Document co-authoring with SharePoint Online

A very common question people ask when they use SharePoint Online or OneDrive for Business is whether multiple people can work on the document simultaneously, and the answer is yes provided they are Office documents.

Since back in 2010, SharePoint and Office have allowed users to edit documents together. Each iteration of the products has made this co-authoring more and more seamless, till today you simply don’t worry about it at all.

As my video tutorial demonstrates, you can simply start editing a file, in the browser or on the desktop, and immediately you’ll be able to work on it, even if there are others already there. You’ll see other people editing the document as you do as well be able to chat with them if you want.

Of course, for the times when you need to work exclusively on a document you can “check out” the document, preventing others from editing until you “check in” the document again.

So not only does SharePoint Online provide co-authoring ability natively, it also supports the basics of document management right out of the box. These are just some of the reasons why it is superior to traditional file shares.

For more information on working on document together in Office 365 see:

Document collaboration and co-authoring

Basics of working with Document Libraries

Thought it was about time to update my video on the basics of using SharePoint Online Document Libraries. The main changes in twelve months have been the new sharing dialogs as well as the details and filter panes.

This should give you a good starting point when it comes to using Document Libraries which a core place to store information in Office 365.

Re-indexing a SharePoint Online Document Library

Ok, so let’s say that for some reason you have a document in a SharePoint Online Team Site that aren’t being shown in search. One option you can try is to re-index the Document Library. Here’s how.

Start by navigating to the Document Library you wish to re-index. Select the COG in the top right hand corner.

From the menu that appears, select Library Settings.

Under the first column, General Settings, select Advanced Settings.

Scroll down the page that appears until you locate the Reindex Document Library button and select it.

You should now see the above dialog window. Select the Reindex Document Library.

Your Document Library will now be reindexed completely during the next indexing process at the back end of SharePoint Online. This process may take 15 – 20 minutes to full complete so be patient.

After that time period has elapsed, see whether your information is now available in search.

Updating Communication sites subsites home pages

The new SharePoint Communication Sites are great and are going to be really helpful for people wanting to create a ‘cool intranet’ (you wouldn’t believe how many times I get asked this. So, what’s cool again? Is my response).

However, one of the current issues I came across when you want to create subsites from the root of a new Communication Site is that these subsites don’t have a similar look and feel by default. In fact they have the ‘classic’ appearance as you can see above.

That can be a bit jarring because you kind of expect everything from the root down to be all modern. However, swapping the default ‘classic’ homepage to a ‘modern’ page isn’t too hard. Here’s how to do it.

Once you have created the subsite from the root Communications Site locate the Pages option from the Quick Launch menu on the left of the new subsite and select it.

This will take you to the location where SharePoint keeps all the Site Pages. The current homepage for the site is the one called home.aspx.

Now select the New menu option at the the top of the page.

From the menu that appears select Site Page.

You’ll then be taken to a new ‘modern’ page that you can edit to make it display the way you want. Be default, the actual name of the page will be the name you use in the heading.

When you have completed working on the page Save and Publish it as you would normally.

You should be returned to the list of pages and you should now see a new one as shown above. In this case it is called finance.aspx.

Select the new file just created by placing a check mark to the left of the file name and then from the menu that appears across the top select the ellipse (three dots). From the menu that appears, select Make homepage. The same option is also available if you right mouse click on the file.

If you now navigate to the homepage of the subsite you should see the page you just created.

You have now successfully replaced the default ‘classic’ style homepage with ‘modern’ version that is more in keeping with the look and feel of Communications Sites.

July Webinar Resources

CIAOPS Need to Know Webinar – July 2017 from Robert Crane

My latest webinar is complete. You can now download the slides from:

https://www.slideshare.net/directorcia/ciaops-need-to-know-webinar-july-2017

If you are not a CIAOPS patron you want to view or download a full copy of the video from the session you can do so here:

http://www.ciaopsacademy.com/p/july-2017-need-to-know-webinar/

We focused on the various methods you can use in Office 365 to share information with those outside your business. Everything from email attachments to Yammer we spent time on. Thanks everyone for attending

you can also now get access to all webinars via:

http://ciaops-academy.teachable.com/courses/need-to-know-webinars

for a nominal fee.

See you next month.

A few new SharePoint Online settings

If you haven’t already noticed, there are a few additional options in SharePoint admin center settings. You get there by going to the Office 365 admin centre.

On the left hand side at the bottom expand the Admin centers option like so:

Select SharePoint.

From the menu that appears on the left select Settings.

A couple options you may wish to check and set here.

Recommended to ensure that the Sync client for SharePoint is set to Start the new client so you ensure users get the most update to date version of the OneDrive for Business sync client when syncing data to their local machines.

If you had a tenant that included the old SharePoint external public web site you’ll see that you have the option to extend it’s life until the 31st of March 2018. I’m happy to have my one delete so I’m leaving the setting as is.

Interestingly, I can’t change the Global Experience Version Settings option and it is set to Prevent creation of new site collections. I assume this means that when you create a Site Collection now you only get the ‘modern’ experience. Can’t be changed for me so nothing I can do here but it may become available down the track.

Today, you typically get an Office 365 Group when you create a Team Site but you’ll see here that you can control that option if you want. You can also determine where the new sites are created.

The Access app is being retired, here you can control whether users can still use it to create new Access apps in your site collections.

There are lots of additional options on the Settings page so make any changes you want and then select Save at the bottom of the page to updates these for your environment. Also, don’t forget to come back regularly and check to see whether any new options have been added.

When to use Internet Explorer with SharePoint Online

Although there are fewer people using Internet Explorer these days, there is still a reason to use it when it comes to SharePoint Online in Office 365.

That is because when you do you get one additional option you don’t get elsewhere – View in File Explorer as you see above. This option is only available (at the moment) when you browse to a Document Library in SharePoint Online using Internet Explorer.

Viewing in File Explorer effectively maps a location from your Windows file manager on your desktop directly to that Document Library in SharePoint Online. This comes in real handy if you need to bulk copy and move files from one location to another as it makes the Document Library just like any other folder on your computer.

I cover all the basics in the above video, so take a look and let me know what you think, and remember, for the time being at least, Internet Explorer still has its uses when it comes to SharePoint Online!