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.

Blogging with SharePoint Online

I’ve written before about how important I believe blogging is. You can find some previous articles at:

Blogging for Business

Your blog is your living resume

The above video is also another great insight from management gurus Seth Godin and Tom Peters as to why blogging is so critical today.

What you may not realize is that SharePoint Online allows you to publish to blogs via a number of different methods. So what I’ll do over the next few posts is cover off all the details about that.

The first option that is available to you with SharePoint Online is to create a blog site in a Team Site. Remember, that a Team Site is designed for multiple people to work together and share different types of information together. A Team Site blog is a great way to capture information and ideas from all people working on the project and make it easy to share.

So to create a Team Site blog you’ll firstly, navigate to the Team Site you wish to the blog to appear beneath. With SharePoint Online a blog is created as a sub site.

You’ll also need to have the rights to create sub sites in SharePoint Online but if you do, select the Site Contents link from the Quick Launch Menu on the left hand side.

This will take you to the area where you can see all the apps you have installed into the SharePoint Team Site as well as add more.

Down the bottom of the window you will find a heading Subsites as well as link to create a new subsite. Select this to continue.

Much like creating a standard subsite you’ll be asked to complete the site Title and Description as well as the site URL suffix.

Now to get all the blogging abilities you need to select the Blog template option under the Collaboration tab in the Template Selection area as shown above.

You can then make any further changes to the desired blog site, scroll down and press the Create button.

In a matter of moments you should see the new blog site shown in the window.

You can now use the Blog tools options on the right hand side to interact with the blog site via the browser.

For example, if you select the option to Create a post you will see the screen above where you are able to enter blog post information directly via a browser with all the standard editing tools available by the SharePoint Ribbon Menu at the top. This includes the ability to change formatting as well as:

inserting a variety of items such as tables, images, videos, links, files by selecting the Insert ribbon tab. There is also the option to directly embed HTML code.

When you have finished editing your post you simply press the Publish button at the bottom of the screen. You will be returned to the home page of the site and your post should now be visible as shown above.

So that’s really al there is to creating a blog site for a Team Site in SharePoint Online and getting up and running. In the next few posts I’ll share some tips and tricks about how to more effectively use the blog that you have just created here so stay tuned.

Creating a sub site in your OneDrive for Business

In a recent post I covered off how to create an additional location for files in OneDrive for Business to overcome some of the current syncing limitations. There is another way that you can store additional files (and other items) in your OneDrive for Business.

Because OneDrive for Business is effectively a SharePoint Site Collection you can create any number of ‘subsites’ under the primary OneDrive for Business site. The default primary OneDrive for Business site basically only allows you to add document libraries as I showed in the previous post. However, by creating a ‘standard’ SharePoint subsite under the default you get all the flexibility that a normal SharePoint site has.

To create a subsite under your primary OneDrive for Business site follow these steps:

Firstly, navigate to your OneDrive for Business site.

In the top right select the COG and then Site contents from the menu that is displayed.

You should now see all the standard apps in your OneDrive for Business site. As the previous post highlighted, you can add an app here if you want.

If you however scroll down to the bottom of this page you will find a heading Subsites and a link new subsite. Select this.

You’ll now be taken to the familiar SharePoint dialog that allows you to create a subsite. You give the new subsite a name and URL suffix.

You then select which template you wish the subsite to be based on. Normally you select Team Site so all the features will be available to you.

You generally leave the other settings as default and press the Create button.

After a few moments you should see your subsite displayed.

You can now go into the Site Contents for this new subsite and add something like a Picture Library which you couldn’t do in the primary OneDrive for Business site.

Unfortunately, the only way that you can sync items in a OneDrive for Business subsite is to select sync manually as mentioned in the previous post. They will also not automatically appear in any mobile clients.

Thus, another way to divide up the space you have available in your OneDrive for Business apart from adding apps at the top level, is to create subsites off the primary site (just like any Team Site) and place you information there. Unfortunately, if you need to sync these items to your desktop you’ll have to do that manually and they also won’t appear in mobile clients.

An additional file location in OneDrive for Business

With OneDrive for Business now having 1TB of space available, more and more people are looking to take advantage of it and reduce the amount of files they have stored locally. However, simply dumping everything from a server into OneDrive for Business is not generally good idea.

The major reason is that OneDrive for Business is a “special” SharePoint site that by default contains a single document library called Documents as you can see above. Now, a single document library has a number of limitations that you will find when you start pumping lots of data in there.

The first is the 5,000 view item limit. You can read about it here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2759051

You can certainly have more than 5,000 items in library but above that limit you need to use views to limit the display to less than 5,000.

The second is that there is s 20,000 sync item limit. You can read about that here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2933738

Thus, you can sync up to 20,000 items from your OneDrive for Business and up to 5,000 from other SharePoint document libraries.

Now it used to be that you could sync up to a maximum of 20,000 files per site collection with a limit of 5,000 per individual document library. I can’t find any mention of those specifics so I am going to assume that you can keep syncing as many additional document libraries you want provided they are below the 5,000 item limit.

Thus, I am going to assume you can sync:

20,000 items in OneDrive for Business

+ 5,000 items from Document library 1

+ 5,000 items from Document library 2

+ 5,000 items from Document library 3

and so on without a limit on the number of document libraries you can sync.

Another issue once you start getting a lot of files is that the OneDrive for Business desktop sync application does not allow you to select which files you wish to sync. Thus, you have no option but to sync the entire document library.

So how do you handle the situation when you exceed the 20,000 items in OneDrive for Business but still want to sync to your desktop? Here’ s an option that may work.

What you may not appreciate is that you can add additional document libraries to OneDrive for Business.

To do that access your OneDrive for Business and select the COG in the upper right corner. From the menu that appears select Add an app.

One of the apps you will see here is Document Library which you should select.

Some interesting points to note here is that there are only a limited set of apps that you can add, not like on a normal SharePoint Team Site. Secondly, you can however add apps from the SharePoint Online store!

Give your document library a name (here photos) and press the Create button.

You’ll now see that library has been added to the OneDrive for Business site. Select it to view its contents.

You should see the document library as normal as you can see. However, note that the library appears under the Newsfeed menu item on the top NOT the OneDrive item.

If you select OneDrive from the menu you are returned to the initial page and unfortunately there is no link on this page to the document library you just created. If you back to the Newsfeed page you will find it.

If you return to your newly created document library you can upload files to it as you normally can. You can also sync those files to your desktop using the sync client BUT is the limit of that 5,000 because it is an additional document library or is it 20,000 because this library is part of OneDrive for Business? I think it best to assume 5,000.

Unfortunately, from what I can see this newly create document library will not automatically appear on mobile devices using the OneDrive for Business mobile app. The only library that appears is the default Documents one.

Now if I sync this newly created document library to my desktop you’ll see that it doesn’t appear under OneDrive for Business it appears synced under the SharePoint document library area as shown above.

Therefore, although creating additional document libraries in OneDrive for Business can help you overcome what appears to be a 20,000 file limit and allow you to overcome the need to sync everything from a single document library, as you can see it still has limitations.

Getting Started With SharePoint Online Workflows

A very common question I see is ‘How do I create SharePoint Workflows?’. With that in mind I have written this new publication. You can purchase it at:

http://www.ciaops.com/publications

The book will show you how to implement your first workflows using SharePoint Designer and SharePoint Online. It is aimed at those who have never created a SharePoint workflow and are looking to get started.

The book does not provide a deep dive into SharePoint Designer, programming or SharePoint Online. It is merely designed to give you a basic understanding of how to create workflows so you can start building and publishing your own quickly.

However, here’s the publishing twist I’ve decided to try with this publication. If you purchase a copy and register you’ll receive any future editions of the book for free. Even better, if you provide feedback on what you’d like to see in the book I’ll give you a free copy of my other eBook Getting Started With SharePoint 2013. You can register and provide feedback at:

http://www.ciaops.com/contact

So why am I doing this? Well, once I started writing the book I began to wonder in which direction I should take it? Should there be more about the logic of workflows? More about the workflow creation tool? More about creating standard solutions? I just wasn’t sure what people would want to see in the publication but you can find the existing table of contents here:

Getting Started With SharePoint Online Workflows – Table of Contents

So, I decided to stop with just the basics and try to find out what people would like to see by making this ‘free editions for life’ offer.

I feel the book needs more content but I need people who aren’t experienced in workflows to tell me what makes sense in a title like this. I am just not sure what makes sense content-wise beyond what is already there.

Rest assured that if you do purchase the book and register, I’ll be updating it when I have enough content suggestions. You’ll then get the updated edition for free in recognition of your ongoing support.

So let’s see what happens with this little experiment.

Creating a SharePoint Online site collection

After recently showing you how to delete a SharePoint Online site collection via the web console and PowerShell the next step is obviously to show you how to create a new site collection.

Via the Web console

Login to the Office 365 web console as an administrator. Then in the top right select the Admin menu option and SharePoint from the menu that appears.

This will take you to the SharePoint admin center as shown above. This will show you all the site collections you currently have. The SharePoint admin center is only available if you have a M or E plan. It is unfortunately not available if you have an Office 365 Small Business plan.

From the Ribbon Menu across the top of the page select New then Private Site Collection from the menu that appears.

This will open a new dialog window as shown above. Enter the following for your new site:

Title – What name will appear across the top of the home page.

Web Site Address – The URL suffix you want to use when navigating to the site. best practice is to keep this as short as possible and devoid of special characters.

Template Selection:

– Language – as required

– Select a template – select from the options available along the tabs across the top. In most cases you will simply select Team Site under the Collaboration tab but you can select whatever template you wish including ones you have created yourself previously.

Scroll down for more options.

Adjust the Time Zone and set the site collection Administrator. Next set the amount of storage (in MB) you wish the new site to have in Storage Quota as well as the Server Resource Quota value.

When complete, press the OK button to create the new site collection.

You should now see in the top right corner of the screen a message letting your know that the site is being created as shown above.

You should also see the URL of the new site collection appear in the list with a green spinning animation at the end indicating that it is current being created.

Once the creation process is complete you will see the NEW icon displayed next to the hyperlinked URL.

You should now be able to navigate to the URL of the site as the site collection administrator you configured earlier. Don’t forget you may need to configure other users access to this new site if required.

Via PowerShell

You’ll need to connect to Office 365 PowerShell and SharePoint Online via PowerShell firstly.

Run the command:

get-spowebtemplate

to get a list of all the site templates that are available within your tenant.

Here we are going to use the Team Site template whose name is STS#0

Run the command:

new-sposite –url https://<tenant-name> –owner <site collection admin email> –storagequota <size in MB> –resourcequota <server resources> –title “<site name>” –template <template>

In this case

new-sposite –url https://ciaops365.sharepoint.com/sites/demo2 –owner admin@ciaops365.com –storagequota 5000 –resourcequota 30 –title “Demo2” –template STS#0

The PowerShell window will now pause until the site creation is complete. If you now look in the SharePoint admin center via the web console (refreshing the browser may be required), you should see the site being created as shown above.

After a few moments the site will be created as before and the PowerShell window will return to a prompt.

You can force the PowerShell script to return to the command prompt without waiting until the site collection is created by using the:

-nowait

at the end of the creation line.

So there are the two methods of creating a new SharePoint Online site collection in M and E plans using both the web console and PowerShell.

Deleting an Office 365 Site Collection using PowerShell

In the last post I showed you how to remove a complete Office 365 SharePoint Online site collection via the web interface. Now I’ll show you to do it with PowerShell.

This time I want to remove a site collection whose URL is https://ciaops365.sharepoint.com/sites/bootcamp. You can see that it appears in the list of sites in the web interface.

You’ll need to connect to Office 365 PowerShell and SharePoint Online via PowerShell firstly.

Then you need to run the following command:

remove-sposite –identity –nowait

thus in my case:

remove-sposite –identity https://ciaops365.sharepoint.com/sites/bootcamp –nowait

You’ll then be prompted to confirm the deletion. Press Y to delete the site and send it to the recycle bin.

If you refresh the page with the list of site collections the deleted site collection no longer appears.

If you now got to the sites collection recycle bin you will see both sites that have been deleted. One via the web interface and the one just now via PowerShell.

PowerShell provides you an ability that the web interface doesn’t. You can delete the site from the recycle bin and remove it completely.

To do that you need to run the command:

remove-spodeletedsite –identity

thus in my case:

remove-spodeletedsite –identity https://ciaops365.sharepoint.com/sites/bootcamp

You need to confirm the permanent removal by pressing Y.

If you refresh the web page displaying the site collection recycle bin you will see that the site has been removed completely.

Since I don’t need the other site I deleted previously using the web interface I will use PowerShell again to remove it permanently.

If we check the site collection recycle bin in the web interface there are no more site collections in the recycle bin as expected.

PowerShell provides you with more options when it comes to managing Office 365 and that is why you should be using it if you aren’t already!

Deleting an Office 365 site collection

There comes a time in the life of every Office 365 tenant where you need to do some house cleaning. In this case we are going to delete whole SharePoint Online Site Collection.

This means all the sites, apps, sub site, web parts, everything is going to be deleted. Note, I’ll be showing you how to do this for an M and E plans. The P or Small Business Plans only have a single private site collection and in most cases you probably don’t want to delete that! However, given the flexibility of both M and E plans to create multiple private Site Collections it means that you may need to clean house now and again.

You’ll need to be an Office 365 administrator to do this and for this post we’ll do our deleting via the web console. Login to the Office 365 portal and select the Admin option in the top right of the window and then SharePoint from the drop down menu that appears.

This will take you to the SharePoint Admin Center as shown above where you can see a list of all your Site Collections.

From the list of Site Collections place a check to the left of the one you wish to delete. You should then find the Delete button is available on the Ribbon Menu at the top of the screen. Press the Delete button to remove the Site Collection.

You’ll receive the above warning asking you to confirm the deletion. You’ll see that the deleted Site Collection will remain in a Recycle Bin for 30 days allowing you to recover it if necessary. Beyond that it is gone for good.

Press the Delete button to proceed.

In the top right of the window you will see the message about the Site Collection being deleted and then a message when the process is complete.

The Site Collection will no longer appear the the list in the SharePoint Admin Center.

But if you now go to the Recycle Bin via the Ribbon Menu it should appear as you see above. You can from there recover it for up to 30 days if desired.