Unfortunately, what many people seem to think SharePoint Online is only good for is as a dumping ground for files. I have seem many people who ‘don’t want a local server’ simply copy all their files up to SharePoint and dump them into a single document library, map a drive letter on the desktop and think things will function exactly like they did when they had a server.
This is a really bad idea for many, many reasons but the major reason is that currently SharePoint Online in Office 365 has 5,000 item view limit per library/list as the following knowledge base article outlines:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2759051
This means for lists with greater than 5,000 rendering it into the browser becomes very resource intensive. Lists can certainly be greater than 5,000 items but trying to view lists larger than this in one go causes problems.
That article also includes the following recommendation:
To work around this issue, split the items into multiple lists so that no list exceeds 5,000 items.
So simply mapping a drive to SharePoint Online and copying massive amounts of documents in the same folder structure is not a good idea, especially for large amounts of files.
Prior to uploading data you really should look at breaking the structure up into multiple document libraries. Apart from overcoming the 5,000 view item limit it also allows you to more easily provide different permissions and options on libraries. For example, imagine you created one HUGE document library but wanted to have versioning enabled on only a limited amount of documents? Unfortunately, document versioning in SharePoint applies to complete document libraries.
Unlike email, migrating data to SharePoint Online is never just ‘drag and drop’. Sure, SharePoint can be used to store lots of files in the cloud but remember it is Office 365 not Server 365. There are major differences and these MUST be taken into consideration when migrating data into SharePoint Online.
Just because you can have massive lists doesn’t mean you should!
Tag: Office 365
Seems like migration between Office 365 plans is coming soon!
This blog post by Mary Joe Foley:
http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-simplifies-moving-between-office-365-skus-7000017783/
reports that Microsoft recently announced ‘Office 365 transition SKUs’:
Microsoft partners can now make available to customers Office 365 “transition SKUs” which will enable customers in different Office 365 customer tiers to more seamlessly upgrade to a different set of Office 365 offerings. Before today’s announcement, Office 365 midsize customers couldn’t move to an Office 365 Enterprise plan without having to migrate all their data out and back into a new tenant.
No further details as yet but this is certainly something that will make life a lot easier for customers (and resellers) because in my experience, although most customers want to start out on the cheapest plan as soon as they appreciate the benefits of Office 365 they want to scale up. Allow the option to do so between plans is going to make moving to the cloud a much more flexible option.
Office 365 Speedtest is back
A while back I wrote a post about how you could use the Office 365 Lync IP probe site as a replacement for ‘missing the action’ Microsoft Speedtest.
Now thanks to Office 365 MVP Benoit Hamet it has returned it seems!
Here are the URLs (apparently):
- North America:
- EMEA:
- APAC:
As Benoit notes, not all of the URL’s are functional, however if I go to http://ap1-fasttrack.cloudapp.net for my region I see the following:
(after accepting to use Java as per usual with this stuff). When I put my Office 365 tenant address in I see it running through each of tabs doing tests:
After a few minutes the tests complete and provide some interesting results.
The results from this site and Lync IP probe are somewhat different. Lync IP Probe still seems to provide more detail but there are some interesting figures produced by the new Speedtest site.
My advice would be to still use both as required but I get the feeling that Microsoft will be developing this new Speedtest site to be the most encompassing so stayed tuned because I think you’ll see plenty of changes and improvements coming here. The only question is are they going to migrate it back to the original URL of http://speedtest.microsoftonline.com?
InfoPath not authorized to perform current operation
I had been battling with some issues when publishing InfoPath 2013 forms to Office 365. For some reason I kept getting the above error when I tried to open a site.
I work with a number of different Office 365 sites that all have different logins and for the life or me I couldn’t work out what was happening. I wasn’t even being prompted with the Office 365 login to the site I was trying to publish to.
After some fiddling I worked out that it has to do with the Windows 8 account I am logged into my machine with. I use a Windows Live account to do that. When I look at the account information in InfoPath I see this Windows Live Account.
If I then select the option to switch account
I see my two Office 365 accounts listed as shown.
Once I login with this Office 365 account I see a different list of connected services below as shown above.
Now I can successfully publish my InfoPath forms.
I can’t say that I’m a real expert on how all these accounts work and interact in Windows 8 but I’d say if you are having the same issues I was, try switching account in InfoPath. It worked for me.
Introduction to SharePoint 2013 Tasks video
After recently posting about how cool SharePoint 2013 tasks were I thought I’d do a short video on the topic just so you have a better idea about how to start using SharePoint 2013 Tasks.
As always, let me know what you think and what topics you’d like to see covered in a blog post or in my videos.
Getting Started With SharePoint Online 2013 for Small Business eBook now available
Please to announce that my latest eBook “Getting Started With SharePoint 2013 for Small Business” is now available for purchase at AU$2.49. You can purchase from the major online book sellers but also directly from my site at:
http://www.ciaops.com/publications
The abstract for the book is:
This book helps novice users understand the basic usage and operation of SharePoint Online 2013 that is available via the Office 365 Small Business P plans. It examines the following basic components of SharePoint Online: Documents, Calendars, Tasks, Picture Libraries, Recycle Bin, Search, Site Notebooks and Public website . The reader will be taken through a tutorial process on how to use each item. Much has changed since previous versions of SharePoint and Office 365, however there are still some similarities. This book may still provide some insight into the basics of SharePoint Online 2013 for Medium and Enterprise Office 365 plans. It will show you how to start interacting with SharePoint Online 2013 so it can be put to use in your business as well as provide a number of resources for continuing familiarity with SharePoint Online 2013.
This booked is aimed at users who have never used SharePoint Online 2013 or Office 365 P plans.
Even if you have no need for this book I commend you to let others who might.
Watch out for additional topics coming soon.
Create new permission level with SharePoint Online
A common request I see with SharePoint Online is to allow users to add and edit document but not delete. By default, most SharePoint Online users have Contribute rights, which means they can add, edit AND delete. So what’s the best way to remove the ability to delete items?
The first place to start is to login to your SharePoint Online team site as a Site Collection Administrator.
From the cog in the top right hand corner select Site settings from the menu that appears.
In the top left of the Site Settings page select Site permissions.
From the Permissions tab on the Ribbon Menu at the top of the page select Permission Levels.
You should now see all the different permission levels available on your could add a new permission here but that means starting from scratch. An easier method is to simply copy and modify an existing permission.
In this case we’ll use the Contribute permission as the base. To make a copy of this click the Contribute hyperlink.
Beware, that any changes you make to the selections presented is actually changing the existing Contribute permission. You need to copy the current settings to a new permission before proceeding. To do this, scroll to the bottom of the current permission. There you should find a Copy Permission Level button. Select this to create a copy of the existing permission level.
Give the new permission level a name (in this case Contribute – no delete) and make any changes to the permissions options below. In this case, any Delete abilities have been unselected.
Scroll down to the bottom of the screen when complete and press the Save button.
You should now be returned to the full list of site permissions. The new permission you just created should now appear in the list. This means that it is available to all elements of the current site.
You now want to apply this new permission to a Document Library. Firstly navigate to the Document Library and press the LIBRARY tab at the top left of the page.
From the Ribbon Menu that appears select Library Settings on the right.
From the selections that now displayed on the page select Permissions for this document library.
In most cases the Document library will be inheriting permissions. To create unique permissions we need to stop or break this inheritance. To do that select the Stop Inheriting Permissions button on the Ribbon Menu.
You will receive a confirmation dialog to confirm you wish to break the inheritance. Press OK to continue.
You should now see a message saying – This library has unique permissions. You will notice that all existing permissions have been copied and now have a selection box on the left of each item.
Select the item who’s permissions you wish to change (in the case Members). Then select Edit User Permissions from the Ribbon Menu.
You will now see a list of available site permissions. In this list should be the permission level just created (here Contribute – no delete). Select this and unselect any other existing right.
Press the OK button to proceed.
You should now be returned to the permissions for the library where you should find that the item you selected now has the new permission level (in this case Members now have the Contribute – no delete permission for this library).
At any time you can re-inherit the permissions to return them back to the way they were.
SharePoint Online space allocation video
Here’s another video of the recent blog posts I did on allocating and de-allocating space in SharePoint Online Office 365 E and M plans
Let me know what you think and what additional video topics you’d like me to cover.
CIAOPS 