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.

Free SharePoint documentation

Around 2006 I started to document everything I could about SharePoint on Small Business Server, simply due to a lack of information from other sources. This grew into documentation about Windows SharePoint Services v 3.0, SharePoint Foundation 2010 as well as most SharePoint versions. The focus remained on the Foundation product rather than the full server versions and especially how SharePoint integrated with Small Business Server (SBS).

In 2007 I started to offer my document via a subscription known as as the Windows SharePoint Services Operations Guide or WSSOPS for short.

In 2014 I announced that I would no longer be taking new subscribers and in 12 months would be shutting down the Guide completely. The reasons for this are many but mainly I saw the fact that less and less people were working with SharePoint on premise and even fewer where utilising SharePoint Foundation 2013. The focus was now Office 365.

However, much of the information I have accumulated about SharePoint over the years in the Guide still is not readily available or in an easy to understand format. With the closure of WSSOPS and the migration of my documentation to Cloud Business Blueprint I have decided to make available for free a large majority of the information in WSSOPS. You can find this available for download at:

http://www.ciaops.com/wssops

and is made available under Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-ShareAlike-4.0 Internation license. In essence means it free to distribute but can’t be resold.

Given the years of hard work invested in the Guide (over 1,000 pages is available for free download now) I’d appreciate the purchase of any of my publications or a donation if you find what I have made available helpful to you.

To join my new Cloud Business Blueprint community and gain access to all the documentation and training material I am now producing for Office 365, Azure and more please visit:

http://www.cloudbusinessblueprint.com/members-sign-up/

I am very proud of what I created with WSSOPS over the years and thank anyone who was a subscriber. I hope people continue to receive benefit from what I created for many years to come.

Need to Know podcast–Episode 68

Here I speak with SharePoint MVP John Liu about SharePoint workflows. John’s shares what workflows are, how to create them and what business uses these could provide. He discusses with me how workflows are an intelligent method of automating business process and boosting productivity by removing reparative tasks. The great thing is that you can use workflows with SharePoint on premise or via Office 365.

You can listen to the episode at:

http://ciaops.podbean.com/e/episode-68-john-liu/

or subscribe to this and all episodes in iTunes at:

https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/ciaops-need-to-know-podcasts/id406891445?mt=2

The podcast is also available on Stitcher at:

http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/ciaops/need-to-know-podcast?refid=stpr

Episode Resources

SharePoint Designer 2013
http://www.microsoft.com/en-au/download/details.aspx?id=35491

Visual Studio 2013 Community Edition (with Update 4)
http://www.visualstudio.com/downloads/download-visual-studio-vs

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sharepointdesigner/

@johnnliu
http://johnliu.net

http://sharepoint-videos.com/video-categories/sharepoint-2013-training-courses/sp13-304-sharepoint-designer-2013-workflow-course/

http://www.lynda.com/search?q=workflow&f=producttypeid%3a2%094%092015%3bmeta_software_facet%3aSharePoint
http://www.pluralsight.com/search/?searchTerm=sharepoint%20workflow

Custom Activities – these can all be used on Office 365 or SP2013 OnPrem

Office Dev Patterns and Practices samples
https://github.com/OfficeDev/PnP/tree/master/Samples/Workflow.Activities

Codeplex
http://sp2013workflowactivities.codeplex.com/

Paul Culmsee has a 12-part multi series that’s very fun to follow
http://www.cleverworkarounds.com/2013/12/21/trials-or-tribulation-inside-sharepoint-2013-workflowspart-1/

Plumsail has a pack of custom activities that can be purchased (~$500) and more importantly, support.
http://plumsail.com/workflow-actions-pack/

Need to Know podcast–Episode 65

Tas is back again for this episode to dive into everything Office 365. We especially look at some of the features of the advanced SharePoint Online plans and how these can benefit your business no matter how big or small. We also cover off a swag of Office 365 news and updates.

You can listen to the episode at:

http://ciaops.podbean.com/e/episode-65-tas-gray/

or subscribe to this and all episodes in iTunes at:

https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/ciaops-need-to-know-podcasts/id406891445?mt=2

The podcast is also available on Stitcher at:

http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/ciaops/need-to-know-podcast?refid=stpr

Of course, I’d love to hear what you think of this episode or any others. Also, if you are interested in being a guest on the show to discuss business or technical topics also feel free to contact me (director@ciaops.com).

Episode notes:

Office 365 service description

Discover SharePoint

CIAOPS YouTube channel

CIAOPS Getting Started templates

Delve for the desktop?

Here’s an idea. What about Delve for the desktop to replace the current OneDrive for Business sync tool?

Delve uses the Officegraph technology to analyse ‘signals’ from your Office 365 interactions. Things such as browsing SharePoint sites, viewing documents, editing documents, sending documents, sending emails, etc are all combined and surfaced via the Delve tab in Office 365 in a layout much like Flipboard. The most popular items are displayed at the top of your Delve feed.

However, what if the Delve and Officegraph technology was used to determined what should be synced to your desktop automatically? I reckon that the stuff you work on most regularly, which will appear in Delve, is typically going to be the stuff you want to sync to your desktop. Wouldn’t be nice if that information could automatically be synced for you?

Imagine a world where you don’t continually need to either select what you want to sync or sync everything ‘just in case’. Imagine a world where the algorithm automatically looks at your interactions with files and people determining what should be synced to your desktop. Then, as you interact with things less they stop being synced to be replaced by more current items.

What about some sort of slider that you could set to determine the level of currency to sync? If you slide it to the left only the most current information is synced, while if you slide it to the left stuff that maybe less relevant is also synced. However, the bottom line is that Delve watches what you do and only syncs the stuff you use.

What do you reckon? Am I onto something here? Love to hear what you think and maybe what else could be included in a Delve desktop client.