SharePoint Online Service Update

Michael Bratley / / Office 365

The second service update to SharePoint Online has begun rolling out world wide and includes a number of improvements. The improvements include enhanced enterprise support, where the service now supports up to 500,000 users, and changes to the recycle bin, where numerous levels of recovery are now offered.

Other changes include, better external sharing and enhanced PDF support.

External sharing has been made simpler in this service update . You no longer have to use domain specific email addresses, you must associate the email address with your Windows Live ID for it to work.

PDF’s will now open without the need to be downloaded, however you must have the latest version of Adobe Reader installed for this to work.

Full details can be found at: http://goo.gl/NRRVm.

Microsoft Project & SharePoint

Michael Bratley / / Capabilities

A late find is that Microsoft Project can be integrated into a SharePoint site, which enables project managers to easily share project tasks, milestones and timescales.

The article details the ways in which Microsoft Project can be setup with SharePoint. The architecture of your SharePoint setup will determine the method you use  integrate Microsoft Project with it. One of the ways for example includes synchronising the tasks within Microsoft Project to a tasks list within the SharePoint project site. Another way that you can set it up is with the use of a Project Management Server, which allows greater functionality.

For mobile customers, the best current way to interact with SharePoint is to use a Windows Phone. Windows Phone will synchronise loads of documents with SharePoint Online sites. You can also use Microsoft OneNote 2010 to make notes and these will be synchronised to the SharePoint Project site.

The recent article, in full, was posted at the following link: http://goo.gl/LQ9rV. There is also the white paper from Microsoft available here: http://goo.gl/sCQWU.

SharePoint 15

Michael Bratley / / Research

February 7th, 2012

SharePoint 15 will continue to have these great features;  Excel Services, Access Services, InfoPath Forms Services, User Profile Service, Search Services, Business Connectivity Services and PerformancePoint Services. It will also have these new / greatly improved features; Content Management Service, Translation Services, Workflow Services, SharePoint Quiz Client-Side Object Model Protocol, Education Services and Work Management Service. SharePoint expert Bjorn Furuknap has said he sees SharePoint Education an interesting step for Microsoft. He goes on to suggest that Microsoft is moving into this area to compete with other platforms such as Moodle and Blackboard. You can follow Bjorn on Twitter for other SharePoint news (@furuknap).

We will update this page as more details are made available.

February 1st, 2012

With news of the preview of Office 15 comes a preview of the next major version of SharePoint, currently code named SharePoint 15 and only available to selected customers. It may also be known as SharePoint 2013, however the name of the software has yet to be announced. Little is known about SharePoint 15 at this early stage.

Office 15

Michael Bratley / / Research

The next version of Microsoft Office, code named Office 15, has now entered the Technology Adoption Program stage. This is where a select group of customers get to use the new software and provide feedback that will ultimately finalise the software for a public release. Although no details have officially been released it is said that Office 15 will have even better integration with SharePoint. The public trial is due to start in the summer and the final release for general sale due by the end of 2012. It has also been rumoured that the software could be supported on multiple platforms, including iOS. Office 15 will likely be called Office 2012 or Office 2013 depending on when the final release is made.

Lync Web Scheduler

Michael Bratley / / Office 365

A new web based application has been released called Lync Web Scheduler. The application allows users that don’t have access to Microsoft Outlook or users of operating systems other than Windows the ability to Schedule and Manage meetings.

 

The functionality is currently basic. Once you have created a meeting, you will receive a link that you can use to send to the participants of your meeting. You do have the option to export the meeting to native calendar applications like iCal on OS X. The functionality will allow users of other operating systems such as Linux and OS X, or users without access to Microsoft Outlook