages only.
Power Apps portals now has additional global entity support.
New data loss prevention policy capabilities (public preview)
Microsoft have announced new data loss prevention policies for the Power Platform. These new capabilities include a new enhanced user interface in the admin center for defining DLP policies, which additionally enables the ability to block connectors as well as user interface support for including HTTP Connectors in DLP policies.
Take a look at the new DLP policy capabilities in Power Platform.
Support for File and Image data types for use in UCI Model driven Apps
We are pleased to announce the preview release of controls that support the new File and Image data type for use in UCI Model driven Apps for the web. This capability is released with version 9.1.0000.15943. This new control also supports annotations for images. Images are not supported on mobile.
Now in preview, prediction models in AI Builder now support a capability to predict a number. AI builder number prediction can be used to predict things like product ratings, price estimates and time to completion.
Several new geospatial features are coming soon to Power Apps. Powered by Azure Maps services, you can add these components with the ease of drag-and-drop and low-code development. these new features include interactive maps and address suggestion.
Microsoft have announced that the Connector Certification experience is now available in ISV Studio! As part of the certification experience, you can use the Connector Certification to submit your connector, manage and track the connector through certification, and communicate with Microsoft from within the ISV Studio experience.
New prediction model performance page in AI Builder
The Power Apps team have announced an updated prediction model performance page in AI Builder. There is now a performance grade to help give you a better idea of how the model is performing. We’ve also added a new performance tab on the training details pane to provide more detailed information to help you evaluate performance.
As part of the April 2020 release wave 1, Microsoft are releasing Teams context variables within Power Apps, which will give you access to information like which channel, team, or group your app has been embedded in.
The most exciting context variable, however, is the sub entity ID, which allows a maker to deep link to a particular page of an app embedded inside of Teams.
Mixed reality capabilities are coming to Power Apps, bringing in new features tailored for mixed reality such as validating fit before work begins, taking measurements and communicating better for 2D and 3D models.
The Power Apps team have announced a new, responsive UX deigned for mobiles. Model-driven apps’ UX supports the need for taking quick actions on your information, in a familiar and recognizable way on mobile. Areas addressed as part of the enhancements include:
Approval workflows for adding a site to a SharePoint hub site
Microsoft have announced that you can now easily setup approval workflows directly from the SharePoint hub site settings, or create your own hub join process using the new Approve a hub site join request and Cancel a hub site join request actions for the SharePoint connector.
Require approval workflows for associated sites to join a SharePoint hub.
Robotic process automation, UI flows generally available
Microsoft have announced this month that it’s robotic process automation (RPA) capability, UI flows is now generally available. UI flows brings together the rich feature set of API-based digital process automation (DPA) that is available today, with RPA UI-based automation to create a truly end-to-end automation platform.
Robotic process automation in Power Automate with UI flows.
Six AI builder model types now generally available
Six AI Builder preview model types are now generally available as part of the AI Builder 2020 Wave 1 updates, including:
Form Processing – analyzes the structure of your documents to locate and extract key-value pairs and table data from form documents.
Object detection lets you count, locate, and identify objects within an image.
Sentiment analysis helps you identify positive or negative sentiment in emails, social media, customer reviews, or any text data you want to analyze.
Language detection identifies the predominant language of a given text. The model analyses the text and returns the detected language with a confidence score.
Key phrase extraction identifies the main points in text. For example, given the sentence “The food was delicious and there was wonderful staff”, the model would identify “food” and “wonderful staff” as key phrases.
Text recognition extracts words from documents and images. It uses advanced optical character recognition (OCR) to detect embedded print and handwritten text.
Microsoft have announced the introduction of 15 new connectors from several partners, plus an update of the Azure AD Integrated authentication the SQL server connector.
The updated SQL connector in Power Automate is now generally available.
In line with Google’s data security and privacy policies, customers using a Gmail consumer account (email addresses ending with @gmail.com or @googlemail.com) will have certain limitations on the set of connectors that can be used along with the Gmail connector in a flow. This change began rolling out on May 1 2020.
Service and Mobile February/ March 2020 feature summary
The Power BI team have announced the release of several new features including BYOK for Power BI Premium GA, incremental refresh GA, the Power BI tab in Teams plus much more!
Android shortcuts are now supported in this Power BI Android app release. Create shortcuts to any report and dashboard on your device home screen, and get straight to the content without having to navigate through the app.
The new navigation builder for Power BI apps is now generally available (GA). This feature gives reporting teams the power to customize navigation for end users, so they can find content quickly and understand the relationships between different reports and dashboards.
Custom navigation in Power BI is now generally available.
A new feature to the M365 update, we will keep you up-to-date on all the latest news related to Project Cortex.
Example of a knowledge center in Project Cortex.
Project Cortex Office Hours
Microsoft have been running the Office Hours meetings since late March to let you engage with the Microsoft project team about Project Cortex. The next meeting is scheduled for May 20.
The latest spotlight demo shows how easy it is to use content understanding to recognize document categories like contracts and capture key metadata with Project Cortex.
When people share documents with Open in review mode only selected, recipients who open the document in Word for the web will be limited to adding comments or leaving tracked changes.
The conversations feature will show relevant emails, meetings and Teams conversations to the person reviewing the file hover card information.
When someone sends an email, a Teams chat, or a meeting invitation that references a file from SharePoint or OneDrive, that conversation is displayed in the file hover card with a link to the conversation(s).
New & updated usage reports in Microsoft 365 admin center
Microsoft have improved their usage reporting offering based on the increased remote workers within organizations. Areas usage reports have been improved are within remote working trends, which Microsoft 365 apps people are using, calendar activity and usage trends across all Microsoft 365 services.
In line with the recent changes to the names of the Microsoft 365 Personal and Family Subscriptions, Microsoft have announced they will also be renaming Office 365 Groups to…you guessed it Microsoft 365 Groups!
