Privacy fix

Web browsing, social media and so is great BUT most people think they doing so anonymously when they are away from those place? Not so. Have a look at:
http://privacyfix.com/
Here you can firstly see how you are ‘worth’ to businesses that track you. For me that means:

but interestingly you’ll see how far site like Facebook follow you around the web, like:

Nothing wrong with tracking per se, PROVIDED you know that it is happening. If you don’t well maybe you should go to http://privacyfix.com and have a look!

Approvals in SharePoint Online

On of the features of SharePoint in general are approvals. This means that document updates can only ‘go live’ once they have been approved. This functionality is not enabled out of the box. So how do you configure this?

In this case I’ll show you how approvals work with a Document Library in SharePoint Online.

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Navigate to the Document Library in question as a SharePoint Administrator and select the LIBRARY tab at the top left of the page.

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This will expose the Ribbon Menu. On the right of this menu select the Library Settings button.

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Under the left hand General Settings column select the link Versioning settings.

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At top of the page, in the Content Approval section select Yes for Require content approval for submitted items.

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After selecting this the section lower down, Draft Item Security will be enabled. It is generally recommended that you leave this at the default of Only users who can approve items (and the author of the item).

Press the OK button at the bottom of the page to continue.

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If you now return to the Document Library you will find that an extra column, Approval Status, has been added.

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If a user now uploads a document to this library they will see that it’s status is Pending. At this point only the user and an administrator can see the document in the library.

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To approve the document, a user with rights needs to select that document and either from the Ribbon Menu or the ellipse as shown above select Approve/Reject.

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They can then make their selection of Approval Status, leave a Comment and press the OK button.

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When users now view the Document Library they will see the document (provided it has been approved) and it was last modified by the person who approved it.

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So who can approve by default? To do so you’ll need to have at least Design rights.

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You can of course create new permission levels and assign them. In which case you will need to check the Approve Items option shown above.

CIAOPS Podcast–Episode 55

The Need to Know podcast is back after finally finding a guest. In this episode you’ll hear from business technology owner Lucas Meadowcroft on the value of networking events. Lucas shares his insights, experiences and some great resources for those looking to grow their business.
You can find the episode at:
http://ciaops.podbean.com/2013/07/23/episode-54-lucas-meadowcroft/
where you can also subscribe to episodes via RSS and iTunes. You will find all previous episodes at:
http://ciaops.podbean.com/
Remember, I’m always looking out for guests to share their experience and knowledge with listeners so if you would like to be on the show or know someone who would make a great guest please do not hesitate to contact me via director@ciaops.com.

Office 365 plan selector flow chart–Version 2

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Well that didn’t take long now did it? Yesterday I announced the release of version 1 and today I’m announcing version 2.

The main change in this version is the incorporation of SharePoint Online storage limits which I find trips up many people. Many seem to believe they can copy their 90GB+ of data up to the cloud and turn off their server. Apart from the bandwidth limitations there are limitations around the maximum amount of space within certain SharePoint Online plans. Hopefully now with those limitations built into the flow chart people will be able to make better decisions.

The Office 365 plan selection flow chart is a free download and will be updated regularly so make sure you check back to ensure you have the latest update because I have feeling version 3 won’t be far away.

Won’t be long one would think

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Got an interesting question from someone recently that I thought I’d share in a post just to highlight what I don’t believe won’t be far away for Office 365.

If you have an Outlook.com (ex Hotmail) and SkyDrive account you can “attach” (really just share a link) a file from SkyDrive to an email sent from Outlook.com as you can see above.

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Unfortunately, as you can see the above screen shot from Office 365 you don’t have the option to share from SkyDrive Pro say. That said, I don’t believe that option is far away. When you select the attachment option in Office 365 you are taken to your normal Windows Explorer file browser where you locate the file on your desktop. Of course if you are using the SkyDrive Pro client app then you could certainly ‘directly’ attach any file that you have sync’ed to your desktop from SharePoint. You just can’t do it directly within the browser.

That said, the actual ‘attach’ in Outlook.com is really just creating a shared link to the file from SkyDrive. You aren’t really ‘attaching’ to the email you are sending per se. Sending an attachment via Outlook.com means that the file you ‘attach’ is now publically available via the link that is created and will remain that way unless you go back into SkyDrive and remove the permissions. In theory that link could be on sent to others or used directly in a browser to view the file without you knowing.

Even though you surrender control of any file when you attach it and send with an email anyway, it is still important to remember that ‘attaching’ via a browser in Outlook.com is really creating and sending a public link to that document which remains shared by default with everyone. Makes you curious how Office 365 might handle this when implementation time comes?

Office 365 plan selection flow chart–Version 1.0

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After getting some feedback from people I have updated my Office 365 plan select flow chart to release version 1.0. I have made it freely available and plan to update it on a regular basis, however I always appreciate a donation if you find it has value for you. All donations go towards improving and enhancing what is available.

if you spot anything incorrect or that needs modification please let me know via director@ciaops.com or leave a comment on this post.

All CIAOPS Office 365 and SharePoint Guide subscribers will receive a copy of the original Visio file so they can make their own additions and customizations (such as adding plan prices).

Look out for more Office 365 flow charts coming soon.

Office 365 plan selection flow chart–feedback requested

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I am starting to put together some flow charts to help people with the process of selecting the right Office 365 plan. If you have a few minutes I’d really appreciate your feedback on my initial iteration which you can find at:

http://ciaops.squarespace.com/storage/o365-plan-choice.pdf

Initially, I’m keen to make sure the decision process flow is correct (so let me know any mistakes I’ve made) but any feedback around how it looks or what enhancement you’d like to see would also be greatly appreciated. Also, I’d be interested to hear whether people find this of value.

You can leave your comments on this blog post or email me direct via director@ciaops.com.