Free SharePoint Online Email course

I am very happy to announce the availability of my new FREE 23 lesson Getting Started With SharePoint Online training email course that is based on my SharePoint template training publication.

To receive a lesson every day via email visit:

http://www.ciaops.com/templates

and scroll down the page. After all the template details, you will find the option to submit your email address to subscribe to the course.

Once you have submitted your email address you will be sent a confirmation email which you will need click on to confirm you wish to receive the course. Once you have done that you should receive the introductory email giving your details about the course.

From then on you’ll receive an email a day typically containing a video tutorial to watch (only around 7 – 10 minutes on average) as well a set of lesson notes you can download for reference.

By subscribing to this course you will also be subscribed to my upcoming monthly Office 365 and SharePoint newsletter where you’ll get load of information and news about these products.

The content in the email course is exactly the same that is contained in the Getting Started With SharePoint Online Team Site template. Hopefully, once you see the value via email you will purchase the template and install it on your Office 365 tenant so everyone in your business can use it.

The last incentive I have for you to sign up is that when you do you’ll receive a special discount code for a major discount when purchasing the Getting Started With SharePoint Online Team Site template.

Watch out for new SharePoint Online training courses coming soon!

Azure ‘Godzilla’ machines now available

If you need more ‘grunt’ for you virtual machine (maybe to do bitcoin mining) Microsoft has announced the availability of its G series of virtual machine through Azure.

Here are the configurations:

VM Size	Cores	RAM (GB)	Local SSD Storage (GB)	Persistent Data Disks Max
Standard_G1	2	28	412	4
Standard_G2	4	56	824	8
Standard_G3	8	112	1,649	16
Standard_G4	16	224	3,298	32
Standard_G5	32	448	6,596	64

These G series machines are available in the West US region and are not cheap, but then neither is a bitcoin!

Creating sub sites using SharePoint Online

SharePoint sub sites are a great way to segregate both information and security. A sub site is created from a parent site in a tree like structure as required.

Sub sites can use a number of pre-existing templates as a base or even a custom one that you have created. For information on creating a custom template see my previous video on the subject:

A sub site can also have unique permissions if required but by default they will inherit from their parent.

Sub sites in SharePoint are a great way to structure your data and security to needs of your organisation.

Change SharePoint Team Site logo, title and URL

A very common request when it comes to customising SharePoint Team Sites is changing the logo in the top left hand side of the site. This video will show you how to make that change along with changing the site title and URL if needed.

You’ll see how you can use either a logo you upload from your computer, from a location already in SharePoint as well as an image already on the Internet.

Customising a Team Site logo is the first step in branding and an important way for users to become more comfortable using it.

SharePoint Document Library check in tutorial

One of the features of SharePoint Document Libraries is the ability to check a document out. doing so provides you with exclusive write access to the document. Other can still view the document while it is checked out to you but can’t edit it.

You can check the document back in to update the version for everyone. It is also possible for an administrator to override a users check in if required.

All of this this plus more is covered in the video I created. Let me know what other sort of tutorial videos you’d like to see.

SharePoint Online Document Library versioning video

Each SharePoint Online Document Library supports the ability to have versioning enabled. Once enabled this automatically creates a new version of each document in that library every time a document is edited. This is really handy if you potentially need to recover a previous version of the document. Also using the ability to enable minor or draft versions of a document you can also control who can view any drafts.

This video will give you an introduction to versioning in SharePoint Online Document Libraries. You’ll see how to enable it as well as how to configure the different options. You’ll also see how versioning works between two users with different rights to the document.

You can find further information on SharePoint Online versioning here:

How does versioning work in a list or library?

Enable and configure versioning for a list or library

All template lesson suggestions receive a reward

You might be aware that I have created a Getting Started with SharePoint team site template that can be added to any Office 365 tenant that includes SharePoint. It is designed to help new users get up to speed with SharePoint. The template includes 23 lessons with downloadable documentation, training videos and further resources on each topic. There is also a free version that includes the basic content.

I have also now created a dedicated SharePoint templates page on my web site with more information. However, this is where I need your help. I am currently developing the next template which will be aimed at providing tutorials on SharePoint for intermediate users and I’d like to know from people what lessons they’d like to see appear in this intermediate template.

As an incentive to provide me with some feedback I’ll give everyone who sends me an original suggestion for a lesson with a discount code that provides a AU$25 discount off the cost of the Getting Started with SharePoint team site template. Importantly, any submitted suggestion must not already be something I have covered in the original template (so the hint there is to take a look at what the existing template covers before submitting your suggestion).

So, putting your thinking caps on and send me your ideas via email (director@ciaops.com) or via @directorcia on Twitter. I look forward to hearing from you.