Missing web parts if you don’t enable scripting

To embed a Yammer feed into a SharePoint Team Site you need to use a Script Editor Web Part as I have detailed previously here:

Inserting a Yammer Feed into SharePoint

However, as you can see by the above screen shot, when I attempted to do this recently the Script Editor Web Part was not evident. Strange, I thought.

The above image shows the difference and the Script Editor Web Part being available. What was the difference? Why did it appear in one tenant but not in another?

At first, I thought it had something to do with the licensing for the user I was logged in as. However, it turns out that the issue was that scripting hadn’t been enabled for Team Sites in the SharePoint Admin center.

I have previously detailed how missing Web Galleries are also due to scripting not being enabled. My previous post on this as well as how to enable scripting with SharePoint Online is here:

SharePoint Online missing Web Designer Galleries

So it turns out that disabled scripting in SharePoint Online also disables some web parts (the Script Editor Web Part being one). Therefore, it is probably good practice to always ensure that scripting is enable in the SharePoint Admin Center before you start building your Team Site.

Office 365 Collaboration, Skype and Backup

Office 365 Collaboration—Robert Crane Docs.com

https://docs.com/d/embed/D25192961-2267-4946-0970-001023757425%7eMd4186d87-61d5-259a-4d26-00a8bd86cfff

The opportunities with Skype for Business—Robert Crane Docs.com

https://docs.com/d/embed/D25192961-2098-0759-5380-001420694364%7eMd4186d87-61d5-259a-4d26-00a8bd86cfff

Office 365 Backup options—Robert Crane Docs.com

https://docs.com/d/embed/D25192961-1989-0156-9410-001012602264%7eMd4186d87-61d5-259a-4d26-00a8bd86cfff

Here are some recent presentations I gave around Office 365:

Collaboration

Skype for Business

and

Backup

In essence they all point to the opportunity Office 365 provides IT resellers to go out and build services on stuff other than email migrations.

In short, if you are not adding value then your days are numbers. And simply moving data from one location to another and doing nothing else is not adding value!

Enabling DLP for SharePoint and OneDrive for Business

DLP or Data Loss Prevention is a way inside Office 365 (E3 suites or above) that you can protect data from leaving the organisation. You can use DLP to protect not only email attachments but also files in SharePoint Online Team Sites and user’s OneDrive for Business.

Office 365 provides a number of standard templates for protecting standard information, such as credit card information as detailed here, but you can also customise the DLP policies to protect any custom data you wish.

The first step in using DLP is to set up and enforce the policies you wish to use. To do this you’ll need to login to the Office 365 portal as an administrator with the appropriate rights. You’ll then need to navigate to the tenant Admin area. From the menu on the left hand side of the screen expand the Admin centers option. From the options that appear select the Security & Compliance item.

From the Security and Compliance console select Security policies on the left. From the options that then appear below this select Data loss prevention. If this menu item doesn’t appear then you current don’t have an Office 365 plan that supports DLP.

On the right hand side you will probably see that the list is empty. Select the Plus icon to create a new policy.

You can select from a number of templated policies if you wish but in this case select Custom and then the Next button.

You now need to select the areas in which this policy will apply. You can specify unique locations but for this example we’ll simply select all locations and then continue.

At the next screen select the Plus icon to set the rules for which you wish to test.

In the new window that appears select the Add condition button.

From the pull down menu that appears select Content containing sensitive information.

Select the Plus icon that appears to enter the actual rules.

Scroll down the list that appears and select Credit Card Number. You can select other items here but in this case all we want this example DLP rule to test for is credit card numbers.

Select OK to continue.

You should now see the entry appear in the list as shown above. You can edit this entry if you wish by selecting it and then pressing the Pencil icon (edit).

Select the Actions item from the menu on the left.

Select the Add actions button on the right.

In this example, select Block the content. This will prevent anything that matches this rule from being shared.

You should now see the blocking Action listed as shown above.

Select the Incident report option from the menu on the left. Enter the details if you wish to receive a report of any actions on this policy.

Select General from the menu on the left. Give this set of rules a name and save them.

You should now see the rules listing appear as shown above in the DLP policy you just created. You can create as many of these rules inside a single policy as you wish. However, best practice is always to keep it simple.

Give the DLP policy and name and select the option to Turn on the policy.

Select the Create to complete the policy creation process.

You should now see the policy listed in the DLP area as shown above. You should also see that the Status is set to On.

The DLP policy will not come into effect immediately. It will take a little while (15 – 30 minutes typically in my experience) to roll out through your tenant.

To test the policy, create a document in your OneDrive for Business that contains credit card numbers as shown above. The numbers used here are verified public ‘test’ card numbers.

Now create a public View link that requires no sign-in as shown above. This should allow anyone who clicks on that link direct access to the file without the need of a login or password.

When the DLP policy is active anyone trying to access that link will have the content blocked as shown above. This confirms that teh DLP policy is working as expected.

If you also elected to get alerts you should fine one in your inbox as shown above.

Thus, DLP is a way to protect your Office 365 information by examining the contents against a set of rules that you create. It can examine both email and file data then take actions which you determine.

DLP is part of the E3 or better suite in Office 365.

SharePoint Online Storage increased to 25TB!

This item was in a recent blog post from Microsoft:

New site collection limit

As more and more teams embrace the breadth of capabilities offered in SharePoint Online grows across team sites, Office 365 Video and portal sites, their content storage requirements are growing. To address this, we will increase the SharePoint Online site collection storage limit in the coming weeks from 1 TB to 25 TB. This increased limit will be immediately reflected in the official SharePoint Online boundaries and limits article.

which you’ll find here:

https://blogs.office.com/2016/08/31/new-capabilities-in-sharepoint-online-team-sites-including-integration-with-office-365-groups/

which also details the continued integration between Office 365 Groups and Team Sites.

This storage increase is BIG news for SharePoint Team Sites and is really great pro-active move by Microsoft as it places more and more focus on SharePoint and Groups in Office 365. It is clear (as well as in my experience) that more and more businesses are moving the the traditional on-premises data to SharePoint. To ease adoption and encourage people to use SharePoint more then the space for Team Sites must increase.

For a long time we were locked into a SharePoint Team Site storage capacity of 10GB. That jumped to 1TB about 6 months about and now we are going to soon see 25TB! All of that increase in space is provided free if you are an Office 365 customer. Again, the benefits of a cloud subscription model.

**** Correction Start ****

If you actually look at the SharePoint Online limits page (as I should have) you see this:

From – https://support.office.com/en-us/article/SharePoint-Online-software-boundaries-and-limits-8f34ff47-b749-408b-abc0-b605e1f6d498

So it appears that you don’t automatically get 25TB of storage you do however get the ability to scale a single Site Collection to 25TB which you couldn’t before.

That said, I can see the day in the not to distant future where certain plans will get 25TB storage starting storage. Clearly, you can’t offer that until the limits are raised as they have done now.

**** Correction End ****

I’m expecting even more ground breaking announcements around Office 365 and Azure very soon as the Microsoft Ignite conference approaches. But for now, if 1TB of Team Site storage felt a little limiting, now you have 25TG. Thanks Microsoft.

The podcast shoe is on the other foot

Normally, it’s me asking the questions but recently I was a guest on Lisa Hendrickson’s podcast – Call that Girl’s Office 365 show. As you can see the show also includes video and is published to YouTube. Yes, I know I really have a face only for a podcast but hey, I was only the guest this time.

Lisa and I talked about SharePoint and collaboration in Office 365 and the struggles people have in coming to grips with the product.

Hopefully, I was able to pass along some helpful information for listeners and encourage anyone with further questions to hit me up via email (director@ciaops.com). I thank Lisa for the opportunity to be on her show and look forward to maybe doing another in the future.

A basic SharePoint Online framework structure

Getting the ball rolling with SharePoint Online is intimidating when it comes to using SharePoint Online for the very first time. Many get bogged down in being overly concerned about getting things ‘perfect’ before commencing. Here’s a few tips for you to get the ball rolling with SharePoint Online.

Firstly, the primary goal for any business when it comes to SharePoint Online is adoption! That is actually getting people to use it. This is far and away going to be your biggest challenge because most users will resist the change from files, folders and drive letters. Thus, the sooner you get them using SharePoint Online the better. Also, the easier you make it for them to start using SharePoint Online the better. This means keeping it simple and familiar to start with.

With this in mind, my suggestion is that you create a total of three document libraries in the root site of your default SharePoint Online Team Site. You then create three subsites below the root site than each contain three document libraries. This then gives you a total of 12 locations into which you can copy files.

With this structure in mind you obviously need to name each item as it is created. Here is where you need to make an important decision about the structure of SharePoint that can’t easily be reversed once it is made, so make sure you give it ample consideration before proceeding.

You need to basically decide whether SharePoint Online will be structured by function or location. If you decide by function the subsites will probably be called something like Admin, Finance, HR, etc. However, if it is by location then the subsite would be called something like Sydney, Paris, London, New York, etc.

Once you have the subsites named and created you would then create the three document libraries inside each. These will typically match existing folders on a file server to make it easier for user to identify with (i.e. make the Document Library names the same as existing server folder names). It is possible to change the naming at this point and start afresh but remember, we are looking to maximise adoption which will mean taking the long way round to achieving the end goal. Sub sites and Document Libraries in SharePoint Online can easily be re-named or relocated anytime down the track. Yoru guiding aim should be to reduce the friction of adoption.

So let’s say that you have decided to structure SharePoint Online by function and called the first subsite ‘Admin’. Inside this you’d probably have Document Libraries called Policies, Procedures and Templates for example. Yes, you can create more locations but again start off simple. Even if you have to leave some folders on premises, keep it simple and obvious for users.

So now you have a 2 tier structure in place with 12 locations into which you can put files. These 12 locations also typically map to existing locations on your file server. With this in place I show the customer how to copy one set of files across into the first location. I then have them do the process while I watch and advise, into the second location. Finally, I allow them to copy files into the third location without any feedback from me. At that point they have the knowledge to complete the rest of the location transfers without my help. I also have the confidence to leave them to their own devices and to accomplish this initial date relocation.

A few days later when I check back in with the customer, I usually find they are happily using SharePoint but want to now do more customisations, add more locations for storage, start flattening their existing folder structure by using metadata and so on. Yippee! Achievement unlocked! Initial adoption commenced success. Next?

In summary therefore, the big take aways I’ll give from this are:

1. Keep it really simple to start with.

2. Focus on adoption and getting EVERYONE to use SharePoint above anything else initially.

3. Base your SharePoint structure on either function or location.

Using SharePoint Online is always a journey never a destination. Business needs are constantly changing, so remain flexible and be comfortable with the need to change. However, ensure you have an appropriate adoption strategy based on how your users actually operate not on how you ‘think’ they’ll operate. If you don’t, then you’ll always be wrong and SharePoint Online adoption will always be a struggle. With appropriate planning and a systematic approach, that should never be the case!

Uploading Documents to OneDrive for Business

Few people I know who use OneDrive for Business can name ALL the ways that you can get documents into OneDrive for Business. My aim was to cover all of the methods (except for third party tools) in the above video.

So here are the ways I reckon you can do it:

1. Create a new Office document directly in OneDrive for Business using the browser.

2. Upload a single file(s) from the menu bar.

3. Upload folder(s) from the menu bar.

4. Drag and drop directly onto the browser.

5. Open OneDrive for Business using Windows Explorer (requires you to go back to the classic interface).

6. Map a network drive.

7. Save directly from Office desktop applications.

8. Use the OneDrive for Business Sync tool.

9. Third party tool (Spfilezilla springs to mind).

Have I left any out? Let me know if I have but hopefully the video covers everything a new user needs to know about getting data into OneDrive for Business.

Upcoming Ingram Bootcamps

Ingram Micro Cloud Elevate Bootcamp

I’m presenting at the next round of Cloud Elevate Bootcamps from Ingram Micro. You can register for upcoming sessions in Sydney, Brisbane and Perth here:

http://us1.campaign-archive2.com/?u=e7b9bf6fefc7f30ec0fad7629&id=a9dd2951fb&e=b579342c7f

In these sessions I’ll be talking about Office 365 collaboration (particularly SharePoint and OneDrive for Business) as well as on Skype for Business and Skykick backups. There will also be a session on Dropbox.

Love to see you come along, participate, ask questions and most importantly learn more about Office 365!

I hope to see you at an upcoming event.