SharePoint Online

Microsoft 365 update – August 2020

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In this month’s Microsoft 365 update we take an in-depth look at all the recently released features for all the products within Microsoft 365.

SharePoint – Azure CDN caching for video, download site usage data, updated list & list item sharing, improved image columns, move files & keep sharing, education site templates

Teams – Tasks in Teams, New features in Whiteboard, Real time presence, meeting recording storage, optimized Teams experience VMware, new Teams devices, S4B PowerShell consolidation, Teams App Submission API

Teams (Education) – SDS & OneNote Class Notebook, channel specific content spaces, Teacher Only area, detect/ delete inappropriate messages, education apps

Teams (Government) – organizer joins meeting directly, instant channel meetings experience, improved meeting join launcher, prevent upload of profile picture policy

Power Apps – Troubleshoot Forms in a Model Driven App, improvements to Cascading Merge Transactions, Power Apps checker now analyzes modern web syntax, Power Platform Build Tools GA

Power Automate – New “when an item or file is modified” trigger, Delay, Command-Line Arguments &Copy-Paste UI Flows, flows from any message in Teams, 7 new connectors

Power BI – On-premises data gateway, AutoML support for PQO, data protection updates, mobile app headers/ navigation, block classic workspace creation, multiple data lakes support

Power Virtual Agents – Share your bot

Related – Provision users to Azure AD from SAP SuccessFactors, Edge improvements, FastTrack streamlined process

SharePoint

Azure CDN video caching for SharePoint and OneDrive

Microsoft have introduced improved streaming perofrmance for videos stored in SharePoint and OneDrive. Frequently accessed videos will be streamed from the Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN)closest to the user to optimize the playback experience. At all times data will remain within the Microsoft 365 compliance boundary.

Office 365 CDN conceptual diagram
Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) in Microsoft 365

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Download SharePoint site usage data in Excel

Site owners can now export their site’s 90-day usage data in an Excel report from the Site Usage page.

IZ-RP-21_August-2020_022_004_Export-site-usage.jpg
SharePoint site owners and members can download their site’s 90-day usage data in an excel report, directly from the Site Usage page.

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Updated list and list item sharing experience

Site owners, members and visitors will now see a Share command when they are viewing a list, even when they do not have any list item selected.

Site owners can grant other users access to the list and can specify whether what permissions to grant. Other users (e.g. site members and visitors) cannot directly grant other users access to the list, but they can use the dialog to send an approval request to site owners if the site is set up to allow access requests (enabled by default).

IZ-RP-21_August-2020_022_005_Share-list-list-items.jpg

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Improved image columns in lists and libraries

Several improvements have been made to the image column, including the ability to add an image to a list or library using the list itself or a library form. Also, when users are browsing the list on a mobile device, they will be able to upload an image – including taking a photo with the device’s camera.

IZ-RP-21_August-2020_022_006_Image-column.jpg
Add an image to a list items using the improved Image column capabilities.

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Move files and keep sharing

When you move a file to a new location in Microsoft 365, you will have the option to continue sharing the file from its new destination. A simple pop-up to confirm and keep moving forward.

The new link match permissions just like the source location and we send your collaborators an e-mail that notifies them that the file has been moved.

IZ-RP-21_August-2020_022_007_Move-file-continue-share.jpg
When you move a file to a new location in Microsoft 365, you will have the option to continue sharing the file from its new destination.

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SharePoint site templates for Education

Made available through the Microsoft Look Book, these SharePoint site templates are designed for schools and universities. Each brings together news, events, highlighted content, quick links and more, pre-configured and designed with a specific scope and audience for a variety of Education scenarios.

IZ-RP-21_August-2020_022_002_SP-EDU-templates.jpg
SharePoint site template: “School home page” – across several screen sizes.

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Teams

Tasks in Teams

The new Tasks app in Teams provides a new unified view of tasks and assignments from across Microsoft To Do, Planner, and Outlook, helping you consolidate and prioritize your tasks.

there is also an added, new List view with the ability to edit multiple tasks at once, Graph API and Power Automate integrations, and task publishing capabilities to come.

An image of the Task app in Teams.
Tasks in Teams.

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New features in Whiteboard for Teams

Microsoft have added new features to Whiteboard in Teams to make it easier to keep the creative process moving forward virtually. You can now quickly add sticky notes to a canvas, making it easier to contribute if you’re using a device without a digital pen.

You can now also move and re-order objects on the canvas through a simple drag and drop gesture.

An animated image showing updates to Whiteboard in Teams.
Microsoft Whiteboard in Teams.

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Real time presence

Stay focused throughout the day with Microsoft Teams. Whether you are free for a quick chat or presenting in a meeting, real time presence increases the accuracy of your status so others know when to reach out.

Find out more:

Meeting recording storage for areas where Stream is not available

A new admin setting will allow you to turn on meeting recordings if Microsoft Stream data residency is not yet in country. If this setting is turned on, Teams meeting recordings will be saved in the data center closest to the region.

Find out more:

Optimised Microsoft Teams Experience for VMware Horizon 8

VMWare Horizon 8 now offers enhanced audio and video experience for Microsoft Teams. The optimization pack helps provide better user experience and improved productivity for those leveraging Microsoft Teams across Horizon virtual desktop (VDI) and published application environments.

Find out more:

New Teams devices

First, The Windows collaboration display by Avocor is the world’s first and only Windows collaboration display certified for both Microsoft Teams and Azure.

Avocor.png
Avocor’s AVW-6555 provides seamless integration with Microsoft Teams video and audio-conferencing capabilities immediately with a Teams-enabled computer.

Then we have new offerings by Logitech, who now have products that support Microsoft Teams Rooms powered by HP.

Logitech + HP.png
Logitech now offers Microsoft Teams Rooms powered by HP.

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Skype for Business Online connector consolidating to Teams module

Microsoft are simplifying the Teams administration experience with a single PowerShell module that includes complete management capabilities for Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business Online, by introducing full functionality of Skype for Business Online Connector into the Teams Module.

This means that Skype for Business Online Connector in the Skype for Business Online PowerShell, which has been a separate product that contains many cmdlets needed to manage Microsoft Teams, now has been consolidated into a single PowerShell module.

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Teams App Submission API

Microsoft have announced that the Teams App Submission API is now generally available. This new Graph API allows all users at any organization to develop on the platform of their choice and submit their apps into Teams with zero friction.

App Submission API.jpg
Teams App Submission API is now generally available.

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Teams (Education)

Roster updates from School Data Sync automatically update the Class Notebook roster

Now, School Data Sync (SDS) updates automatically flow to the OneNote Class Notebook! Previously when SDS made roster updates, they would not happen until the educator went and clicked on the “Class Notebook” tab in the Class Team.

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Set channel specific collaboration and content spaces

Available now, educators can set Channels in class teams to create sections in Collaboration Space or Content Library, which is especially helpful for educators who like to use channels as separate units. While in a class team, go to the Class Notebook and click “Manage Notebook” to choose which channel a new Section will go.

This allows the educator to create a “read-only” Content Library or student editable “Collaboration Space” specific to each unit and channel.

Manage Notebooks - set Channel Default.png
Now an educator has the option to set Channels to create sections in Collaboration Space or Content Library.

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Reduce clicks to get the “Teacher Only” area

Now in the OneNote Class Notebook or the Staff Notebook, the “Teacher Only” section group will be enabled by default. This saves some extra clicks for this more private view.

Find out more:

Detect and delete inappropriate messages

IT admins can leverage communication compliance policies and AI models to automatically detect inappropriate content, then review and choose to delete.

Messaging containing offensive or harassing language and adult, racy, or gory images can be automatically flagged then removed from the Teams chat or channel by the IT Admin. This is not supported in private channels or in communications sent by guest users.

Detect inappropriate messages.png
Automatically detect inappropriate messages and choose which ones to remove.

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Build an interactive classroom with education apps

There are several third party apps that can be used within Teams to assist in finding ways to keep students engaged and learning throughout the day. All the available apps for engagement, communication, content creation and content & curriculum can be found below.

Prezi Video is an example of one of many apps available for Teams to quickly create engaging live or recorded class presentations.

Find out more:

Teams (Government)

New lobby setting: only the organizer joins the meeting directly for GCC

A new lobby setting is coming to Teams Meeting Options. We are adding “Only me” as an option to the “Who can bypass lobby?” setting. Once enabled, only the organizer will be able to join the meeting directly. Everyone else, including people from within the same organization, will be sent to the lobby.

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New experience for launching instant channel meetings for GCC

Meet Now buttons in Teams channels will have a new home. You will soon find them in the Channel header where you can easily find and launch the meeting.

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Improved Teams meeting join launcher experience for GCC

When you click on a Teams meeting join link, you will now see an optimized and improved join experience. You will be prompted with an option to join on the web, download the Teams client, or join with the native Teams client. This will result in faster and more confident meeting join.

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New policy to prevent upload of profile picture for GCC, GCC High, and DoD

Teams desktop and web experiences will honor the Outlook on the Web mailbox policy setting that can control whether users are able change their profile pictures. This applies to GCC, GCC High, and DoD tenants.

Find out more:

Power Apps

Troubleshoot Forms in a Model Driven App

You can now get information about issues you encounter when working with related tables, entities, controls and components on a form by accessing the Monitoring Tool inside your model driven Power App.

The tool can help identify if the issue you are seeing is designed out of box or is due to a customization in the application and provide details that can help you understand why there are issues. To launch the tool just log into your Dynamics or Model Driven app and add &monitor=true to the end of your URL. This will add an icon onto the app header toolbar. Click on the icon that looks like the one in the circle below.

Troubleshoot Forms in a Model Driven App.

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Improvements to Cascading Merge Transactions

After making improvements to the cascade assign and delete options last year to reduce timeouts, the Power Apps team are making similar improvements to merge operations.

Just as with assign and delete, merges will happen in the background. When a merge operation is run, if you are on build 9.1.0000.20463 or greater, instead of waiting on the submit screen until the job is completed which can take several minutes, you will instead be informed this will be handled in the background.

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Power Apps checker now analyzes modern web syntax (up to ES9)

To ensure Power Apps checker continues to broaden analysis coverage as languages evolve, we recently migrated our web language rules to an ESLint plugin and now offer support for ECMAScript 2018 (ES9) syntax plus ES6 globals.

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Power Platform Build Tools now generally available

Now generally available, Power Platform Build Tools allows anyone to setup DevOps for low-code and pro-code application development for Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Virtual Agents and other components supported by CDS solutions.

The GA release also introduces support for Multi Factor Authentication with the introduction of Service Principal Authentication.

Microsoft Power Platform Build Tools.

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Power BI

On-premises data gateway August 2020 update is now available

The August update for the On-premises data gateway (version 3000.54.8 ) includes an updated version of the Mashup Engine, which will match the Power BI Desktop August update.

This will ensure that the reports that you publish to the Power BI Service and refresh via the Gateway will go through the same query execution logic/run-time as in the latest Power BI Desktop version.

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AutoML now supports applying models in PQO Function Browser

Analysts can now apply any Power BI AutoML model to entities in any dataflow in the same workspace using PQO function browser. With this new capability, users don’t need to be an owner of the dataflow that has the model.  They can use models created by others in the same workspace.

AutoML now supports applying models in PQO Function Browser.

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Power BI updates for Microsoft Information Protection sensitivity labels

Power BI have announced several additional sensitivity label features now in production:

  • Excel file to inherit the Power BI dataset’s sensitivity label when using a PivotTable connection
  • Sensitivity labels in embedded reports and dashboards – public preview
  • Label inheritance upon creation of new content
Excel files to inherit the Power BI dataset’s sensitivity label when using a PivotTable connection.

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Header/ navigation improvements in the Power BI Mobile apps

The Power BI team have announced improvements to the navigation in the Power BI mobile apps to make it easier for our users to understand their content hierarchy and to navigate between items quickly, aswell as making it easier to share relevant content with colleagues.

Improvements to the header in Power BI mobile apps.

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Block classic workspace creation

The Power BI team have added a new tenant setting for Power BI admins to choose if users can create classic workspaces. This helps organizations control workspace creation more effectively and prevent unwanted workspaces from appearing in Power BI when Office 365 groups are created.

Screenshot of a Power BI Admin portal tenant setting allowing organizations to block the creation of classic workspaces.
Allow Power BI Admins to block classic workspace creation.

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Multiple data lakes support inside Dataflows in Power BI

The Power BI team have announced improvements to Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 (ADLS Gen2) support inside Dataflows in Power BI.  This includes support for workspace admins to bring their own ADLS Gen2 account, improvements to the Dataflows connector in Power BI, take ownership support for dataflows using ADLS Gen2 and also minor improvements to detaching from ADLS Gen2.

Multiple data lakes support inside Dataflows in Power BI.

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Power Virtual Agents

Share and collaborate on your bot with subject matter experts

Power Virtual Agents now allows you to share your bot with your teammates, allowing multiple contributors to edit and manage your bot.  Subject matter experts in a team can collaborate together on a bot.  For example, a customer support bot can now have different subject matter experts working on refund related topics vs. topics related to membership.

Share and collaborate on your bot with subject matter experts.

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Power Automate

Run a flow when a SharePoint column is modified

One of the most common requests for Power Automate is to enable a way to trigger a flow when a column is modified in SharePoint. That wish has now been answered as the Power Automate team have announced the new “When an item or file is modified” trigger.

The “When an item or file is modified” trigger that lets you filter to just the list or file modifications, making it much simpler to create a flow that’s tuned to the right events.

The new “When an item or file is modified” trigger in Power Automate.

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Delay, Command-Line Arguments, and Copy-Paste Features for UI Flows

Microsoft have announced the availability of Delay, Command-line argument, and Copy-paste features in Power Automate UI flows.

  • Delay: The Delay action can be added as an explicit action anywhere in UI flow. 
  • Command-line arguments: The Command-line argument feature is available in the launch action’s advanced options. 
  • Copy and paste: You can copy any action or scope and then add it from My clipboard
Selecting the Delay action in UI flows
Delay action in UI Flows.

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Trigger flows from any message in Microsoft Teams

The Power Automate team have announced the new “for a selected message” trigger enables any Teams user to create a custom message action to start a flow from any message in Teams.

Trigger flows from any message in Teams.

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Seven New Connectors Released in July 2020

July 2020 saw seven new connectors added to the Power Automate platform, with now more than 20 new connectors added to the ecosystem in the last three months!

July saw the addition of IN-D KYC India, CPQSync, Motimate, SMSAPI, Pure Leads, AXtension Content Gate and SMSLink.

Find out more:

Related

Several improvements to Edge

Microsoft have announced several improvements to the Edge browser last month, including:

  • Collections now allows you to export to OneNote
  • Picture Dictionary to Immersive Reader
  • 5 different highlighter colors, support for screen readers, and the ability to view and validate digital signatures to the built-in PDF reader
An animated image of improved readability in Microsoft Teams.
Collections now allows you to export to OneNote.

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Provision users to Azure AD from SAP SuccessFactors

With the integration between Azure AD and SAP SuccessFactors, you can now automate user access to applications and resources so that a new hire can be up and running with full access to the necessary applications on day one. The integration also helps you reduce dependencies on IT helpdesk for onboarding and offboarding tasks.

SAP1.png
Manage and secure all your SAP apps from Azure AD.

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Streamlined process for FastTrack for Microsoft 365

Microsoft have streamlined the process for requesting assistance from FastTrack for Microsoft 365. FastTrack is a benefit that comes with your Microsoft 365 subscription, at no additional cost, for customers with eligible plans of 150+ licenses.

An animated image of FastTrack as part of a Microsoft 365 subscription.
Streamlined process for FastTrack for Microsoft 365.

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How to open SharePoint pages in maintenance mode

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This post demonstrates how to access the web part maintenance page for a classic and modern SharePoint site to delete any problem web parts.

Classic SharePoint

Recently I came across an issue with a SharePoint 2010 publishing site. The site had a page on it that was being edited and after a series of web parts were added, crashed and would no longer load. An additional issue here was that there wasn’t another, recent version of the page to restore to.

So, in the steps below detail how I was able to access the page using web part maintenance mode and delete the problem web part:

  • Navigate to the problem page’s URL
  • At the end of the URL add ?contents=1
  • This will then open the problem page up in web part maintenance mode. From here you are able to close, restore defaults or delete web parts from your page

NOTE: make sure you page is checked out before trying this else you won’t be able to make any changes.

  • Select the web part(s) which you think are causing the issue
  • Now select to either close, reset or delete the web part. I chose delete
  • A warning message will appear > press OK

Modern SharePoint

When writing this post I wondered if this method of accessing web part maintenance mode still worked for modern SharePoint – the answer was no! When you try to open a modern page using ?contents=1 you get this:

Opening modern SharePoint pages in classic maintenance mode won’t work.

However, after reading this handy article from Microsoft about maintenance for client-side web parts in SharePoint Online I just switched my query to ?maintenancemode=true and it worked!

Modern web parts have there own query to append to the page URL to access maintenance mode.

Different to the classic example, modern web parts when in maintenance mode show summary, manifest and data tabs with information about each web part.

If you wish to delete a web part from this view you will need to edit the page and delete it from there, then republish like in the example below:

Deleting web parts in maintenance mode within a modern SharePoint page.

SharePoint URL’s

There are loads of URL’s that either I can never remember or haven’t come across that are listed here. However I wanted to keep a list of them on my site just for reference:

DestinationURL
Site Settings/_layouts/settings.aspx
Site Contents/_layouts/viewlsts.apx
Save Site as a Template/_layouts/savetmpl.aspx
View All People/_layouts/people.aspx?MembershipGroupId=0
View People and Groups/_layouts/groups.aspx
Workflows/_layouts/wrkmng.aspx
Workflow Health/_layouts/15/workflowservicehealth.aspx
Workflow History (Hidden)/lists/Workflow%20History
Create New Site items/_layouts/create.aspx
Manage Site Collection Admin Permissions/_layouts/mngsiteadmin.aspx
View Sites and Workspaces/_layouts/mngsubwebs.aspx
Manage User Permissions/_layouts/user.aspx
Recycle Bin/_layouts/RecycleBin.aspx
Second-Stage Recycle Bin (w/ Admin Permissions)/_layouts/AdminRecycleBin.aspx
Manage Site Content and Structure/_layouts/sitemanager.aspx
Manage Site Content Types/_layouts/mngctype.aspx
Manage Site Columns/_layouts/mngfield.aspx
Quick Launch Settings/_layouts/quiklnch.aspx
Navigation Settings/_layouts/AreaNavigationSettings.aspx
Web Analytics Reports (Site Usage Summary)/_layouts/usage.aspx
Manage Site Collection Features/_layouts/ManageFeatures.aspx?Scope=Site
Manage Site Features/_layouts/ManageFeatures.aspx
Application page for registering SP Apps/_layouts/appregnew.aspx
Sign in as a different user/_layouts/closeConnection.aspx?loginasanotheruser=true
Enable SharePoint Designer/_layouts/SharePointDesignerSettings.aspx
Welcome Page/_layouts/AreaWelcomePage.aspx
Change Site Master Page/_layouts/ChangeSiteMasterPage.aspx
Page Layouts and Site Templates/_Layouts/AreaTemplateSettings.aspx
Force Display the User Profile in the Site Collection/_layouts/userdisp.aspx?id={UserID}&Force=True
Site App Permissions/_layouts/15/appprincipals.aspx?Scope=Web
List Template Gallery/_catalogs/lt
Master Page Gallery/_catalogs/masterpage
Solution Gallery/_catalogs/solutions/
Web Part Gallery/_catalogs/wp
Get SharePoint Server Version/_vti_pvt/Service.cnf
Taxonomy List (Hidden)Lists/TaxonomyHiddenList/AllItems.aspx
Quick Deploy ItemsQuick%20Deploy%20Items/AllItems.aspx
Web Part Maintenance Page?Contents=1
Filter Toolbar (For Lists and Libraries)?Filter=1
Load Ribbon Tab (In a Document Library or List)?InitialTabId=Ribbon.Document
Show Page in a Dialog?isdlg=1
Display List in Grid View (In Document Library or List)?ShowInGrid=True
Open Page in Edit Mode?ToolPaneView=2

Walkthrough: Migration Manager

Anthony1 Comment

In this post we will take a detailed look at the Migration Manager, it’s capabilities, limitations and how to create pre-scan and migration tasks for the first time.

Contents

Overview

So the good news is, if you have a Microsoft 365 subscription then you also have the Migration Manager too! The Migration Manager went into general availability in June 2020 for all customers as part of the SharePoint Online offering.

The Migration Manager is a part of the SharePoint admin center and is really simple and easy to get set up and begin using. Microsoft have this handy image to demonstrate how easy the process is:

Set up migration agents
Credit: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/sharepointmigration/mm-get-started

Current limitations

Currently, the Migration Manager only supports file share migrations, this means that if you are planning to migrate any other content you hold, for example: on-premise SharePoint content or cloud based content you would need to use a separate tool.

Microsoft also offer several other tools that can facilitate the migration of that content too. Microsoft provide a table which recommends which tool to use here, but I’ve whittled them down to the main options below:

  • Migration Manager: used for network and local file share migrations, easy to set up via the SharePoint admin center
  • SharePoint Migration Tool: used for SharePoint Server 2010, 2013 & 2016 (Public Preview), network & local file shares, requires some prerequisites configuring before installation
  • Mover: Service for cloud to cloud migration (Dropbox, Google Drive etc.), easy to set up via web platform

Another limitation of the Migration Manager is that it currently does not support third party multi-factor authentication.

Setup considerations

So as the above breakdown of each Microsoft migration tool suggests, the Migration Manager is easy to get going. The key consideration when using this tool to migrate file share content is around the volume of data you are migrating.

If you are using the Microsoft FastTrack service, they will recommend that you set up a number of migration machines relative to the total number of files you are migrating.

The recommendation they offer for scoping this is below:

Total file countMigration machines required
Less than 200,0002
Between 200,000 and 500,0003
Between 500,000 and 1,000,0006
More than 1,000,000To be discussed with FastTrack

Once you decide how many migration machines will be required, you will then need to setup the migration agents on each machine, check the prerequisites and required endpoints have been reviewed and met, and also have the relevant accounts being used as part of the migration process given access to the file share content and SharePoint admin roles.

File and folder permissions

When prepping for your file share migration, another consideration will be the permissions of a file once it is migrated. For most organisations it comes down to the following scenarios:

1. We want all file/ folder permissions preserved when they migrate to SharePoint Online

2. We only want specific file/ folder permissions mapped into SharePoint Online

3. We don’t want any of the permissions migrating, we want to start again!

Yes, I know the third option is highly unlikely, but I’ll include it anyway. When using the Migration Manager, the syncronization between your Active Directory on-premise and Azure Active Directory is key to how permissions migrate across.

It is important to note that if your organisation uses security groups in Active Directory to manage permissions for their file shares, they must be syncronized with Azure Active Directory in order for the user permissions to map across like-for-like.

If not, then you will be required to create a user mapping file to map user permissions for the relevant files or folders.

The Migration Manager also takes into account the same permissions conditions and results as the SharePoint Migration Tool. This table lists all the conditions and the corresponding results.

Demo: create a scan only task

Before you run any sort of migration task you will first want to get a handle on the current situation of your file share content, what areas will migrate easily and which will require remediation.

Both the scan and migration actions sit within Tasks in the Migration Manager and the initial setup for both actions is the same:

  • Press add task > under Method select the default single source and destination (unless you wish to scan multiple sources)
  • Under Source, enter the file share path that you wish to scan using the correct format
  • Under Destination, leave the SharePoint site URL and location as the default as we are only performing a scan
  • Under Settings, give your task a name > under common settings ensure perform scan only is checked
  • Press Run Now

Demo: create a migration task

So once you have ran a pre-scan of your file share source and you are happy with the results, it is now time to create a migration task! This again is very similar to how we approached creating the pre-scan task but here are the steps:

  • Press add task > under Method select the default single source and destination (unless you wish to scan multiple sources)
    • If you wish to do a bulk upload, you will need to provide a CSV or JSON file which is well documented here
  • Under Source > enter the file share path that you wish to migrate using the correct format
  • Under Destination > enter the URL of the SharePoint site, then select the library you wish to migrate to
  • Under Settings > enter a name for you task and configure your migration task based on the following check boxes:
    • Preserve file share permissions
    • Migrate hidden files
    • Migrate files created/modified after specified date
    • Do not migrate files with specific extensions
    • Migrate files and folders with invalid characters
    • Migrate OneNote folder as OneNote notebook
    • Azure Active Directory lookup
    • User mapping file
    • Automatically rerun failed tasks up to 4 times
  • Press Run Now

Reports analysis

Whether you have performed a pre-scan or migration in Migration Manager, each task once complete will provide a “task report” zip folder that is available to download. Microsoft break the reports down into Summary, Task level and Performance reports, but in fact all reports are included as part of the task report download.

The Microsoft breakdown of each report is very thorough, so I won’t bother adding any more detail, however I will highlight the reports that I found useful when using the Migration Manager:

  • Summary Report: contains a single row of data that gives the total picture; including total size, number of files migrated, duration
  • Item Failure Report: contains any errors found resulting in a file being unable or failing to migrate
  • Item Report R1: detailed report with data on each file within a task. If large number of files migrated, split into separate, sequential reports (R1, R2, R3 etc.)

An interesting aside I did notice was on the task details pane for a pre-scan I ran it showed under files scanned with issues as 0, but within the task report ZIP there was, in fact several files and folders listed as having failed due to a variety of reasons. So I’m not really sure how accurate the files scanned with issues is, or what it actually defines as issues.

Troubleshooting

Microsoft documentation includes a page on troubleshooting Migration Manager issues and errors here, but typically during a recent migration I experiencing issues that weren’t including in the above.

Error: the source file share does not exist (but it does)

This error I received recently during a home drive – OneDrive migration I was conducting. I was using windows virtual machines with the migration agents installed previously and had logged into the machine and SharePoint admin center as accounts with the relevant permissions and roles as described here by Microsoft.

When I set up my migration tasks as demo’ed above they were instantly failing. The only errors I would receive were these:

Microsoft have this listed as an agent error message – which was the clue, but their action was to:

Make sure the source file share is an existing network file share. Confirm that the Windows account associated with the agent has read permissions to the file share you want to migrate.

Troubleshoot Migration Manager issues and errors

What I found was in my case, even if the migration agents were showing as enabled, because I had originally installed and configured the agents some time ago (1-2 months prior), they need to be repaired and re-authenticated:

  • Download the migration agent setup file
    • Microsoft documentation hasn’t yet been updated, but to get to the agent download you need to open Migration Manager > Press Agents > + Add
  • Run the agent setup file
  • Press continue to reinstall the agent
  • The installer will then begin the installation prerequisites
  • Enter account credentials for the SharePoint Admin, then Windows account
  • The installer will authenticate, then prompt you to test permissions with a file share, press OK to close

Now, when I re-ran my migration task with my agents repaired and re-authenticated, the tasks completed successfully.

Provisioning the M365 learning pathways solution

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This post details my experience of trying to provision the 365 learning pathways solution from the SharePoint look book and what I found that differs from the documentation.

Contents

Overview

The first thing to say about this is it’s quite literally a click of a button to actually provision the M365 learning pathways solution from the SharePoint look book, but please make sure you do read the prerequisites as that may well catch you out.

My one big takeaway from writing this post is that the initializing of the CustomConfig list is a crucial step.

Official Microsoft resources

Tenant admin or global admin?

The prereq’s makes mention of being a tenant administrator, the account I used was an O365 global administrator. A quick google search here shows that a tenant administrator is now the global admin role.

Google search of an O365 tenant administrator.

You can also use these steps in the troubleshooting guide to check if you have the relevant permissions.

Create an app catalog site

The solution requires an app catalog site to be created in order to work, to do this you’ll need to navigate back to the old SharePoint admin center, or the classic site collection page to be more in-line with the official verbiage!

To get there, press More features > under Apps, Open.

How to access the classic site collection pages from the modern SharePoint admin center.

From here it’s easy to create a new app catalog site, I’ve documented this before as part of the SharePoint start kit deployment, but to summarize:

  • Select app catalog
  • Press OK to create a new app catalog site
Select app catalog from the apps menu option
  • Enter the following details
    • Title: app catalog
    • Web Site Address suffix: enter your preferred suffix for the app catalog; for example: apps
    • Administrator: enter your username, and then select the resolve button to resolve the username
  • Press OK

Check global admin is app catalog site collection admin

You also need to make sure the provisioning account is also a site collection administrator for the app catalog site. To do this just select your app catalog site, press Owners > Manage Administrators and make sure its the either listed in the primary or one of the other site collection administrators.

Manage the administrators of the app catalog site in classic SharePoint admin.

Initialize the CustomConfig List & assign owners

Once the learning pathways site has been provisioned, the account used will receive an email to confirm. In the email there will be a link to the custom config list that needs to be run to set up the site for first use.

Once you load the CustomLearningAdmin.aspx page this page will be displayed.

If you don’t receive an email from the PnP provisioning service, then just navigate to your learning pathways site, then just add /SitePages/CustomLearningAdmin.aspx to the end of the url:

<YOUR-SITE-COLLECTION-URL>sites/<YOUR-SITE-NAME>/SitePages/CustomLearningAdmin.aspx

Next, you will need to add owners to the learning pathways site. Owners will have admin privileges on the site, but also be able to hide and show content delivered through the learning pathways web part. In addition, they’ll have the ability to build custom playlist and assign them to custom subcategories.

  • From the SharePoint Settings menu, click Site Permissions.
  • Click Advanced Permission Settings.
  • Click Microsoft 365 learning pathways Owners.
  • Click New > Add Users to this group, and then add the people you want to be Owners.
  • Add a link to Explore the Site in the Share message, and then click Share.

Issues & troubleshooting the learning pathways solution

1. Configuration issues within learning pathways site

Once the learning pathways solution had provisioned and I received a success message, I went in and started poking around in the site to see if content loaded etc.

Once I then started shared the site with a few colleagues I got feedback that they were seeing this message within each page:

“Microsoft 365 learning pathways has a configuration issue. Please see the browser console for detailed logs. For assistance check out the issues list at https://github.com/pnp/custom-learning-office-365/issues.”

What I found was if you don’t click the link to initialize the CustomConfig List, all of the learning pathways content that’s delivered from the web part won’t work. I also then tried to go back and open the link to see if the problem would correct itself. It didn’t and the CustomLearningAdmin.aspx page just hung and wouldn’t respond.

What worked for me in the end was to permanently delete the learning pathways site, delete the learning pathways solution from the app catalog site, wait 24 hours then provision again (this was I could use the same URL).

Naturally this time around I initialized the CustomConfig List from the URL before sharing it!

2. Delete sites from recycle bin in order to provision again

So stemming from issue number 1 above, I also noticed that unless you permanently delete your learning pathways site, you cannot create one with the same name. You will get a message similar to the below:

“Unfortunately your site provisioning at least partially failed!”

To permanently delete a site, all you need to do is delete it from Active sites (if not connected to an O365 group), then under Delete sites select the site and press Permanently delete.

How to permanently delete sites in modern SharePoint.

3. Multi factor authentication enabled for the provisioning account

I had an issue where I kept receiving a generic message from the provisioning service page saying:

“Unfortunately your site provisioning at least partially failed!”

The global admin account I used to run the provisioning service had multi factor authentication enabled, more specifically using the authentication app. What I found was when I changed by 2-step verification from using the authentication app to text, the provisioning service completed successfully.

4. app catalog site takes longer than 30 minutes to allow provisioning to complete

If you don’t already have an app catalog created, you will receive an error from the provisioning service similar to this:

“In order to provision the template you need to have an App Catalog in your tenant. Please, create one (for instructions you can read this document: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=2087251), wait up to 30 minutes, and try again.“

When you then create an app catalog site, I found it took well over 2 hours before the provisioning service recognized as such.

How to create a custom ID for lists and libraries

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In this example I demonstrate how to create a simple solution that allows users to submit a request to a list, then a workflow fires that updates the request ID field with our custom ID number.

Classic SharePoint
Modern SharePoint

ID numbers, reference numbers, ticket numbers…this is something that regularly gets asked to be a part of any SharePoint solution or request based system. My first thought when this is required is “easy, we can just use the SharePoint item ID column and use that”. However, creating a simple calculated column that leverages the in-built ID column is not as easy as it seems.

My first attempt at creating a custom ID column involved creating a new calculated column, and appending some text before the ID and then inserting the ID column into the formula, like this:

="REQ-00"&[ID]

The problem with this approach is that when new items are added, the ID appears to “slip” resulting in the custom ID column having no ID number being pulled from the SharePoint ID.

Custom ID column – modern SharePoint

1. Pre-requisites

Before you begin you will naturally need to create either a list or library in SharePoint, and the relevant apps checked as part of your O365 license.

2. The setup

  • Create a new column, with the type Number – I called this ‘solIncrementNum‘
  • Create a new column, with the type Calculated – I called this ‘solReqNum‘, later renamed ‘Request Number’
    • In the formula field, add the following: ="SOL-00"&[SolIncrementNum]
    • For the Data Type, select Single line of text
Setting the formula for the solReqNum column in list settings

NOTE: for the Request Number formula if you want to prefix your custom ID with something else just replace what’s between the ” “ in the formula field above.

3. Build the Flow

Flow action: when a new item is created

  • Create a new flow from the template “when a new item is created, complete a custom action”
  • Give your Flow a name, I called mine “Populate Solution Request Number”
  • In the “when a new item is added” step, make sure the site address and list name are the same as the list you built the custom ID column for earlier
Step 1 of the Populate Solution Request Flow

Flow: update item

  • Press + New step, start typing “update item”, select the update item action from the selection
  • Select the site in question, then copy and paste the List Name from the previous action
  • Make sure this action has the following fields set:
    • Id: ID
    • Title: Title
    • solIncrementNum: ID

NOTE: make sure that when you set these fields, that the values you use are coming from the “when a new item is created” action.

Step 2 of the Populate Solution Request Flow

Now when new items are created within the list or library, the flow will fire and create a new request number.

Modern SharePoint list with Flow that populates Request Number
Pages: 1 2

Finding the task properties pane in SharePoint 2013 workflows

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(this post was written using a SharePoint online environment and SharePoint Designer 2013)

So here’s the scenario, there is a central list where users add items and once submitted a workflow runs that assigns tasks to separate task lists. No big deal right?

The scenario

Task actions in SharePoint 2013 workflows are a pretty standard thing, the example above just assigns tasks to different lists (think HR, IT, Pensions) for work to be completed. The additional requirement I had was for these tasks to not send any system generated assignment emails when the tasks are assigned.

Example of creating & assigning a task in a SharePoint 2013 workflow.

The problem

This one really had me pulling my hair, but in a nutshell there is no obvious way to turn on/ off the emails that are system generated at the point which a task is assigned.

When you double-click on a task, an “Assign a Task” window opens. Within this window there is an “Email options” drop down, but this only has the email editor for the task creation email and the ability to turn on/ off the task overdue email(s). It doesn’t have any settings for switching on/ off the initial emails themselves.

The Assign a Task window doesn’t contain the properties to switch off system generated emails.

The hidden task properties pane

So at this point I began thinking there is no way to do this and the design for this process is now fundamentally flawed…until I right-clicked!

If you right-click on the list within the assign task action (the ICT Task List Members bit underlined in the example below) a menu will appear. Normally this menu contains some simple options like moving an action up or down. However, with task actions there is an additional option called “properties”.

Hidden properties button within the “assign a task” action.

After clicking on the “Properties” button, you’ll find an additional “Assign a Task Properties” window which contains the following, hidden properties:

Hidden assign a task properties window.
  • PreserveIncompleteTasks: set to true if you want non-completed tasks to be deleted when the task process is complete.
  • WaiveAssignmentEmail: set to false if you want to have an email sent out to the assignee when a task is created
  • WaiveCancelationEmail: set to false if you want to have an email sent out to the assignee when a task is canceled.

By default, all of these properties that are set to “no” or “false”, so will send emails based on the above parameters. To change, just click on the drop down next to each option and update to “yes” or “true” and the emails will stop sending!

Tales of a SharePoint migration – part one

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The path to a trial migration

I’ve been suitably inspired by Andrew Warland’s fantastic two-part series documenting his approach and migration to SharePoint Online, so much so that I thought it would be a fun series to write about my own experiences.

Take a look at Andrew’s blog series here.

It is’nt my intention to necessarily document Microsoft best practice in this series, rather just to explore some of the challenges, sucesses and experiences I notice along the way.

The current situation

My organisation has recently made the decision to move to to the cloud, with O365 being the naturally preferred destination. SharePoint has been well embedded, and heavily used within the business for several years, with on-premises SharePoint 2010 currently in production.

Finally, in terms of the SharePoint architecture and data volume, there are only three web applications to merge together as part of the migration effort. However, there are several site collections within our main intranet web app, plus many sub-sites nested within them, meaning the huge database sizes behind these site collections could prove difficult come migration time.

A note on the new, flat structure

Our current environment has a well established top-down structure in place that is generally consitent across the environment.

Having already made the investment in ShareGate, this will be the tool of choice for the migration. In the version 11.0 release of ShareGate, a new restructure option now allows you to promote sub-sites to top-level sites post inital migration from the source SharePoint environment.

The new restructure option in ShareGate 11.0

Considerations for a successful migration plan

One of the biggest issues to be resolved before we can start any sort of migration activity, is the fact that we have several content databases well over the 200GB recommended general use size limit.

Microsoft best practice suggests that any environment that has site collections, sites, content databases, libraries or lists that exceed the software boundaries and limits should be remediated prior to any migration activity. In this case, the main idea is to split each content database that exceeds 200GB into seperate content db’s, and where neccessary, move or promote sub-sites to site collections and attach new db’s.

Armed with the knowledge of the recent restrcuture functionality coming to ShareGate, plus my own personal feeling that any remediation activities to our current environment may in of itself carry adverse risk to the estate we proposed a different approach.

Trial migration begins

With all the reporting capabilities at our disposal via ShareGate, I was able to get a firm grasp of what resides within each site collection in our environment, in terms of:

  • The size of each sub-site underneath the top-level
  • Number/ size of libraries and lists
  • Number of items in each of the above
  • Any workflows running in any of the above

From this I ran a trial migration of a sub-site from SharePoint 2010 to a newly created team site in SharePoint Online.

Pre-migration

Before I kicked off the migration, I ran the source analysis tool within the Migration > Plan section of ShareGate. I noted the following obersavations:

  • The source analysis within “migration” in the ShareGate tool, although listed as only being able to analyze up to SharePoint 2013, does in-fact work for 2010
ShareGate source analysis
  • The source analysis cannot run at the sub-site level, meaning that you need to run it at the site collection level then just filter down to the sub-site in question through the report itself
  • Source analysis gives you a report of all checked-out files within a source site.From this, I created a simple view within each of the libraries that contained checked-out files to send to the site owners for action

Post-trial migration

The trial migration completed successfully as expected, however there were several interesting results I noted:

1. Everyone receieves a welcome email

If you migrate the permissions, once the source permission groups migrate each user will recieve a welcome email to the new SharePoint Online site.

There’s no GUI control for this as of this time of writing, but you can switch off the email notifications via PowerShell.

2. /Pages/ or /SitePages/…that is the question

Publishing sites seem to be the trickiest to migrate, especially those with custom master pages or page layouts. When migrating publishing sites, the Pages library is migrated wholesail, meaning the content won’t reside in the SitePages library (where new client-side pages are located).

3. Un-editable modern homepage

After the migration had completed, the new team site homepage threw up an error every time you tried to edit it.

I tried some of the documented resolution steps found here, but none of them worked for me. My solution was to just create a new page to replace the broken homepage, add all the relevant webparts and make this one the new default homepage.

Transforming classic publishing site pages to client-side pages

Publishing site pages will all be migrated as classic SharePoint pages, without the modern look and feel of a client-side page. My understanding is that for publishing pages with custom page layouts, additional metadata or custom content types will need to be transformed via PowerShell and creating a custom mapping file.

(I’m planning on writing a seperate blog post walking through an advanced publishing page transformation in the near future)

Its also worth considering that in the release notes for ShareGate 11.0 it makes mention of the fact they are researching the ability to transform classic to modern pages, so that could well simplify this process in a future release.

Conclusion

Overall, I was happy with our trial migration and believe it is a viable approach for us to move from on-prem to O365. Some lessons learned for myself would be to consider and SharePoint permissions audit prior to migration to remove any unecessary permissions, send an inventory out to site owners aswell as checked-out files, all in the name of reducing the migration effort.

This will be an ongoing series of posts, which i’ll focus more the on the nitty-gritty of the migration effort than anything else, but as always if there is any feedback or suggestions on how to improve this site, please let me know!

Walkthrough: how to deploy spfx sample webparts

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A while ago I did a short series on how to provision and deploy the SharePoint Starter Kit. From this, I thought it would be fun to detail how to take one of the many, great spfx web part samples available in the SharePoint GitHut repository and go through the steps involved to deploy it end to end.

As with my last series on the SharePoint Starter Kit and generally with all my posts my aim is to simplify and detail every step involved to show that you can these things working without huge effort of developer expertise, I am not a developer by any stretch of the imagination so hopefully putting all the pieces together is useful 🙂

spfx client-side web parts

All the samples are available in the sp-dev-fx-webparts repository on GitHub from the link below. For the purpose of this example, I am deploying the Modern Experience Theme Manager web part, as I wanted to test out how easy it makes applying, removing and updating custom themes (it does).

https://github.com/SharePoint/sp-dev-fx-webparts
https://github.com/SharePoint/sp-dev-fx-webparts/tree/master/samples/js-theme-manager

Pre-requisites

All of the pre-requirement steps detailed in part one of my SharePoint Starter Kit series are also required for deploying web parts. Make sure you have followed all the steps here before continuing:

How to provision and deploy the SharePoint Starter Kit: part one

Install GitHub

Before you can begin, it’s much easier to clone a repository from GitHub than downloading and extracting a zip file. I also couldn’t get the web part to open from the localhost workbench when I manually downloaded the code.

You can install github for desktop here: https://desktop.github.com/

NOTE: I originally wrote this walkthrough a while back, when I came to finish it up I tried to update by cloned repo but it just wouldn’t work. I just removed the repo from Github desktop, then deleted all the files from the /sp-dev-fx-webparts/ sub-folder and cloned from scratch and it worked.

Make sure a developer certificate is installed

If you followed my SharePoint Starter Kit series, you can skip this step as you’ll of already done it, but if not run the following to install a dev certificate: gulp trust-dev-cert

Step 1: get the webpart working locally

Clone repository/ run web part on localhost

Now we need clone and build the repository to start using the webpart sample. Clone the repository by following the steps below:

  • Open cmd prompt, then navigate to the samples folder > then the web part samples folder you wish to use for example:
cd \sp-dev-fx-webparts\samples\js-theme-manager
  • Run the following command to install the npm packages to build and run the client-side project
npm install
  • Run the following command to preview your web part in the SharePoint Workbench
gulp serve

Your browser should now open and a localhost version of SharePoint Workbench will allow you to add the web part and access the properties:

(When I first wrote this I was using a different webpart as an example)

NOTE: I tried this using IE at first, it didn’t open at all, so i just switched to using another browser and the workbench loaded just fine.

Test the web part in your tenant workbench

Copy the URL of the localhost workbench, open a new browser window and paste the URL but update it to reflect your sharepoint tenant, for example:

https://sstuff.sharepoint.com/sites/dev/_layouts/15/workbench.aspx

Step 2: package and (soft) deploy!

Package/ deploy the web part to your tenant

Now we have tested our web part is working locally and within the context of our sharepoint tenancy, we can now package our solution and deploy into our SharePoint environment.

  • If gulp serve is still running, press CTRL+C to stop it in cmd prompt
  • In cmd prompt, enter the following command
gulp package-solution
  • This command creates a package in the sharepoint/solution folder called something like “js-theme-manager.sppkg”
  • Navigate to your SharePoint Admin site, open the app catalog site, under apps for sharepoint, drag and drop your sppkg file
Drag and drop the sppkg file straight into apps for SharePoint
  • Press the deploy button on the pop-up window, notice the localhost domain is showing here, we will need to change this once we’ve tested our web part is working
  • Back to the console, run gulp serve to make the local assets available for the web part
  • Navigate to a site where you want to deploy the webpart, press the cog button, add an app
  • Select the webpart you just added (this might take a minute or two to be available)
Add the newly added app to your SharePoint site
  • Add your new webpart to a page!

Enable CDN for your tenant

Now we’ve deployed and tested the webpart in our SharePoint environment, we can update our solution to host the assets directly in our tenancy or a content delivery network .

  • Open PowerShell, connect to your SharePoint Online tenant using the following command:
Connect-SPOService -Url https://contoso-admin.sharepoint.com
  • Get the current status of public CDN settings from the tenant level by executing the following commands one-by-one. 
Get-SPOTenantCdnEnabled -CdnType Public
Get-SPOTenantCdnOrigins -CdnType Public
Get-SPOTenantCdnPolicies -CdnType Public

spfx solutions can automatically benefit from the Office 365 Public CDN as long as it’s enabled in your tenant. When CDN is enabled, */CLIENTSIDEASSETS origin is automatically added as a valid origin.

  • Enable public CDN in the tenant by running the following command: 
Set-SPOTenantCdnEnabled -CdnType Public
  • Confirm settings by selecting Y and then Enter

Step 3: ready for final deployment

Go back to the console, make sure you are still in the relevant web part project directory, end sure gulp serve by pressing CTRL+C.

  • Open explorer, then open the package-solution.json in a code editor, from the config folder and check you see the following: 
"includeClientSideAssets": true,
  • Run the following task to bundle the solution: 
gulp bundle --ship
  • Then, run the following task to package your solution: 
gulp package-solution --ship
  • From the same sharepoint/solution folder, drag & drop the newly updated solution package into the app catalog again. As it already exists, press Replace
  • Check the domain now shows as SharePoint Online, rather than localhost
  • Make sure your updated app isn’t checked out, if it is – check it in
  • Navigate back to where you previously deployed the app, add it to a page and test that it works!

Microsoft 365 update for April 2019

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Another bumper post for April, in this months update:

Let’s get started!

SharePoint updates

Files restore for SharePoint and Microsoft Teams

Files restore offers a self-service recover solutionthat allows administrators and site owners to restore files from any point in time during the last 30 days. Look for a new “Restore this library” option within the library settings panel.

Files restore example for SharePoint document libraries
Find out more:

Modern Document Sets

Long awaited modern document sets will update the user interface to bring them inline with modern sharepoint. Document sets allow you to group related documents together using shared metadata. Modern document sets also unlock the same intuitive user actions like drag and drop content, link to content that lives outside the document set, pin files and much, much more.

Modern Document Sets in SharePoint
Find out more:

News Audience Targeting

Audience targeting is a new feature within the news and highlighted content web parts that enables authors and site owners to tag news articles with Azure Active Directory groups to filter content through web parts to people within those groups.

Find out more:

Author reply emails for comments, replies and likes

Now when someone comments on your page or news post, SharePoint notifies you via email. Multiple comments will be batched so that you receive a single email. This feature will start rollout to targeted release in April, with worldwide rollout currently scheduled to be completed in mid-June 2019.

Find out more:

Connected web parts for SharePoint

Coming soon are three new connected web parts for SharePoint Online that allow you to display data from list and library web parts. With the List Properties, File Viewer and Embed web parts you can now connect to a data source and interact with lists and libraries in new ways.

Find out more:

Multi-Geo in SharePoint Online and Office 365 Groups

SharePoint Online and Office 365 Groups now joins Exchange Online and OneDrive in having the ability to enable where SharePoint sites and their content is stored.

Multi-Geo in SharePoint and Office 365 Groups enables global businesses to control the country or region where shared resources like SharePoint Team Sites, Office 365 Groups content (associated SharePoint Sites and Groups mailboxes) are stored at-rest.

Introducing Office 365 Multi-Geo
Find out more:

Autodesk AutoCAD integration for SharePoint and OneDrive

New integrations with Autodesk connect OneDrive and SharePoint to the drafting tools available through AutoCAD. As you work with DWG files across these applications, you can open and edit them in the AutoCAD desktop application, the AutoCAD mobile app, and the new AutoCAD web app.

Find out more:

You can now use larger, more flexible image types to upload your company logo in the Office 365 navigation bar. You will be able to upload a custom logo of any file size/ format via a URL in order to improve the clarity of the logo image that your users see.

Find out more:

Office 365 Group card enhancements

Improvements to the Office 365 group “hover cards” so that you can act on the group within the context of what you’re doing, rather than going to a separate page. You can search through all group members, renew the group per any set expiry, and approve pending members.

Office 365 Group card enhancements
Find out more:

Microsoft Teams updates

Praise badges

Praise in Microsoft Teams is the new way to show your appreciation and encourage each other at work. Send in a 1:1 chat or post it to a channel for the entire team.

Find out more:

Teams PowerShell module GA

The Teams PowerShell module is now generally available. This PowerShell module allows you to manage the lifecycle of teams within your organisation.

Find out more:

Request to add on behalf of

You can now request on behalf of someone else to join a private team. Teams can be created as either private, where admins control membership, or public, where anyone in the organization is welcome to join.

Increased member limits

Organisation wide teams now have higher size limits, so they can have up to 5000 members in a team. Global administrators can easily create a public team that pulls in every user in the organisation and keeps the membership up to date with Active Directory as users join and leave.

Org-wide teams now have higher size limits

Show/ hide teams

It’s now much easier to keep your teams list tidy. What used to be Favorite and Remove from favorites is now Show and Hide. Choose which teams and channels you want to show in your teams list and hide the rest. You’ll still get notified when @mentioned, they just won’t clutter your teams list.

Hiding a team from a list view
Find out more:

OneDrive updates

Golden folder icon design

OneDrive is introducing golden folders with subtle, yet noticeable clues emblazoned on the icon to remind you of the contents and sharing status of each folder. Golden folders are being rolled out across mobile and web in OneDrive, SharePoint and connected experiences in other apps.

Golden folders in OneDrive and the OneDrive mobile app
Find out more:

OneDrive sync client improvements

The OneDrive sync client lets you can access and share all your files directly from your desktop in Windows File Explore or macOS Finder. Some new updates for the sync client include:

  • Self-help option: “Illegal files names not syncing” 
    A new in-app resolution to sync errors – like when using an Asterix “*” symbol or any file name starting with “~$” – to help avert and solve naming blockers, to then rename the file and continue with upload
  • Request assistance
    Look for a new “Get Help” option in the OneDrive activity center on your desktop. This enables people to initiate a support ticket.
  • Prompt for pending uploads
    And one last “wait, before you go” feature… the OneDrive sync client will also notify users when they have pending uploads when the computer is shutting down or going into standby
Find out more:

Block download option for specific people sharing link

You are now able to use the “Block download” functionality that allows people to block recipients from downloading, copying and pasting shared content when using the “Specific people” style sharing links.

Find out more:

Office client apps – required document properties updates

Users will now be able to save Office files with missing required properties. This change only applies to the Office files synced by the OneDrive sync client. Additionally, users can add, or update required properties for a document by navigating to the file in the SharePoint document library and entering the appropriate value.

Find out more:

Other, related updates

Yammer conversations & highlights web part

The Yammer conversations wep part enables you to integrate topics, groups or users into SharePoint. This combines the social nature of learning across organizations with the content and knowledge management powers of SharePoint.

The Yammer Highlights web part, provides a quick overview of active conversations and a targeted portal to specific groups or conversations in Yammer.

Microsoft Search in Bing Preview includes Yammer conversations ​

Yammer conversations or conversations between co-workers will now start appearing Microsoft Search in Bing. Microsoft Search will only return information and files that you have permission to see.

Find out more:

New icons in Office 365 apps

Microsoft have updated their available icon set, with nearly 350 new icons being added to choose from. You are able to rotate, resize, and recolor the icons without any loss in the quality of the image. You can also separate the icon into its components and use only the pieces you want.

Find out more:

Power BI web by example connector

The Power BI web by example connector allows customers to scrape data from HTML pages. It supports ingesting any data element on the page, beyond just HTML tables. You can now automatically suggest Power BI tables based on HTML element repetition patterns.

Find out more:

Custom assessments in Compliance Manager

Compliance Manager now allows you to create custom risk assessments of any application used in your organization. This customised assessments capability enables IT to import their own security and compliance controls into Compliance Manager, including those for corporate policy, local law, and industrial standards.

Find out more:

Security Policy Advisor

Office Security Policy Advisor is a new intelligent service, now available in preview, that uses behavior-based analysis to help IT admins to quantify the risks and benefits of applying a tailored policy, and monitor policy health over time, for their Office clients.

Admins can now deploy policies with a single click and easily update, or even roll back, policies.

Find out more:

Links and resources

Microsoft 365 blog – New in Microsoft 365 – April 2019
New in Microsoft 365 video – April 2019
SharePoint Roadmap Pitstop – April 2019
What’s new in Teams – April 2019
OneDrive Roadmap Roundup – April 2019