Getting Started with SharePoint Online Tutorial Template

I am happy to announce the release of a new product from the CIAOPS. This one is called Getting Started With SharePoint Online Tutorial Template. It can be purchased from:

http://www.ciaops.com/publications

This is a SharePoint template that can be downloaded and installed on any Office 365 plan that includes SharePoint Online. This product will help your business learn about the different features of SharePoint Online by actually using it. There are over 20 lessons that users can work through to increase their knowledge.

The product includes:
– 3.5 hours of video lessons
– Links to over 30 additional content web sites
– Over 250 pages of downloadable documentation (excluding free version)
– Easy to install, customise, extend and update
– Premium edition permits editing/re-branding of content
– Annual Maintenance provides free updates of all content for 1 year

This product is aimed at users who have never used SharePoint Online and want to learn more. Download the User Guide for more details or watch the video.

You can download the free version to see what the product looks like. The free version excludes any downloadable content.

The Standard version includes videos streamed from YouTube which may contain advertising. This however, keeps the download size small and reduces the impact on the SharePoint site as well as bandwidth.

The Premium version includes the same content as the Standard version but you will receive all the source videos and documents as a separate download. The Premium version permits you to modify this content to suit your business needs. It also permits you to re-brand this content and make it available directly to your customers.

Please note you are not permitted to resell or give away this product.

There is also an Annual maintenance option that provides 12 months of free upgrades to both the template and content for Premium purchases. This ensures you always have the most recent and up to date version available as Office 365 changes.

Finally there is also free version you can download and install, however this version does not contain any content but includes all the links and the structure so it could be used as a starting point to build your own solution. Please note, there is no support provided withe free version.

Using this template will provide your business with an easy option to create a learning portal in your SharePoint Online environment. Your users can learn about SharePoint Online while actually using it, which is the best method to achieve fast adoption of the product.

Free Windows SharePoint Services eBook

I’m making way for a new product to be announced very shortly (if you want an early taste check out my latest videos on YouTube) and as such it is time to clear out the e-commerce store a bit.

With that in mind I have decided to make my publication Windows SharePoint Master Class Tutorials available for free download.

You’ll find the download on either my publications or downloads pages. Here’s the book summary:

This book is designer for those that want to take Windows SharePoint Services v 3.0 beyond the basics. Implementing things like workflows and integrating with Microsoft Office allows you to unleash so much more of the power behind SharePoint. Every chapter in this book will give your techniques you can use with SharePoint to make it work better in your business.

Apart from workflows you’ll learn how to create linking with Office products to create updating charts, the ability to take SharePoint information offline and more. Even though this book focuses on Windows SharePoint Services v3.0 the information is relevant for all versions of SharePoint and provides a quick way for readers to get up to speed with this powerful tool from Microsoft.

Look out for my latest product real soon!

Add the Discover SharePoint app to a Team Site

One of the biggest challenges around SharePoint is end user adoption. I have written about this many times including:

The classic SharePoint migration mistake

SharePoint Online migration – Pilers and Filers

SharePoint Online migration–Start up is key

End user adoption in the SMB space is more of a challenge but I get REALLY frustrated when I see resellers ‘implement’ SharePoint Online by simply copying user files to a single Document Library and then running away screaming that there is no opportunity with cloud services. SIGH.

One of the best sites you can point people to when it comes to learning about SharePoint is:

www.discoversharepoint.com

But I’ll bet you didn’t know that you can embed this content directly into a customers SharePoint Team Site. Here’s how.

Navigate to a SharePoint Online Team Site.

Select Site Contents from the Quick Launch menu on the left.

Select add an app

Select SharePoint Store at the bottom of the Quick Launch Menu.

If you get this warning select a language in the top right.

You should now see the store with apps inside as shown above.

Go to the search box in the top right and enter discover and select the magnifying glass to search.

Hopefully the first result should be Discover SharePoint BETA. Select this.

This will take you to a screen with more details about the app.

Select ADD IT on the right.

Select Trust It.

(You may need to use a Microsoft account to complete the purchase if this is the first time you have purchased from the store. These accounts are free. I have a previous post that cover creating such an account this if you need to.)

You should now see the Discover SharePoint BETA app listed in the Site Contents. Select this.

It will take a moment or two to set up.

You should then see the app displayed on the page as shown above.

If you select the Cog in the top right of the page you will see a menu as shown above.

The Settings option will allow you to determine whether analytics is sent to Microsoft to help improve the product. Note that it is enabled by default.

If you select Admin Panel you will be taken to a screen where you can select what content is displayed by the app. Maybe you just want to start simple with a limited amount of information so as to not overload your users, you can de-select what isn’t required initially and then return and add it later when ready.

When complete select the Save Changes at the bottom of the page.

You’ll then need to select Exit Admin Panel in the top right of the page.

This will return you to the app. To to return to your Team Site select Back to Site in the top left hand corner of the window.

On the Team Site you should now find the Discover SharePoint BETA item listed in Quick Launch Menu allowing anyone to access the app directly.

From here the Discover SharePoint BETA is just like any app in SharePoint, you can remove it at anytime if you want.

Don’t forget that the content in this app is being updated regularly so continue to visit it to see what’s new.

So hopefully, there is a nice simply way for you to add some information and training about SharePoint Online to help end user adoption directly into a Team Site.

End of support for SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2

I know there are still plenty of people out there running SQL Server 2008 and 200 R2, especially for SharePoint 2010 and Companyweb. Well, the word from Microsoft is that these products have reached the end of mainstream support as of July 8 2014. You can check that out here:
http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/search/?sort=PN&alpha=sql
Microsoft will continue to provide technical support for these via extended support but the message is that you really should look at migrating off these products as soon as you can. Why? Because things like non-security updates will only be available to customers with an extended hotfix agreements and that rules out most smaller customers.
The bottom line is that the longer you sit on your current versions of software the less support will be available. This to me, if one of the great benefits of a cloud service like Office 365 that is always up to date and you no longer have to worry about these sorts of issues.
So beware that the sands of time continue to march on and much like us all the software you are using now isn’t getting any younger.

Introduction to SharePoint Online Picture Library video

Images are a significant part of the data that resides on most hard disks. Getting this into SharePoint Online in Office 365 is a perfect way to make this information more visible and searchable.

In this video you’ll see how to add the Picture Library app to a SharePoint Online Team Site. You’ll also see how to upload images and edit their keyword and description fields for better searchability.

This video is part of my Getting Started With SharePoint Online playlist which will give you all the basics of how to get up and running with SharePoint Online in Office 365 quickly and easily.

Getting started SharePoint videos

One of the most common challenges with SharePoint Online is actually getting started. That’s why I created these books:

which you can find over at my publications page. Purchasing one or more copies helps me to continue creating resources like these and my YouTube videos.

What I thought I’d start doing is take advantage of the playlist features in YouTube to start building lists of common videos to help people get up and running with SharePoint Online quickly.

That meant that I needed to create a few new videos which you’ll find here:

Uploading documents to SharePoint Online

Basics of working with Document Libraries

Basic calendaring in SharePoint

I have then combined these, along with an existing video, into a dedicated playlist:

Getting Started with SharePoint Online

where these, and the ones I add in future, can be played one after each other. This makes it a nice series you can get someone to work through to get them up to speed with SharePoint quickly.

The videos are generally 5 – 10 minutes and provide the main points you need to get up and running quickly.

As I said, I’ll keep working on creating new videos to add to this playlist as well as looking at developing new playlists on different Office 365 and SharePoint Online topics. Let me know what you’d like to see.

Office 365 users personal blog

I’ve done a series of posts about blogging with SharePoint Online. You can find the previous posts at:

Blogging with SharePoint Online

Posting SharePoint Online blog articles

Both of those articles have focused on Team Site blogs. However, what you may not realise is that every SharePoint Online user has the ability to create and publish to their own personal blog.

The SharePoint Online personal blog is provided via OneDrive for Business however users go to their Newsfeed to enable it.

By default, a users personal blog does not get automatically created. To create their blog they need to visit their Newsfeed from the menu along the top of their web portal.

From the menu on the left hand side they simply select Blog under About Me.

In the top right of the page they will probably briefly see an indication that their blog site is being created as noted by the Working on it… message.

In a matter of moments the new personal blog site will be created and the page will display the location.

So where does the blog site actually get created? Well, if you have a look at the contents of the users OneDrive for Business site (by selecting the Cog in the top right hand corner) and scrolling down to the bottom of the page you will see a subsite called Blog as shown above.

The URL of this new personal blog site is:

https://-my.sharepoint.com/personal/_/Blog/

which you can now post articles to via the browser or via the desktop which I covered in previous posts.

If the user returns to their Newsfeed they will also find that they have been configured to automatically ‘follow’ their blog so updates will appear in their Newsfeed.

If you look at the permissions for the newly created user blog, you will see that by default Everyone except external users (i.e. other Office 365 users) can view the content in the blog.

However, there is an exception to this. The information dialog above the permissions notes – Some content on this site has different permissions from what you see here. If you select the Show these items hyperlink for more information

you will see that blog Comments have different permissions. If you now select manage permissions

you will see the difference is that other Office 365 users have the ability to add comments to any blog post by default (since they have Contribute rights here).

This means that when an Office 365 user creates a personal blog by selecting the menu option in their Newsfeed, they are able to publish posts that all other Office 365 users can not only view but also comment on.

The personal blog is something that I believe should be encouraged within a business and you can see it easy for users to setup and publish to. Importantly, all the information that is published in blogs is index by SharePoint Online and can be found using the search facilities. That is why it is so valuable. rather than having people take notes, have them blog the information.

Posting SharePoint Online blog articles

This is another post in my series about blogging with SharePoint Online. You can find the previous articles at:
Blogging with SharePoint Online
The previous article showed you how to set up a Team Site blog and how to interact with it using the browser. This article will show you how to create and post blog articles using the latest version of Word.

Navigate to your Team Site blog in SharePoint Online and then select Launch blogging app from the Blog tools on the right hand side.

This will launch Word and prompt you to register the blog account. Press OK to continue.

You should then receive a confirmation as above.

You can now create your post with all the editing and formatting abilities that Word provides.

When you are ready press the Publish button in the top left corner.

You’ll then get a message that the post has been published.

If you return to blog site and refresh the browser you should see your post.
You may not be aware that you can use Word as a blog publishing tool for a variety of blogs.

If you open Word on the desktop and then select the Blog Post template.

You’ll then be prompted to register a blog account. Select Register Now.

You’ll then be able to select the blog provider. In this case select SharePoint blog and press Next.

You’ll then be prompted to enter the URL of your SharePoint blog site, which is exactly the same at the top of this post, so everything from here will be identical.

If you have already started a document and want to post that to a blog you simply select the Word backstage (via the File tab), then Share from the menu on the left and then Post to blog as shown above. Once you select the Post to Blog button on the right you’ll be taken through the same steps of registering the blog that you wish to publish to that has been detailed above.
From what I can see, you can’t use Windows Live Writer to publish posts to SharePoint Online although you can use it with SharePoint Server on premise. This I believe is mainly around the authentication Office 365 uses. That is a little disappointing as Windows Live Writer is a handy tool for working with SharePoint blogs and is free. Hopefully, it may one day support SharePoint Online as I feel it would drive more adoption, especially with businesses who have never blogged before.
Another thing to remember is that only the latest version of Word is supported as a blog editor on the Public Website.