Automations, implementation, flexible frameworks with Microsoft Power Automate
Automations, implementation, flexible frameworks. They all sound great, but… Read More
Procore customers can now automatically integrate documents between Microsoft Teams and Procore. The latest product from Microsoft Office 365, MS Teams, is… Read More
Real Estate Executives focus on replacing outdated systems and the need for cloud and mobile solutions.
Positive year-over-year growth is almost any businesses… Read More
Microsoft has officially released SharePoint hub sites and is gradually rolling them out to Office 365 customers. The first announcement of SharePoint hub… Read More
Construction Project Management: Stop Using Spreadsheets
Having and maintaining accurate, up-to-date employee data is crucial in the construction business. If… Read More
SharePoint's Two-Way API Integrates Document Libraries Right into Procore
Procore customers can now automatically update SharePoint and Procore libraries simultaneously… Read More
With the seamless integration of Office 365 and SharePoint Online, Microsoft has breathed new life into SharePoint, one of the most used platforms for collaboration,… Read More
Microsoft SharePoint is one of the best tools to manage company data. However, finding an expert SharePoint consultant can be a difficult and time-consuming… Read More
Automations, implementation, flexible frameworks with Microsoft Power Automate
Automations, implementation, flexible frameworks. They all sound great, but how do they actually benefit your business? With Microsoft Power Automate, the possibilities may be endless but the benefits are easy to see. HingePoint is breaking down three key examples of how to supercharge your workflow and improve your organization’s productivity, processes, and bottom line. Grab your notepad and prepare to reimagine your business. Now let’s dive in.
1. Easily integrate with hundreds of software applications
When businesses perform automation, the main barrier we see them face is the connectivity to specific services they already use. For example, integrations that connect data from a SharePoint list or from an Excel sheet to the OneDrive for storage aren’t always available. Power Automation seamlessly integrates with SharePoint project management tools, SharePoint workflows, and other systems that may already be in place within your organization.
Our approach: To resolve this issue, we use SharePoint Designer Workflow, lists, and libraries to perform the automation. We also utilize Microsoft Flow to integrate with thousands of other software and services. Not only does Power Automate easily connect with Microsoft products, but it also communicates with ease with other programs.
2. Automated triggers so you don’t have to lift a finger
In any automation, the most important step is defining what trigger or action signals the start of an automation process. When do you want automation to be sent and what determining factor dictates that initiation?
Our approach: We use the Microsoft Flow Triggers to start the automation process. These triggers specify how and when a workflow gets carried out. We also create custom triggers specifically to collect data and perform further business operation logics.
3. Email automation that actually works
Power Automate can decipher an email’s content and process it according to predetermined filters. For example, an organization can utilize email automation for their invoice approval process. Power Automate takes an invoice as an email attachment and moves it into the library for automatic invoice approval. Simple, easy, and effective.
Our approach: We implement a filter according to specific keywords in an email’s subject line, body content, or by the email sender’s address.
How to set up Power Automate in your business
If your team isn’t already implementing Microsoft Power Automations (formerly Microsoft Flow), we highly recommend you explore the benefits it can bring to your workflow. From seamless integrations to preset power automation, your team can work smarter, not harder, with this tool. As a SharePoint consultant, we understand the complexities that come with integrations and setups. HingePoint has over 15 years of experience with SharePoint and has helped more than 200 companies implement SharePoint solutions. Our unique process ensures that you get a solution that works for you and even comes with a performance guarantee. That’s how sure we are that you’ll love Power Automate. If you’re ready to get started, we are here to help. Contact HingePoint today to learn more about how Microsoft Power Automate can work for you.
Examples
Workflow 1: Loan/Case ManagementSearch existing cases and verify history and statusApporove the CaseDashboardWorkflow 2: New project requestDashboardHistory
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[post_content] => Procore customers can now automatically integrate documents between Microsoft Teams and Procore. The latest product from Microsoft Office 365, MS Teams, is the collaboration work hub on Office 365 (O365) that includes communications for calls, chat and online meetings as well as documents that is widely adopted by the business community. To better serve the needs of the construction industry, HingePoint is expanding the Procore SharePoint 2 Way Sync solution to work seamlessly with MS Teams. Now all your documents in SharePoint, OneDrive, MS Teams will be fully synchronized with Procore on all devices from the browser, mobile, apps and desktop tools. HingePoint will make the release public in December 2018 in the Procore App Marketplace.
Read the full press release on PRWeb here >>SharePoint Two-Way Sync shares and mirrors files, folders and documents in both SharePoint and Procore libraries through a connector created by HingePoint, a Dallas-based company. The connector is built on the Microsoft cloud platform Azure and integrates SharePoint as the backbone of Digital Business Hubs that keep companies fully integrated with data, documents, and workflows to streamline construction and real estate development businesses.
This big development will allow companies more efficient ways of working, ensuring that new systems will not create more complexity or fracture the company’s enterprise ability to collaborate. Now construction companies can leverage the best of what both Microsoft and Procore offer by keeping all of their documents synchronized across all systems and devices. These systems talking to each other is the solution that clients are looking for when field teams struggle to collaborate with clients and contractors and keep all their information up to date and shared across all subcontractors.
“This is not a simple connector product app, it’s an actual real-time API integration that lets MS Teams, SharePoint, and Procore libraries mirror one another while having the security of both systems. This expands our solutions for the construction industry” HingePoint Managing Director Bryce Finnerty said.
HingePoint is offering a pricing model that will allow clients to license a turn-key solution that can be set up in a few hours. A solution that our clients can host in their own Azure environment scale to 100’s of projects across the enterprise will be key going forward.
A growing number of construction companies use MS Teams and SharePoint as their system of record to store important data about employees, contracts and project analytics. This connector eliminates multiple repositories of documents in both Procore and SharePoint and connects the construction unit to the rest of the company.
The new integration HingePoint provides for Procore reflects each organization’s commitment to openness and building out the construction technology ecosystem. What we call Digital Business Hubs, with the new connector, companies can automatically and securely sync files between Procore, MS Teams and SharePoint or Office 365, which will save time and confusion when managing project documents.
Digital Business Hubs creates better collaboration with the teams that are not in the construction space.
"We're excited for HingePoint to expand their integration to the MS Teams platform, once launched on the App Marketplace this will provide tangible new value to Procore users." said Doug Gibson, Business Development Manager at Procore. "This new solution for MS Teams is a testament to HingePoint's commitment to the construction industry and value of the Procore App Marketplace."
HingePoint integrates software so data can move from one system to another. They specialize in building custom tools that detect and collect data project and financial data, so a business can get control of their business.
Learn More Procore Solutions >>Read the full press release on PRWeb here >>For more information of a Demo, contact HingePoint today.
About HingePoint
HingePoint is a recently acquired WCI Consulting company (June 1st, 2018) that offers cloud, mobile and analytics applications for construction and real estate that are easy to adopt and employees love. Specializing in the systems that run the construction and real estate business including SharePoint, MS Teams, Salesforce, Procore, MS Dynamics, and Autodesk. Scale and grow profitably with Financial and Project Management Analytics, document management, and workflow automation for field to office collaboration.
HingePoint
8105 Rasor Blvd.
Suite 241
Plano, TX 75024
(214) 301-0000www.hingepoint.com
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Microsoft Office 365 Online updates of Oct 2018. There are so many updates coming out all the time from Microsoft and HingePoint wants you to know what they are. We will summarize the big releases for you here and how they might impact you.
Updated feature: Ability to view and apply site designs from within a SharePoint site
Until now, you could only apply site designs to existing sites by using PowerShell. With this update we are providing a new site setting to view any applied site designs and apply additional ones. We’ll begin rolling this feature out soon.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID: 44327.
How does this affect me?
After this change takes place, there will be a new site setting option for site owners to display a new site design information panel. If any site designs have been published to the tenant they will be displayed in the picker. Only site owners and site collection administrators have access to invoke this panel – and it respects any additional scopes on the published site designs, so only those available to the viewer will be displayed. If any sites designs have been applied to the site, they will also be displayed and can be selected to view what changes were applied. We’ll be gradually rolling this out to Targeted Release organizations in mid-December, and the rollout will be completed worldwide by the end of December.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
You don't need to do anything, but if you are using site designs you may consider updating your user training and notifying your helpdesk.
Please click Additional information to learn more.
Additional information
Published On: November 28, 2018
We're releasing multiple updates for SharePoint news
We’re updating SharePoint news to enable organizational news site designation, organizational news special visual styling, audience targeting, and the ability to organize news posts so that they display in the order you choose. We'll begin rolling these features out soon.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap IDs: 30547, 30694, 30695, 33469 and 44212.
How does this affect me?
When this change goes into effect, you’ll be able to: - Designate specific sites as organizational news sources. Once you’ve designated a site, users will see organizational news articles interleaved with their personalized news feed. The organizational news will be distinguished by special visual styling. In the SharePoint mobile app, you can filter to see all news, personalized, organizational, or news you’ve saved for later. - Organize how news displays in the news web part. The news web part will be updated to allow page authors to organize their news articles into a specific order, as opposed to the automatic rotation that occurs today. - SharePoint news will now support audience targeting. If you’ve set up groups within your organization, you’ll be able to target pages and news to these groups. The news web part has a checkbox to allow page authors to choose to show all news, or news targeted based on a group the current user is a member of. The SharePoint mobile app and SharePoint home experiences will always filter news targeted to the current user (there is no option to change or disable this setting, unlike the news web part). We'll gradually roll these updates out to Targeted Release organizations in early December. The roll out will be completed worldwide by the end of February.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change. Please click Additional Information to learn more.
Please click Additional information to learn more.
Additional information
Published On: November 21, 2018
JavaScript React framework 16.3.2 is coming to SharePoint Online
In order to improve your SharePoint Online experience, we're making an update to one of the underlying components that powers SharePoint framework solutions on modern pages. This only impacts solutions that leverage the React JavaScript framework. If you don't have custom SharePoint Framework Solutions which leverage the React JavaScript framework installed in your App Catalog, you can disregard the remainder of this message. Starting on November 27, 2018 we're upgrading the React version from 15.6.2 to 16.3.2.
How does this affect me?
You are receiving this message because SharePoint Online framework solutions that use the React JavaScript framework should be validated with React 16.3.2. Today, existing and recently updated solutions leverage React 15.6.2. This update will go into effect on November 27, 2018 and will first be made available to Targeted Release organizations.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
If your organization is in the Targeted Release program, we recommend that you add your web part developers as Targeted Release users, which will enable them to validate their solutions on your production system. If there is an issue with the solution, please refer your developers to the linked documentation on how they can resolve issues in the short and long term. Short term by targeting their webpart to React 15, longer term by resolving any stricter requirements of React 16. If there is an issue that they are unable to resolve in the short term, please call support to make us aware of the issue. We can very temporarily (e.g. less than one month) flight your tenant out of the roll-out to resolve any service impacts.
Please click Additional information to learn more.
Additional information
Published On: November 19, 2018
Updated feature: we're rolling out new SharePoint Online site branding and navigation features
We are expanding the set of options available to configure the look and feel of a site. This includes an updated “change the look” panel with settings to more easily customize the site header, footer, and navigation layout. We’ll begin rolling out these features soon.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap IDs: 33131, 33132, 33138, and 43781.
How does this affect me?
We are updating the “change the look” settings with additional options to enable customization of select site brand elements – specifically, header layouts, footer layouts, and navigation menu options. In addition to setting the theme and header background, site owners will now be able to switch the site header layout to two other layouts, each changing the position or displaying of header elements. The new mega menu navigation layout is only available for horizontally-oriented navigations and allows for a panel display of links up to three levels. The footer setting is initially only available for communication sites, displaying a footer that can host a logo, links, and label. Along with these updates, the Content Bar (also referred to as the “social bar”) - which contains the Like, Comment, View and Save for Later icons - will be docked permanently on top of the Comments section on all modern pages. We'll begin rolling this out to Targeted Release organizations at the end of November, and the roll out will be completed worldwide by the end of December.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
This is an update to an existing feature, adding more options to the "change the look" settings panel that can be optionally applied by the site owner. You don't need to do anything, but if you are using site designs you may consider updating your user training and notifying your helpdesk.
Please click Additional information to learn more.
Additional information
Published On: November 16, 2018
New feature: @mentions in comments in SharePoint Online
@mentions in comments is a new Office 365 feature. We'll begin rolling this feature out soon
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID: 43982.
How does this affect me?
When you comment on a document or presentation and use the @ sign with someone's name, the person you mention receives mail with a link to your comment. Clicking the link brings them into the document and into the conversation. Currently, this feature is available in Word and PowerPoint, and is coming soon to the new comment experience in Excel (available only to Office Insiders for now). We’ve begun rolling this out to Targeted Release organizations and are now continuing the roll out to all SharePoint Online organizations. During the course of the rollout, some Targeted Release organizations may experience sporadic access to this feature, and some documents and presentations will include this functionality, and others will not. Once the rollout completes, all Word and PowerPoint files will have this functionality, and all users will have access to the feature. We anticipate roll out completion to take place in the next weeks. After rollout completion, users will receive a notice within the comments pane informing them of the @mentions feature.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change.
Please click Additional information to learn more.
Additional information
Published On: November 16, 2018
New feature: Location Columns for SharePoint Online lists
Location Column is a new SharePoint Online feature. We'll begin rolling this feature out soon.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID: 33593.
How does this affect me?
Location Column allows you to add rich location data from Bing Maps or your organization’s directory to any SharePoint Online list or library. You can then filter, sort, and search by any aspect of the location data such as address, city, or state. We'll be gradually rolling this out to Targeted Release organizations at the end of November, and we expect the roll out will be completed worldwide by December 14.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change.
Please click Additional information to learn more.
Additional information
Published On: November 14, 2018
Updated feature: Manage Access in OneDrive for Business and SharePoint Online
We’re updating the Manage Access experience in OneDrive for Business and SharePoint Online. We'll begin rolling this feature out in the coming weeks.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID: 27500.
How does this affect me?
We are rolling out our new Manage Access experience to better align with how users expect to be able to manage links and permissions on individual files and folders. We've updated the experience to make it easier to distinguish between users who have access directly and users who are accessing via links. Most importantly, this new experience will enable users to add and remove individual users on links that only work for specific people. We'll be gradually rolling this out to all customers in mid-November, and the roll out will be completed worldwide by the end of December.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
You don't need to do anything, but may consider updating your user training, and notifying your helpdesk.
Please click Additional information to learn more.
Additional information
Published On: November 06, 2018
New Feature: Create an associated site from within a SharePoint Online hub site
The ability to create a new associated site from within an existing SharePoint Online hub site is a new Office 365 feature. We'll begin rolling this feature out soon.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID: 33134.
How does this affect me?
After this change takes place, you’ll be able to create associated sites from within an existing SharePoint Online hub site. By clicking the "new site" button right in the hub site itself, you’ll experience our normal new site creation process and the site will be automatically associated to the hub site. Only users who have access to join the specified hub site will have this option available to them. This feature respects the global site creation setting. We'll be gradually rolling this out to Targeted Release organizations in mid-November, and the roll out will be completed worldwide by the end of December.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
You don't need to do anything, but may consider updating your user training, and notifying your helpdesk.
Please click Additional information to learn more.
Additional information
Published On: October 29, 2018
Improving the way, we show user's private OneDrive content in Microsoft Search in SharePoint
To improve the way, we show user's private OneDrive content in Microsoft Search in SharePoint, we're making some changes to the way searches are handled in SharePoint Online.
During November we will make changes to the default SharePoint Online search experience to make content from the user's own OneDrive for Business more clearly separated in the search results. With this change, the results will be clearly labeled as 'Results from your OneDrive'.
An important reason for this change, is feedback from customers that returning search results from private content mixed with all other content may be confusing in an enterprise search result. Also, a clearer interface delineation aids user to find the content they are looking for faster. Private content is content that hasn’t been shared with anyone else from the user’s own OneDrive.
How does this affect me?
Starting November 26, in addition to the UX change, we will change the default scope for user queries issued via the Microsoft SharePoint CSOM and REST search API, in which private, non-shared results are filtered out of the tenant-wide search experience. As a reminder, users will only see results they have access to, including files in SharePoint and OneDrive that are shared with others.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
If your organization uses the SharePoint Online search API to power a search experience, and users expect to receive results from SharePoint and OneDrive for Business, including their private OneDrive for Business content, review the Additional Information to learn more.
Additional information
Published On: October 19, 2018
We're improving your SharePoint admin center
We’re updating the SharePoint admin center. We'll begin rolling these changes out soon.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID: 42304.
How does this affect me?
We’re making improvements to the new SharePoint admin center.
The new SharePoint admin experience provides a completely revamped SharePoint admin center that draws heavily on our modern principles an administrative console designed to help IT achieve more, so their users can achieve more. Beginning in late October we’re adding new capabilities to this admin center to include:
- The ability to set as your default admin center
- Improvements to managing group-connected sites
- New options to manage and configure hub sites and associated sites
- Additional options to allow for configuring default site creation properties
We'll be gradually rolling this out to Targeted Release "entire org" customers in late October, and the roll out will be completed worldwide by the end of January.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change.
Please click Additional Information to learn more.
Additional information
Published On: October 10, 2018
New feature: Create a reminder in SharePoint Online
Create a reminder in SharePoint Online is a new Office 365 feature. We'll begin rolling this feature out soon. This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID: 34267.
How does this affect me?
After this change takes place, if you have a custom date column in a list or library, you can now create an email reminder a number of days in advance of the date column selection. We began gradually rolling this out to Targeted Release ("entire org") customers in early October 2018, and the rollout will be completed worldwide by the end of October. This rollout is excluded from Office 365 subscriptions where Microsoft Flow is not available today.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change. Users will get an additional option to create a reminder under the Flow menu in lists and libraries if custom date columns exist in lists or libraries.
Additional information
Published On: October 9, 2018
New feature: @mentions in page comments in SharePoint Online
@mentions is a new SharePoint Online feature. We’ll begin rolling this feature out soon. This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap IDs: 30693 and 33470.
How does this affect me?
After this change takes place, users will be able to @mention their colleagues in the comment section of modern pages & news posts. This functionality is available in SharePoint Online and in SharePoint Online mobile apps for Android and iOS. The person who is mentioned will be notified via push notification in the SharePoint Online mobile app and in email. If the mentioned individual does not have access to the page where they are mentioned, then no notification is sent to the user. When mentioning a person, the commenter is made aware if the person does not have access to the page they are being mentioned in, and that they will not be notified of the mention. We'll be gradually rolling this out to Targeted Release organizations in mid-October 2018 and the roll out will be completed worldwide by mid-November 2018.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change. Please click Additional Information to learn more.
Additional information
Published On: September 04, 2018
New feature: Modern library content types and document templates in SharePoint Online
We are rolling out a new feature in SharePoint Online that will allow adding document templates to a SharePoint library as any content type. We'll begin rolling this feature out soon. This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID 33039
How does this affect me?
With this new feature, we are adding the streamlined ability to add document templates to library content types. We’re also adding the ability to edit the New menu to add, hide, or reorder the new file type options. We'll be gradually rolling this out to Targeted Release customers in early September, and the worldwide rollout is expected to be completed by the end of October.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change. Please click Additional Information to learn more.
Additional Information.
Published On: August 31, 2018
Updated feature: New group management capabilities in SharePoint Online admin center
We’re updating Office 365 Group management capabilities in the SharePoint Online admin center. We'll begin rolling this feature out soon. In the current Microsoft 365 admin center experience, the following Microsoft 365 admin roles can manage Office 365 Groups: global administrators, user administrators, and Exchange administrators. In response to customer feedback, we will provide additional SharePoint Online administrator permissions to manage Office 365 Groups in the new SharePoint Online admin center. This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID: 32864
How does this affect me?
After this change takes place, SharePoint Online administrators will be able to perform the following tasks to SharePoint Online team sites tied to Office 365 Groups: create, restore and change Owners of a group. We'll be gradually rolling this change out starting in October, and the rollout will continue through the end of the year as part of a broader refresh of the new SharePoint Online admin center. We anticipate rollout completion worldwide by the end of January.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change. Please click Additional Information to learn more.
Additional Information.
Published On: August 28, 2018
New feature: Mass delete notification in SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business
We’re launching a new mass delete notification feature for SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business. We'll begin rolling this feature out soon. This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID: 31754
How does this affect me?
To help raise awareness of uncommon or accidental file deletions, we will now make a best effort attempt at notifying your users if a large number of files are deleted, and we will provide the option to restore those files. For OneDrive for Business users, if a large number of files are deleted from a user's OneDrive, the user will receive an email notifying them of the deletion and it will include an option to restore their files from their Recycle Bin. For SharePoint Online team sites, if a large number of files are deleted, the person that deleted them – either the site owner or a member – will be sent an email notifying them of the deletion and it will include an option to restore their files from their Recycle Bin. Notifications are sent to users when a higher than usual number of files are deleted per hour. This is not to be considered a fail-safe file recovery solution – it is a continuation of best efforts we are making to protect your files from accidental loss. Each email notification will include an unsubscribe link at the bottom for those that wish to opt out of this type of notification. We've begun gradually rolling this out to Targeted Release organizations, and the rollout will continue for Standard Release organizations in late September. This rollout is excluded from Office 365 subscriptions in GCC, GCC High, BlackForest, and Gallatin.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change. Please click Additional Information to learn more.
Additional Information.
Published On: August 28, 2018
Updated feature: New ways to configure flows in SharePoint Online
Based on the feedback we’ve received from Office 365 administrators like you, we are introducing a new option in our libraries to be able to pick the approval mode desired (Request sign-off, or Content approval), or to turn approvals off altogether. We'll begin rolling this feature out soon. This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID: 30551
How does this affect me?
-Site owners will now be able to go to lists or libraries, and click on "Configure flows", which will bring up a new panel with settings that will allow them to change the approval mode or to turn approvals off altogether. We'll be gradually rolling this out to Targeted Release organizations in early September, and the roll out will be completed worldwide in mid-September.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change. Please click Additional Information to learn more.
Additional Information.
Published On: August 23, 2018
Updated features: SharePoint Online News and modern pages
We’re updating SharePoint Online news and are improving the modern page editing experience. We'll begin rolling these updates out soon.
This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap IDs: 32696 &32970.
How does this affect me?
After these updates roll out, you will experience the following changes:
- SharePoint Online News updates: Besides the new carousel layout in the News web part, we’re enabling you to reuse existing content in the SharePoint Online News distribution system. With News link you can share a link to items like existing news within your company, news from your public website, LinkedIn articles, and so on. The News link will automatically show an image, title, and description for the link when available. Each of these values can be edited by the author.
- Modern page editing updates: Users who go to edit a modern page will be able to see if someone else is already editing that page. They’ll be able to see who that person is and how to contact them. Additionally, to prevent unintentional page lockouts, a user’s editing session will time out after 5 minutes if no changes have been made to the page content.
These updates will gradually roll out to Targeted Release organizations in early September, and the roll out will be completed worldwide by the end of November.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change. Please click Additional Information to learn more.
Additional Information.
Published On: August 22, 2018
New feature: Add a SharePoint Online page, news or list as a tab in Microsoft Teams
Today, team members can work with SharePoint Online files and document libraries directly inside the Microsoft Teams user experience.
After this change takes place, when you ‘add a tab’ in Teams using the ‘SharePoint’ tab app, we are making it easier to choose between available lists, pages and news items -- to quickly bring them into Microsoft Teams.
This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID: 30687.
How does this affect me?
This feature will allow you and your users to select SharePoint Online team site news articles, pages, and lists from a simple dialog box that shows all available content from the connected SharePoint Online team site. Once you choose the desired SharePoint Online-based content, it will appear as a tab in Teams and will remain intact within SharePoint Online.
We'll be gradually rolling this out to Targeted Release "entire org" organizations in late August 2018, and we anticipate rollout completion by the end of September 2018.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change. Please click Additional Information to learn more.
Additional Information.
Published On: August 22, 2018
New feature: SharePoint Online view formatting
SharePoint Online view formatting is a new Office 365 feature. We'll begin rolling this feature out soon. This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID: 32990.
How does this affect me?
With this change, you’ll be able to improve the display of views in SharePoint Online lists with formatting. The view formatting text describes the elements that are displayed and their display style. The data in the list doesn't change. Anyone who can create and manage views in a list can access view formatting from the View options menu. We'll be gradually rolling this out to Targeted Release organizations in late August, and the rollout will be completed worldwide by the end of September.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change. Please click Additional Information to learn more.
Additional Information.
Published On: August 20, 2018
Updated feature: Apply existing site designs to associated hub sites in SharePoint Online
In August 2018, we’re rolling out an update to SharePoint Online hub sites that will allow for site designs to be applied to associated sites. This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID: 30699.
How does this affect me?
Once a site gets associated to a hub site, it not only inherits the theme of the hub site, it can now be further configured using a site design – providing a powerful management option to further configure any associated sites to enforce permissions and configure additional site components using site scripts. You can learn more about site designs and site scripts here: https://aka.ms/spsitedesigns. This is an optional hub site setting. The site design and associated site script will need to have already been published in your organization. If you don’t wish to reuse this site design in self-service site creation be sure to scope it to restrict visibility. You can learn more about site designs scoping here: https://docs.microsoft.com/sharepoint/dev/declarative-customization/site-design-scoping. We’ll begin rolling these changes out to Targeted Release organizations before the end of August and the roll out will be completed worldwide by early October.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
This is an optional setting that can be configured for each hub in your organization. No changes will be made to your current hub configurations, so if don’t want to enable this additional extensibility option for your organization, then no additional action is required. Please click Additional Information to learn more.
Additional Information.
Published On: August 15, 2018
Updated feature: Revised versioning settings in OneDrive for Business and in team sites in SharePoint Online
As we previously announced in MC138148, we will be providing an option to opt out of the upcoming document library versioning setting update. The library versioning update will prevent your users from disabling versioning, thus ensuring the availability of recoverable content. You can start opting out today using the SharePoint Online Management Shell cmdlet provided later in this post. This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID: 30544.
How does this affect me?
If you choose to opt out, your organization will not be able to take advantage of the upcoming version setting update. Document library's versioning can be turned off by end users, and as a result, documents lose the protection of version recovery. Hence, we highly recommend you leave this setting on-by-default for the upcoming version setting update.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
If you would like to utilize the new file versioning settings, there’s nothing you need to do to prepare for this change. If you would like to opt out of the versioning setting update, you can use the SharePoint Online Management Shell cmdlet, and you must do so by September 30, 2018. After September 30, we will begin rolling the new versioning setting out and will honor your organization’s existing settings. The following cmdlets are used to opt out of versioning settings: Command: Get-SPOTenant/Set-SPOTenant Parameter: EnableMinimumVersionRequirement Value: True - default value, opt-in to the versioning change. Fales - opt out. These commands require version 16.0.7918.1200 of the SharePoint Online Management Shell or greater. To download the latest version of the SharePoint Online Management Shell, visit https://www.microsoft.com/download/details.aspx?id=35588. After you run the cmdlet to change the value, please check if the value is set correctly by running the Get-SPOTenant cmdlet. Click Additional Information to learn more.
Additional information
Published On: August 10, 2018
New feature: Save for Later in SharePoint Online
Save for Later is a new Office 365 feature. We'll begin rolling this feature out soon.
This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID: 30692.
How does this affect me?
This feature will allow you and your users to save news posts and pages right from the SharePoint Online web interface, just as is possible on the SharePoint Online mobile app today.
We'll be gradually rolling this out to Targeted Release (entire org) organizations in mid-August, and we anticipate rollout completion to take place over the next few months.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change. Please click Additional Information to learn more.
Additional information
Published On: August 9, 2018
Updated feature: New header emphasis options are now available in SharePoint Online
We’re adding an option to add rich colors to the site header in SharePoint Online. We'll begin rolling this change out in late August.
This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID: 30697 30697.
How does this affect me?
To provide more site branding flexibility, we are enabling you to modify the color shade of your site headers. This header emphasis will be based on the currently applied site theme color and can either be a lighter, softer color or a darker, stronger one. The site owner always has the option to set the color to gray or revert to the original. Please note that this option currently only applies to SharePoint Online themes and not custom ones.
Color shade adjustments to site headers can be made by accessing the "change the look" settings panel.
We will begin gradually rolling this out to Targeted Release organizations in late August, and we anticipate rollout completion worldwide by the end of September.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
You don't need to do anything to prepare for this change. Please click Additional information to learn more.
Additional information
Published On: July 27, 2018
We’re rolling out multiple feature updates for SharePoint Online self-service site creation
This July 2018, we’ll begin rolling out several improvements to the SharePoint Online self-service site creation experience. This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap IDs: 31070, 32588 and 31088.
How does this affect me?
- We’re making modern team site templates available for sites not connected to Office 365 Groups (31070): Previously, when Office 365 Group creation in SharePoint Online was disabled, site creators were limited to only creating a “classic” team site. This change lets site creators use modern team site templates even if Office 365 Group creation is disabled. Additionally, your users can now create communication sites even if Office 365 Group creation is disabled. As a result of these changes, the “hybrid” option in self-service site creation settings is no longer necessary and we’re removing the selection from the settings. If your organization is using the “hybrid” setting, you will notice the title selections have changed. A site that currently uses one of the new team site, communication site, or “classic site” templates will become “A new team site or communication site.” - We’ve improved subsite creation settings (32588): In the past, subsite creation settings were enabled for all SharePoint Online templates and could be disabled for Office 365 Group-connected team sites. These settings only appear in the menus display on site contents page. With this change, we’ve extended these settings to apply only to “classic” site templates and we are enabling the option for you to disable them for all site templates. If you have elected to hide the subsite menu command for Office 365 Group-connected team sites, the setting title will change to “Show the subsite command only for classic sites” and when selected, will hide the option for all modern site templates. - Language selection options for SharePoint Online sites (31088): Lastly, we’re adding a language selector setting on the self-service site creation form, which allows your users to specify a default site language that’s different from your organization’s default setting. We’ll begin rolling these changes out to Targeted Release organizations this week and the roll out will be completed worldwide by the end of August.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
If you want to let your users create modern sites but they were unable to because Office 365 Group creation was disabled, then no additional action is required. You will now have the ability to enable/disable the option for using modern site templates during self-service site creation and should review your current settings and adjust to the desired configuration for your organization.
Additional information
Published On: July 2, 2018
Update on Visio Web Access from SharePoint Online
Action required by September 29, 2019
Last September, we announced that we would be removing Visio Web access from SharePoint Online (MC120728). Since then we have listened to your feedback and are extending the timeline to September 2019 to allow more time for the migration of your existing Visio content to the newer platforms.
Beginning September 30, 2019, Visio Web Access (Visio Service) and its Web Part for SharePoint Online will no longer be available. Instead of Visio Web Access you can now use Visio Online and migrate your organization’s web parts to a newer experience with the new JavaScript (JS) APIs for Visio Online. Visio Online enables high fidelity viewing, sharing, and collaboration in your favorite browser, without installing the client for all Office 365 licenses. It supports embedding Visio diagrams in SharePoint Online using a modern file viewer web part and with IFrame along with JS API programmability.
How does this affect me?
Beginning September 30, 2019, users in your organization will only be able to view Visio diagrams in their browser, but not create or edit. Visio Online viewing is available to most Office 365 subscriptions.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
Before September 30, 2019 you should migrate any of your existing Visio content to the newer platforms.
Please click Additional Information for more detail about how to migrate your existing content.
Additional information
Published On : May 30, 2018
SharePoint List Views: List and Document Library web parts in SharePoint Online
We’re updating the List and Document Library web parts. We'll be gradually rolling this out to First Release customers in early June, and the roll out will be completed worldwide by the end of August.
How does this affect me?
You and your users will notice improvements to the List and Document Library web parts including: drag and drop upload, support for column formatting, pinning, tile view, nested grouping view, and open in client option. All existing list and document web parts will automatically reflect these new updates.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change.
Please click this article for information about the List web part.
Please click this article for information about the Document Library web part.
If You Need more help with SharePoint or Office 365, click here.
Published On : May 30, 2018
Weather? Check Out our web part and improvements to the Image web part in SharePoint Online
In order to enhance the SharePoint page authoring experience, we are introducing a new "Weather" web part and updating the existing "Image" web part. These features will begin rolling out soon to Targeted Release customers in June and the update will be available worldwide by the end of July. This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID: 27740.
How does this affect me?
The "Weather" web part will allow SharePoint Online page authors to configure the web part to show weather information provided by MSN Weather for a location of the author’s choosing. The "Image" web part improvements will allow authors to provide text overlay on an image, plus add a clickable hyperlink associated with the image.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
There is nothing you need to do to prepare for these changes. Please click Additional Information to read about What's new for your intranet in Office 365 including additional details about the new "Weather" web part and updates to the "Image" web part in SharePoint online.
Additional information
Published On : May 30, 2018
Updated feature: Page Metadata and Content Filtering in SharePoint
Microsoft is updating metadata and content filtering in SharePoint Online to make organizing content easier. They will be rolling out this update beginning in mid-June and it will be available worldwide by end of July. This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID 27251.
How does this affect me?
In SharePoint, your users can now access a page details panel on the page itself to edit metadata properties, as well as utilize the page properties web part to surface metadata to readers. Moreover, they will also be able to filter by metadata in the news and highlighted content web parts.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
You don't need to do anything, but may consider updating your user training and notifying your helpdesk. Please click Additional Information to read about What's new for your intranet in Office 365 including additional details page metadata and content filtering in SharePoint online.
Additional information
Published On : May 23, 2018
Terminology used for Office 365 Groups, Distribution Lists, and Security Groups are changing
Microsoft is updating terminology used across your Office 365 admin center, Exchange admin center, and Azure admin portal to provide you with a more consistent experience when interacting with groups and distribution lists. We have begun gradually rolling this change out to Targeted Release organizations, and we anticipate that the rollout will be completed worldwide by the end of June. This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID: 30574.
How does this affect me, and Office 365 User?
With this change, you will see updated terminology across the Office 365 admin center, Exchange admin center, and Azure admin portal. The 'Type' column will now be referred to as ‘Group Type’. This column will now include values of ‘Office 365’, ‘Mail-enabled security’, ‘Distribution list’, and ‘Security’. The concept of ‘Distribution Group’ will now be referred to as ‘Distribution List’ throughout experiences such as group creation, edit, and upgrade.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
If your organization has a dependency on the previous values being present in the 'Type' column within the user experience, you will need to update your dependencies to use the new terminology. Please click Additional Information for more information about this update.
Additional information
Published On : May 23, 2018
Microsoft Whiteboard – this is Big!
Microsoft Whiteboard will be exiting preview and will be generally available in the next few months. Microsoft Whiteboard is a freeform digital canvas where people, ideas, and content can come together for creative collaboration. The app is built for anyone who engages in creative, freeform thinking before getting to their final output. It’s designed for teams that need to ideate, iterate, and work together both in person and remotely, and across multiple devices.
How does this affect me?
Microsoft Whiteboard contains an on/off switch, to give you some control with the rollout of this within your organization. The Preview switch is currently off-by-default, to give you a chance to explore the new capabilities. In the summer, this experience will be turned on-by-default, unless you explicitly turn it off. In the next few months, the updated version of the Whiteboard Windows 10 app will be available for download from the Microsoft Store. Users in your organization will be able to download and log into the Windows 10 app, as long as Whiteboard is enabled for your organization. This rollout is excluded from Office 365 subscriptions in Government, GCC, DoD, Office 365 Germany. If you are in one of these scenarios, you can ignore this message.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
This has administrative controls to enable and disable. This feature will be on by default, when this change takes effect. If you are not ready for your users to use Whiteboard, please disable by going to the Office 365 Admin center \ Settings \ Services & add-ins \ Whiteboard, and Turn Off Whiteboard for your entire organization. Please click Additional information to learn more.
Additional information for Microsoft Whiteboard
Published by Microsoft On : May 16, 2018
Versioning Documents for OneDrive and team sites in SharePoint Online
Microsoft Listens! And will be providing an option to opt out before releasing this change. When Microsoft will get ready to provide the opt-out option, they will publish a new Message Center post. To stay up-to-date with progress of this change please refer to the with Office 365 Roadmap ID 30544.
How does this affect Microsoft Users?
Once this roll out begins, SharePoint and OneDrive libraries will be set to retain a minimum of one hundred major versions. Existing libraries that have versioning enabled but are set to retain fewer than one hundred major versions will be updated to retain the new minimum. Libraries already set to retain one hundred or more major versions will not be affected, including those with the default setting of five hundred. With these changes, the Document Library Settings page will no longer support the ability to disable versioning or configure it to retain fewer than one hundred versions. Please note: We will be implementing settings which will allow you to opt-out of the new minimum version requirements for SharePoint and OneDrive libraries.
Additional information
Published On : April 6, 2018
Like News? Microsoft is Replacing the Public Newsfeed in SharePoint Online
In June 2018, Microsoft be making changes to the native social features in SharePoint Online.
We will be: Making the public newsfeed read-only.
Removing the option to implement the Newsfeed feature in navigation and through Tenant Administration.
Instead of using these features, we recommend using Team News, Communication Sites, and/or Yammer.
How does this affect You?
The public newsfeed is much like a public blog, or “microblog”. Anyone who sees your post can reply to it. People who are following you see your post in their Following view as well as in their Everyone view. People not currently following you see your post only in the Everyone view of the newsfeed.
Beginning in June 2018, the public newsfeed will be set to read-only for existing organizations and the option to implement the Newsfeed capability will be removed for new Office 365 organizations.
Do You Use the Public News Feed?
If Not, don’t’ worry.
If Yes?
If you are using the public newsfeed, we recommend considering options such as Team News, Communication Sites, and/or Yammer. Check out the:
Additional information
Microsoft Office 365 and SharePoint Online updates for Quarter 1, Q1 2018. There are so many updates coming out all the time from Microsoft and we want you to know what they are. We will summarize the big releases for you here and how they might impact you.
Latest Microsoft Office 365 (O365) Upgrades in 2018
Published On: November 29, 2018
Updates to Microsoft Flow and PowerApps licensing in Office 365
Over the past two years, Microsoft has helped drive business process transformation with Microsoft 365 by helping organizations create innovative business apps based on tools such as Microsoft Flow, PowerApps, SharePoint lists, Microsoft Forms, and Power BI. Select Office 365 plans include PowerApps and Microsoft Flow capabilities to help organizations extend Office 365. Beyond Office 365, PowerApps, and Microsoft Flow Plans 1 and 2 offer additional capabilities that enable users to integrate external data into Office 365 experiences and standalone apps. We are simplifying the distinction between our PowerApps and Microsoft Flow for Office 365 plans and the standalone plans. Starting February 1, 2019, the following capabilities will require a PowerApps or Microsoft Flow Plan 1 or Plan 2 license: - Integration of on-premises data through the on-premises data gateway - Custom connectors - HTTP triggers and actions inside Microsoft Flow
How does this affect me?
After February 1, 2019 users will require a PowerApps or Flow Plan 1 or Plan 2 license to run PowerApps apps and Microsoft Flow using the capabilities listed above. Our records indicate that your organization has not used these capabilities recently. If you do plan to use these capabilities after February 1, 2019, you must request an extension to be able to access them for an additional 12 months or until the end of your current eligible Office 365 subscription term, whichever is longer. (Note: Integration of on-premises data through the on-premises data gateway and Custom connectors are not included with Office 365 Business, Office 365 Enterprise E1 or Office 365 F1 licenses.) You can find out who in your organization creates apps and flows by visiting the PowerApps and Microsoft Flow Admin centers.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
If your organization does not plan to use the capabilities listed above, no action is required. If you plan to use the capabilities listed above, submit a ticket to request an extension via Microsoft support before January 31, 2019 to ensure uninterrupted service. Your ability to request an extension will expire on April 30, 2019.
Please click Additional information to learn more.
Additional information
Published On: November 29, 2018
Security and compliance alert signals are now available in the Office 365 Management API
We have updated the Office 365 Alert policies in Security and Compliance Center and the Management Activity API.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 44242.
How does this affect me?
We have onboarded Office 365 alert signals to the Management Activity API. You can now integrate with the API and pull Office 365 alert signals into your security information and event management platform or self-created security solutions. There is no impact to the day-to-day workflows of users and admins. We will complete the rollout to Office 365 customers by the end of November.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change.
Please click Additional information to learn more.
Additional information
Published On: November 28, 2018Yammer group files in Office 365 connected groups will now be stored in SharePoint
We'll be gradually releasing a new feature where all new files posted in Yammer groups that are Office 365 connected will be stored in SharePoint.
. This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID: 26821.
How does this affect me?
With this functionality all new files posted in Office 365 connected Yammer groups will now be stored in the SharePoint account that is associated with the Office 365 Group. Keep in mind that existing files, files in unconnected groups, and files in private messages will not be impacted by this change and will continue to be stored in the legacy location. This change will begin rolling out towards the end of December and is expected to be completed worldwide by end of March 2019.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
You don’t need to do anything to prepare for this change, but you may consider updating user training, and notifying your helpdesk.
Please click Additional information to learn more.
Additional information
Published On: November 2, 2018
Microsoft Teams is ready for your organization - you can begin your upgrade today
Note: You Must Take Action by November 2, 2019, 2018
We are pleased to announce that Microsoft Teams is now complete with the equivalent meetings and calling capabilities offered in Skype for Business as part of Office 365. This means that Teams now meets the messaging, meeting, and calling needs of most Office 365 customers. We encourage you to upgrade at this time. We have released tools that will make it easy for you to upgrade your users to Teams. You can access them in the Microsoft Teams & Skype for Business Admin Center.
How does this affect me?
Microsoft Teams offers private and group chat, voice, video and meetings, as well as file sharing, the ability to co-author documents and more, all within one application. Teams is becoming the core communications client in Office 365, replacing Skype for Business over time. Once upgraded, Teams will become your organization's default client for chat, voice, video and meetings in Office 365.
We’re releasing a number of updates to SharePoint Online pages and webparts in Office 365
We’re bringing multiple new features to pages and web parts in SharePoint Online. These changes will begin rolling out next week.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap IDs: 33472, 31503, 43774, 43777, 43778, 43779 and 43780.
How does this affect me?
After these changes take place, your organization will see the following new and updated features:
- Customize the title area for each page: Modern pages will have more options with which to customize the title area of each page. Options now include four layouts, alignment choices, text above the title, ability to change the displayed author, and ability to show or hide the published date.
- Save page as a template and template gallery: You’ll be able to save a page as a template on the same site. Others will be able to use your template by selecting it from the new Template gallery, which will also include templates from Microsoft.
- Background shading on sections: You’ll have the ability to add shading to sections based on the selected theme.
- Choose a different thumbnail in Page details: Previously, the thumbnail image for a page (used in search results, highlighted content, and SharePoint News) was auto-selected. Now, you'll be able to select your own thumbnail image.
- Change the description in Page details: Previously, the first text that appeared on the page was auto-selected as the page description. You can now add your own custom description in Page details.
- SharePoint administrators can use a PowerShell command to hide web parts that utilize non-Microsoft services such as Kindle, Twitter, and YouTube.
As part of this change, you'll also see several new and improved web parts for your modern pages:
- Code snippet: Allows authors to share code snippets with correct syntax for many commonly supported development languages.
- Countdown timer: Allows you to display a count down or up to an upcoming milestone (like a digital clock counting down to your product market launch). This web part allows you to do that in a beautiful way on your modern pages.
- Events: Allows you to roll up events across multiple sites, display specific date ranges of events, and show events in compact cards
- Quick charts: Allows you to select a list on the current site to use as source data so you don’t have to manually enter data.
- Recent documents: Shows the current user’s most recent documents (MRU) from all sites. This is powered by the same service that powers the MRU in Office applications and on Office.com.
- Frequent sites for current user content source option: Shows the current user’s frequently accessed SharePoint sites, which is also available on SharePoint home from the Office 365 suite navigation.
- YouTube embeds: Allows you to embed YouTube videos. While this is already supported in the Embed web part, we’ve listened to your feedback and added a separate YouTube web part to make this functionality more discoverable in the toolbox.
- Yammer conversations: Now shows full Yammer conversations on your modern pages. It’s an additional web part to the Yammer highlights already available today (which shows only a few of the latest conversation threads).
We'll be gradually rolling this out to Targeted Release "selected users” customers in mid-November, and the roll out will be completed worldwide by the end of February.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change.
Please click Additional information to learn more.
Additional information
Published On: November 06, 2018
New feature: New authoring experience for custom sensitive types
Custom Sensitive type authoring is a new Office 365 feature, which enables you to create custom sensitive types right from the Security & Compliance Center. We'll begin rolling this feature out soon.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID: 34252.
How does this affect me?
Office 365 includes many sensitive information types that are ready for you to use. These built-in types can help identify and protect credit card numbers, bank account numbers, passport numbers, and more. But if you need to identify and protect a different type of sensitive information - for example, an employee ID that uses a format specific to your organization - you can create a custom sensitive information type. Before this change, you could create a custom sensitive type only using an XML rule package. This feature allows you to create a custom sensitive type right from the Security and Compliance Center. It also lets you test and fine tune the sensitive type as a part of the creation experience. We are gradually rolling this out, and the roll out will be completed worldwide by the first week of November.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change.
Please click Additional information to learn more.
Additional information
Published On: November 02, 2018
Microsoft Stream intelligence capabilities available in additional Office 365 plans
As part of our commitment to empower people and organizations with AI solutions, we are expanding the availability of intelligence capabilities in Stream to additional Office 365 plans.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID: 43332.
How does this affect me?
The following Stream features will be automatically applied to new videos in your tenant: - Speaker timelines that use face detection to indicate every place that a person appears within a video so viewers can easily navigate to each speaker in the video - Speech-to-text and closed captions that capture spoken dialog in a readable form and make content more accessible for everyone - Transcript search and timecodes that let viewers quickly search and find moments that matter in a video Additionally, speech-to-text transcription that enables closed captions and deep search will be applied to existing videos in Stream. Beginning at the end of November, these new capabilities will begin to roll out to the following Office 365 plans: - Enterprise E1 - Enterprise E3 - Firstline F1 - Education A1 - Education A3 - Business Premium - Business Essentials - Microsoft 365 Business Microsoft Stream intelligence capabilities is not yet available for GCC, GCC High, Blackforest or other sovereign cloud organizations.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
You don't need to do anything, but may consider updating your user training, and notifying your helpdesk. If you would like to manage speech-to-text and face detection features, please visit the “Intelligence” section within the Stream documentation for more information.
Please click Additional information to learn more.
Additional informationSecurity! Office 365 is moving to TLS 1.2 for encryption
Note: You Must Take Action by October 31, 2018
Microsoft and any web-based platform has been warning about this upgrade for a while. To get best-in-class encryption, and to ensure Office 365 service is more secure by default, they are moving all of their online services to Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.2+. Microsoft is closing down TLS 1.0 and 1.1 protocols and requiring everyone and all Apps to upgrade to TLS 1.2 extending the deadline for upgrading to TLS 1.2 or later to October 31, 2018. So Plan on it or contact us to get help.
According to Microsoft Read the Following Information:
As of October 31, 2018, Microsoft Office 365 will no longer support TLS 1.0 and 1.1. By October 31, 2018, all client-server and browser-server combinations should use TLS version 1.2 (or a later version) to ensure connection without issues to Office 365 services. This may require updates to certain client-server and browser-server combinations. If you do not update to TLS version 1.2 (or later) by October 31, 2018, you may experience issues when connecting to Office 365. If you experience an issue related to the use of an old TLS version after October 31, 2018, you will be required to update to TLS 1.2 as part of the resolution.
Please click Additional Information to learn more from Microsoft Support:
Additional information
Published On: October 30, 2018
Your users will now receive emails with product training and tips for services in their subscription
We’re pleased to announce that starting on November 29, 2018, all users of Microsoft 365 and Office 365 will receive helpful product training and tips for services in their subscriptions via email. This feature has administrative controls to enable and disable.
How does this affect me?
After this change takes place, email communications will be enabled-by-default for your organization’s users, allowing us to provide product training and tips aimed at helping them increase their productivity and to maximize their utilization of the products and services they use most. End users will only receive emails regarding services that they have been enabled for, and you can control whether or not your users receive these communications in the End User Communication tab in your Office 365 admin center. Your users also have the ability to opt-out of receiving these emails on an individual basis by accessing the Security and Privacy pane of their My Account Portal.
This feature will be on-by-default for all Office 365 and Microsoft 365 organizations on November 29, 2018.
If you wish to disable this service for your users, you can do so between now and November 29, 2018 and your settings will be honored.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
If you prefer your users receive product training and tips that are all tailored to the services in their subscription, then there’s nothing you need to do to prepare for this change.
If you do not want us to send product training and tips to your end users, please follow these steps to disable:
1. Log into the Office 365 admin center 2. Click on Services & Add-ins 3. Click on End User Communication 4. Flip toggle to “Off”
Please click Additional Information to learn more.
Additional information
Published On: October 25, 2018
Reminder: Support for TLS 1.0 and 1.1 in Office 365
Action required by October 31, 2018
As previously communicated (MC124102 in Oct 2017, MC126199 in Dec 2017 and MC128929 in Feb 2018), we are moving all of our online services to Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.2+ to provide best-in-class encryption, and to ensure our service is more secure by default.
How does this affect me?
As of October 31, 2018, Office 365 will no longer support TLS 1.0 and 1.1. This means that Microsoft will not fix new issues found in the client, device or service that connects to Office 365 using TLS 1.0 and 1.1. Please note: TLS 1.0 and 1.1 will continue to function but are no longer supported. We will provide additional notification prior to retiring TLS 1.0 and 1.1 completely.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
You should ensure that all client-server and browser-server combinations use TLS 1.2 (or a later version) to maintain connection to Office 365 services. This may require you to update certain client-server and browser-server combinations. Where possible, Microsoft recommends that you remove all TLS 1.0/1.1 dependencies in your environments and that you disable TLS 1.0/1.1 at the operating system level. Begin your migration to TLS 1.2+, today. Please click Additional Information to learn more.
Additional information
Published On: October 25, 2018
Updated feature: portal.office.com/myapps migrating to the Office 365 gallery
Office 365 gallery enables you to learn about and explore your apps. We are pleased to share that the Office 365 gallery now exceeds portal.office.com/myapps functionality. As a result, we will be migrating from portal.office.com/myapps to the Office 365 gallery in December.
How does this affect me?
Once the change is implemented, users will be redirected to the Office 365 gallery when navigating to portal.office.com/myapps.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
You don't need to do anything, but may consider updating your user training, and notifying your helpdesk. Please click Additional information to learn more.
Additional information
Published On: October 24, 2018
Updated feature: Ribbon in Word Online, PowerPoint Online, and Excel Online
We've simplified the Ribbon in Office Online to make the feature easier to use and to put the focus squarely on content and collaboration. We'll begin rolling this feature out to Targeted Release organizations soon.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID: 43126.
How does this affect me?
After this change takes place for your organization, you’ll see a simplified ribbon where commands are laid out in a single row. There is no change to the functionality of the ribbon and your users will be able to opt-out of this experience if they prefer the previous version. We'll begin gradually rolling this change out to Targeted Release organizations in late October, and the roll out will be completed worldwide by the end of December.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
You don't need to do anything, but may consider updating your user training, and notifying your helpdesk. Please click Additional Information to learn more.
Additional information
Published On: October 24, 2018
Planned Maintenance - Microsoft Social Engagement 2018 Service Update 1.10
We have maintenance planned for Microsoft Social Engagement. Your solutions will experience a period of downtime during this time. Maintenance window: 25 October 2018 05:00 UTC - 26 October 2018 05:00 UTC
Activities:
Deployment of Microsoft Social Engagement 2018 Service Update 1.10
How does this affect me?
Solutions may not be accessible for approximately 10 minutes during this maintenance window. Acquisition of new social data, provisioning of new solutions and provisioning of new users will be delayed and also a performance degradation should be expected until the maintenance window is completed. This Service Update includes a number of fixes that enhance the overall Microsoft Social Engagement service. A full list of the new features and product fixes included in this update can be reviewed on the blog post by following the link above.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
Communicate as appropriate with your Social Engagement Admin and users. Please contact support if you experience any issues.
Additional information
Published On: October 22, 2018
New feature: Add Microsoft Teams to existing Office 365 Groups directly from SharePoint Online team sites
Adding a Microsoft Teams’ instance to existing Office 365 Groups directly from SharePoint Online team sites is a new Office 365 feature. We'll begin rolling this out soon. Only users who are group owners can perform this action, and the option only appears if Teams is enabled in your tenant for SharePoint team sites already connected to an Office 365 group, but not yet connected to Microsoft Teams.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID: 30685.
How does this affect me?
With the availability of this feature, Office 365 group owners will be able to add a Microsoft Teams’ instance to existing Office 365 Groups directly from SharePoint Online team sites. This provides a direct, one-click mechanism to create a Team and associate it with an existing group from the bottom-left of the home page of a SharePoint Online team site. This complement, and simplifies, the existing multi-step capability of doing the same from within the Teams experience. We'll begin gradually rolling this out to Targeted Release organizations in late October 2018. We expect broader rollout to take place over the following weeks, and full global availability before the end of this calendar year.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change. Please click Additional Information to learn more.
Additional information
Published On: October 19, 2018
Updated feature: The help and support pane are now available from the Office 365 navbar
We’re excited to announce that your Office 365 navbar will now include a help and support pane. We’ll begin rolling this feature out soon.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID: 42268.
How does this affect me?
The new and improved help and support pane provides contextual help on top issues, access to the latest support information, and the ability for admins to customize the pane with their company’s helpdesk information. The same services that power help and support in Office desktop clients, are now extended to the web.
You can see this today in the new Outlook in the web that is available to Targeted Release organizations. It will be coming to more Office 365 web apps over the next six months, starting with Office.com.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
You don't need to do anything, but you may consider configuring the helpdesk contact card in the Admin Portal and notifying your helpdesk. Please click Additional information to learn more.
Additional information
Published On: October 2, 2018
We’re updating the look of Office 365 desktop apps
We’re updating the look of the top line ribbon and the icons for Office's desktop applications. We began rolling this change out to Targeted Release organizations in late September.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID: 31519.
How does this affect me?
Users will see new colors and scalable icons in the topline ribbon for Desktop (Windows) versions of the apps. These updates will show new modern icons that are simpler and more accessible, and a ribbon experience that highlights the rich collaboration features available in the Office apps.
We began gradually rolling this out to Targeted Release organizations in late September. It will roll out to all Office 365 organizations over the course of the next few months, and we anticipate rollout completion by the end of the year.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
You don't need to do anything, but may consider updating your user training, and notifying your helpdesk.
Please click Additional information to learn more about this update to the Office experience.
Additional information
Published On: September 18, 2018
We’re rolling out multiple improvements to Project Online
We’re excited to announce that multiple new and updated features are coming to Project Online. We are gradually starting to roll these changes out now.
How does this affect me?
After these changes takes place, your users will be able to: - Change the way After events are handled in Project Online with Asynchronous After Event Handling. Project detail pages will load more quickly by using if they use add-ins that rely on After events. Work with the developer of your add-ins to see if you can benefit from this change. If so, change enable the new “Turn on Asynchronous After event processing” setting available in the Additional Server Settings page of your Project Online administration panel. - Get back to work quickly during a Publish Job. We are changing the way the Publish function works in Project Online. Now, when a Publish job is started (either by the user pressing ‘Publish’ or a Project Detail Page triggering it), the user will be able to get back to work quickly. - Start projects sooner with shorter wait times in the Project Create feature. We’ve moved the ‘Create Summary Resource Assignment’ task to a separate queue job. These feature changes are rolling out now and the rollout is anticipated to be completed by mid-October.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
You don’t need to do anything to prepare for these changes. If you would like to work with the After Events feature, please connect with your developers to explore the change. Please click additional information to learn more about Project Online.
Additional information
Published On: September 13, 2018
Updated Features: Monthly feature updates for Office 365
The latest feature updates for Office 365 are now available. One of the benefits of Office 365 ProPlus is that Microsoft can provide new features for Office apps on a regular basis, through monthly updates.
How does this affect me?
This month’s update includes new feature updates, as well as other security and bug fixes. Here is a list of some of the new features available in the September update:
Outlook now has an option to prevent forwarding of meeting invites.
Access has an updated Linked Table Manager where you can refresh, relink, or remove linked tables.
Build a Word document directly from Visio by using the new Export feature.
You will now be able to turn your Visio diagram into an interactive Power BI visualization with just a few clicks.
Microsoft Project has an added option to help you customize your Task Board to include more information.
A more complete list of features and descriptions is available by clicking Additional Information.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
If you have users configured for Monthly Channel release updates, you may want to get up to speed on the new features this month. Other than that, you do not need to do anything to prepare for this change. Please click Additional Information to see a complete list of all the updates to Office, in September.
Additional information
Published On: September 13, 2018
New feature: Data export in Microsoft Bookings
Data export in Microsoft Bookings is a new Office 365 feature. We'll begin rolling this feature out soon. This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID: 33430.
How does this affect me?
We are adding a link in the Home page of Bookings entitled "Export more data as a TSV" so you can download a tab delimited file with a row for each event on the booking calendar for the previous 90 days and the upcoming 90 days (3 months back and 3 months forward). Each row includes the Date/Time info for the event, the customer name, customer email, customer phone #, customer address, staff assigned, service selected, location, and appointment duration. We'll be gradually rolling this out to Targeted Release organizations over the course of the next couple of weeks, and the roll out will be completed worldwide by the end of December 2018.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change. Please click Additional Information to learn more.
Additional information
Published On: September 11, 2018
New feature: Suggested replies in Outlook on the web
Suggested replies is a new Office 365 feature. We'll begin rolling this feature out soon. This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID: 27315.
How does this affect me?
For messages that can be addressed with a short response, Outlook suggests three related responses in the body of the email so you can reply with just a couple of clicks. Users can turn this feature off in Settings/Mail/Compose and reply/Suggested replies. We'll be gradually rolling this out to Targeted Release organizations in North America in mid-September, and the rollout will be completed worldwide by the end of December 2018.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
You don't need to do anything but may consider updating your user training and notifying your helpdesk. Please click Additional information to learn more.
Additional information
Published On: September 11, 2018
Reminder: Intune moving to TLS 1.2 for encryption
We communicated in MC141068 that Intune will move to support only TLS 1.2 starting October 31, 2018. This will provide best-in-class encryption, ensure our service is more secure by default, and align with other Microsoft services such as Microsoft Office 365. The latest communication from Office about this change was in MC144908. Note that the Company Portal will also move to support TLS 1.2 on October 31, 2018.
How does this affect me?
As of October 31, 2018, Intune will no longer support TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1. All client-server and browser-server combinations should use TLS version 1.2 to ensure connection without issues to Intune. Note that this change has an end-user device impact as some devices ─ devices that are no longer supported by Intune but are still receiving policy through Intune ─ cannot use TLS version 1.2. This includes devices such as those running Android 4.3 and below. You can view a list of additional devices and browsers impacted in the support blog linked in Additional Information below. If you experience an issue related to the use of an old TLS version after October 31, 2018, you will be required to update to TLS 1.2 or to a device that supports TLS 1.2 as part of the resolution.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
We recommend you proactively address weak TLS usage by removing TLS 1.0/1.1 dependencies in your environments and disabling TLS 1.0/1.1 at the operating system level where possible. Begin planning your migration to TLS 1.2+, today. Check the support blog post for the list of those devices that are not supported by Intune today, but may still be receiving policy and will not be able to communicate using TLS version 1.2. You may need to notify those end users that they’ll lose access to corporate resources based on this industry-wide shift to best-in-class encryption. Please click Additional Information to learn more.
Additional information
Published On: September 10, 2018
Updated feature: Removal of footnote in group emails you are following in your inbox
We’re updating the footnote in the emails you receive when you are following a group in your inbox. We'll begin rolling this feature out soon. This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID: 33432.
How does this affect me?
We are reducing clutter in group emails by removing the footnote in the emails you receive when you are following a group in your inbox. The footnote gave followers a direct link to stop following the group in their inbox. Following a group is the default value when someone creates a group but can be modified when creating it. Moving forward, if users would like to stop following a group they should do so from the group card. We'll be gradually rolling this out to Targeted Release organizations this week, and the rollout will be completed worldwide by the end of November 2018.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
You don't need to do anything but may consider updating your user training and notifying your helpdesk. Please click Additional information to learn more.
Additional information
Published On: September 07, 2018
Updated feature: Email notifications and other Message Center preferences for customized admin roles
We’re updating Message Center to support email notifications and other Message Center preferences for customized admin roles. We'll begin rolling this feature out soon.
This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID: 33054.
How does this affect me?
Customized admin roles will start receiving email notifications for Message Center and can customize their Message Center preferences based on what messages they want to see in addition to opting out of email notifications.
We will be rolling this out to Targeted Release organizations over the next few weeks. The feature will remain in Targeted Release for at least 30 days before it continues to be made available. We anticipate rollout completion worldwide to all Office 365 organizations by early October.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
You don't need to do anything, but may consider updating your user training, and notifying your helpdesk.
Please click Additional Information below to learn more about Message Center and to review instructions on opting out of automatic email notifications.
Additional information
Published On: September 06, 2018
New feature: Permission Mode for Project Web App sites
We’re updating where you can change the permission mode for Project Web Apps (PWA). You’ll begin seeing this change over the coming weeks.
This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID: 32752.
How does this affect me?
Project Online offers two security management options for controlling the kind of access that users have to entities within PWA. This setting currently resides in the Office 365 admin center. With this change, this setting will also become available to Site Collection administrators within PWA server settings.
We'll be gradually rolling this out in early October, and the roll out is expected to be completed by the end of November.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change. Please click Additional information to learn more.
Additional information
Published On: September 06, 2018
New feature: Insight Services in Excel (Win32)
Insight Services in Excel is a new Office 365 feature that helps organizations make better use of their data. This feature is already available for English language customers in the Office Insider program, and we will be rolling this out for additional languages starting October 1.
This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID: 20955.
How does this affect me?
Insight Services in Excel analyzes data and its structure and automatically generates a series of recommendations and useful ways to make sense of the data, including high-level summaries, statistically significant findings, and recommended visualizations.
If you are an English language customer and a part of the Office Insider program, this feature is already available to you. On October 1, we will begin rolling this feature out to Office 365 organizations outside of the Targeted Release program as well as organizations in other regions, starting with the French, German, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese markets.
Insight Services in Excel will roll out to your organization on-by-default. This feature is a part of the Intelligent Services for Office 365 and users will be able to choose to turn on Intelligent Services to get recommendations from this feature when they log into Excel for the first time. This choice will then apply to Intelligent Services across all Desktop applications.
The rollout is expected to start on October 1 and we anticipate rollout completion to take place by the end of December.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
f you want to disable Insight Services for your users, you can do so through a policy setting.
If you want to disable all Intelligent Services for your users, you can do so by following the instructions at this link
Disable Intelligent Services for users.
Please click Additional Information to learn more about Insight Services in Excel.Additional information
Today the Office 365 app launcher shows you 3rd party apps in the form of Azure Active Directory single sign-on applications. We are now bringing these same apps to Office.com. As a result of this change, we are removing the Office my apps page in an effort to align app locations across similar Office 365 services. This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID: 20468.
How does this affect me?
After this change takes place, the Azure Active Directory apps will be accessible from the Office 365 gallery or the search box on Office.com. Additionally, recently used AAD apps will show up in the Apps section on Office.com. We'll begin rolling this change starting today, and the roll out will be completed worldwide by the end of August.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change. Please click Additional Information to learn more.
Additional information
Published On: August 16, 2018
New feature: Bill payment events in Outlook
Bill payment events on your calendar is a new Office 365 feature. We'll begin rolling this feature out soon. This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID: 27215.
How does this affect me?
When a billing statement is received in English from a supported provider, an event will be created on the recipient user’s calendar in Outlook on the web that lists the payment due date. Outlook will also send email reminder two days before the due date. Billing statements sent in languages other than English or from providers that aren’t currently supported won’t activate this feature. When bill pay events are created, they’re visible only to the user or users the events apply to. When events are turned on, they’ll sync across devices. Users can turn off this feature in Outlook on the web. This feature is rolling out now, and we anticipate rollout completion by the end of September.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
You don't need to do anything but may consider updating your user training and notifying your helpdesk about how users can turn this feature off. Please click Additional Information to learn more and get detailed availability by region.
Additional information
Published On: August 15, 2018
New feature: The Microsoft 365 Public Roadmap
We’re excited to announce that we are releasing a new version of the Office 365 Roadmap in mid-September. This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID: 25177.
How does this affect me?
In mid-September, the Office 365 Roadmap will become the Microsoft 365 Roadmap and will move to a new web location. In addition to retaining all the current information and functionality of the existing Office 365 Roadmap, the new site will include Microsoft 365 product features from Windows 10, Enterprise Mobility Suite, and Azure. We will have redirects in place so that the deep links in any existing Message Center posts will continue to function, and any bookmarks you have set to the Roadmap will continue to work. With the new Microsoft 365 Roadmap, you’ll be able to: - Utilize multiple new search filters such as “product,” “cloud instance,” and “platform”. - View additional information for the features on the Roadmap, including whether the feature is deploying in Targeted Release, preview, specialized cloud instances or worldwide. This information will be located on the feature card, or available via search in the Roadmap. - Leverage new RSS capabilities through a custom link on the Roadmap web page. Using the RSS features feed you can subscribe to be notified of real-time feature updates, and view the notification in Outlook, supported browsers or mobile readers. Power users can use various tools to automate the handling of RSS updates to integrate them into their own 3rd party services. Other changes that will occur are: - The existing Office 365 URL (https://products.office.com/business/office-365-roadmap) will be replaced with a new Microsoft 365 Roadmap URL. Please note that the existing Office 365 Roadmap URL will automatically redirect to the new page. - The "previously released" category will become the “launched” category. Launched features will remain in the “launched” category for six months after going live.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
You don't need to do anything to prepare for this change. Please click Additional Information to learn more.
Additional information
Published On: August 10, 2018
New feature: Guided workflow for deleting users
Guided workflow for deleting users is a new Office 365 feature. This feature is now available for your organization.
How does this affect me?
As an IT admin, there are certain tasks and process that happen almost daily. We’re using customer feedback to identify those common tasks and make them easier and faster to perform with repeatable results. Deleting a user when they leave an organization is one of those common tasks. From the IT side, it can take multiple steps to offboard a user. From the business side, it can be easy to lose valuable data stored in the user’s documents and email.
We’re combining the steps it takes to delete a user, retain their documents, and retain their email into a single workflow with in-context guidance. This guided workflow is now available to all Microsoft 365 organizations.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
You do not need to do anything to prepare for this change. Please click Additional Information to learn more.
Additional information
Published On: August 8, 2018
New feature: Edit the email address of an Office 365 Group with a new cmdlet
We’re releasing a new Exchange Online PowerShell cmdlet that allows you to edit the email address of an Office 365 Group. We'll begin rolling this feature out soon.
This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID: 27891.
How does this affect me?
This feature will let you update the email addresses (SMTP addresses) of an Office 365 Group that has already been created. Only you and users with administrator-level permissions will be able to use this function, and it will be performed through an Exchange Online PowerShell cmdlet. After a change is made to an existing Group email address, the updated handle will automatically sync with Azure Active Directory (AAD).
Before this change took place, it was not possible to reclaim email addresses of Groups. Now, you can reclaim addresses as well as delete domains even when one or more Office 365 Groups have email addresses associated with a given domain.
When executed, the cmdlet Set-UnifiedGroup -EmailAddresses updates existing Email addresses of the group and syncs it to AAD.
We'll begin gradually rolling this out to customers in North America over the next few weeks, and the roll out will be completed worldwide by the end of September.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change. Please click Additional Information to learn more.
Additional information
Published On: August 2, 2018
We’re streamlining settings in the Teams and Skype for Business admin center
In March 2018, we communicated in MC132234 that we were migrating settings to the new Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business admin center. As we have migrated most of our existing settings to the new Teams and Skype for Business admin center, we are removing the tenant level on/off toggle and moving to align with license management practices across Microsoft 365. We will begin removing the tenant level toggle used to disable Teams for users and guests starting August 30, 2018.
How does this affect me?
After this change, instead of utilizing the on/off toggle in the Services & Add-in Teams section, service management will be done in the Office 365 admin center in the user licensing dialog. If you were leveraging this toggle to disable Teams for your tenant for SKUs other than Guest, please ensure you explicitly remove the relevant user’s Teams license in the Office 365 Admin Center in the user licensing dialog. For the Guest SKU there is a setting available in the Teams and Skype for Business admin center under org-wide settings and PowerShell to enable/disable access to Teams for guest users. We will begin removing the tenant-level toggle starting August 30, 2018.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
If you were not using the tenant level toggle to disable Teams for your tenant, you do not need to do anything to prepare for this change. If you were using this toggle to disable Teams, you will need to follow the guidance to manage Teams for your users by license.
To learn more about managing Microsoft Teams for your users, please click Additional Information below.
Additional information
Published On: August 1, 2018
We’re making some changes to the Office 365 group creation process
We are simplifying the group creation workflow for Office 365 groups. We’ll begin rolling this change out soon.
How does this affect me?
After this change takes place, you will no longer have the option to change the welcome email language when creating groups. Additionally, options to send copies of group conversations and events to group members’ inboxes and to let people outside the organization email the group will only be adjustable after a group is created.
We’ll begin gradually rolling this update out to Targeted Release organizations starting today, and we anticipate worldwide rollout completion by the end of August.
This update is not yet being made available to sovereign cloud organizations in BlackForest, GCC, GCC High, and Gallatin.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
You do not need to do anything to prepare for this change.
To learn more about Office 365 Groups, please click Additional Information below.
Additional information
Published On: July 31, 2018
New feature: Live events in Microsoft 365
Live events in Microsoft 365 is a new feature that enables you and your users to broadcast video from Microsoft Teams, Stream and Yammer. We will initially be launching this feature in preview. Additionally, Microsoft Teams Yammer and Stream now support third-party encoders that enable studio-quality broadcasting. This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap IDs: 31090, 18503, and 24216.
How does this affect me?
Live events in Microsoft 365 enables you and authorized users to communicate broadly across your organization with interactive experiences that include conversations, video and content delivery. You can create a live event in Microsoft Stream, Microsoft Teams or Yammer—wherever your audience, team, or community resides. The event can be as simple or as sophisticated as you’d like. With Quick Start in Microsoft Teams, you can create casual presentations and panels, using webcams, content and screen sharing. This uses the built-in encoding in Teams, so you don't need additional software for presenters. For more formal events, you can use a third-party encoder to enable the use of high-end cameras and other inputs to broadcast a studio-quality production in Teams, Stream or Yammer. We will begin gradually rolling these updates out over the month of August, and we anticipate rollout completion by the end of September.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
Live events in Stream and Yammer will be on-by-default, however, as an Office 365 administrator, you will need to assign permissions for end users to access this feature. Scheduling a “Quick Start” event or enabling a third-party encoder in Microsoft Teams is also on-by-default, but only available to users in your organization that have Teams meeting capabilities enabled. If your firewall blocks outbound traffic, you'll want to ensure that these FQDNs listed are on the allow list in addition to what’s published on the Office 365 URLs and IP address ranges for Microsoft Stream. To learn more about Live events for Microsoft 365, enabling user access to create live events, Quick Start events, and using third-party encoders for studio-quality production, please click Additional Information below.
Additional information
Published On: July 27, 2018
Updated feature: sway.com is becoming sway.office.com
To help customers understand Sway is part of office.com we are changing the Sway URL from sway.com to sway.office.com.
How does this affect me?
After this change takes place, existing Sway links will continue to work and will redirect to the new URL.
This change will be gradually rolled out over the next couple of months.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
There’s nothing you need to do, but you may consider updating your user handbooks and notifying your helpdesk. Please click Additional Information to learn more about managing Office 365 endpoints.
Additional information
Published On: July 25, 2018
New Feature: Outlook for Mac now syncs Google Calendar and Contacts
We've now completed the roll out of the support for Google Contacts and Calendar in Outlook for Mac. Announced last year and released first to the Office Insider Fast customer community, the deployment of this highly anticipated feature has extended beyond customers who subscribe to the Insider Slow program to all Outlook for Mac Office 365 customers. This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID: 24380.
How does this change affect me?
People in your organization who use Microsoft Outlook 2016 version 16.13 (180513) or a later version, will be prompted to sign into Google to add their Google account to Outlook for Mac. For users who already synchronize their Gmail with Outlook, by signing into Google, Outlook will now synchronize Google calendar and contact information in addition to mail with Outlook for Mac. Users will need to know their Google account username and password to authenticate.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
No action is required to support this change. However, you will have the option to turn off the prompt to sign into Google by following the instructions found in the link to Additional Information below.
Additional information
Published On: July 23, 2018
Updated feature: Audit features in Exchange
Based on your feedback, we’re making some updates to Exchange mailbox auditing. Starting in the next couple of months, Exchange will be turning on Mailbox audits by default for user mailboxes, and at that time you will no longer have to configure the Audit Enabled setting on each of your user mailboxes to capture security audit data.
This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID: 32224.
How does this affect me?
In the coming months, we will enable all mailboxes with original default audit configuration settings to automatically record audit events. Mailboxes generating audit records can be found in the unified audit log or in the mailbox audit log through the Search-MailboxAuditLog cmdlet. Mailboxes that are currently configured to audit will continue to do so.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
If you do not want to enable these updates, you can preemptively override the coming default-enablement setting for your entire organization by running Set-OrganizationConfig -AuditDisabled $true. You can still override auditing on individual mailboxes with the Set-MailboxAuditBypassAssociation PowerShell cmdlet as well. Subsequently the Audit Enabled setting on individual mailboxes will no longer be available.
Additionally, for mailboxes that have the original default audit configuration, we will update the Get-Mailbox action audit configurations automatically under AuditAdmin, AuditDelegate and AuditOwner to include more of the available audit events by default. If you do not want to audit these new actions in your user’s mailboxes and you do not want your mailbox audit configurations to change in the future as we continue to add new audit actions, you can set AuditAdmin, AuditDelegate and AuditOwner to your desired configuration.
Please click Additional Information for more details on this change and for links to supporting information on how to use the mailbox audit data. You’ll find information regarding how to add or remove audit actions, retrieving auditing settings for user mailboxes in your organization, and enabling auditing for all mailboxes in your organization.
Additional information
Published On: July 12, 2018
New feature: See the file card from Shared by Me and show a weekly trend for daily views and viewers on a file
We are rolling out two new features for OneDrive for Business soon. You will be able to show the file card from the files on the Shared by Me view so that you can quickly see access statistics from this view. You will also be able to see the weekly trend of daily views and viewers on a file. This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID: 23760.
How does this affect me?
With this change, your users will have the ability to hover on the file column on the Shared by Me view to show the file card. From the file card, users can click the view count to bring up the viewers panel. The viewers panel will now show a weekly chart mapping the number of views per day and number of viewers per day. This gives your users a clear picture of the amount of activity happening on your file. Note that the viewers panel can also be opened from the details pane by clicking on the view count. We'll be gradually rolling these out to Targeted Release tenant customers in early July, and the roll out will be completed worldwide by the end of August.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
You don't need to do anything, but may consider updating your user training, and notifying your helpdesk. Please click Additional information to learn more.
Additional information
Published On: July 6, 2018
New feature: Online payments now available in Microsoft Bookings
Online payment is a new Office 365 feature for Microsoft Bookings. We'll be gradually rolling this out to Targeted Release organizations in mid-July, and the roll out will be completed worldwide by the end of September 2018.
This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID 30650.
You're receiving this message because our reporting indicates that your organization has purchased one or more of the following Office 365 subscriptions: Office 365 Enterprise E3, Office 365 Enterprise E5, Office 365 A3, and Office 365 A5.
How does this affect me?
Bookings will now allow you to request an online payment in order for your customer to complete booking an appointment. This feature will be off-by-default and payment/banking information can only be set-up or modified by you, the Office 365 admin.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
If you don't want to allow online payments in Bookings, you don't need to do anything. If you want to turn on payments in Bookings, please follow the instructions in the Additional Information link.
Please click Additional information to learn more.
Additional information
Published On: July 3, 2018
We’re making changes to Exchange Web Services for Office 365
Over the last few years, we have been investing in services to help developers access information in Office 365 in a simple and intuitive way. As we make progress on this journey, we have continued to evaluate the role of Exchange Web Services (EWS) and how to best interact with Office 365 data and authenticate with Exchange Online.
We are making the following announcements today:
Basic Authentication for Exchange Web Services (EWS) will be retired, beginning October 13, 2020, as we focus our efforts on OAuth 2.0.
We are investing our development resources in Microsoft Graph as the future mechanism for accessing Exchange Online data.
How does this affect me?
With this change, we are focusing our investments in OAuth 2.0 for authentication and authorization as the preferred method to access Exchange Online. Starting October 13, 2020, we will completely remove Basic Authentication for EWS as a way to access Exchange Online.
Additionally, EWS will continue to receive security updates and certain performance updates, but product design and features will remain unchanged.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
If you have been using Basic Authentication for EWS in your applications, you should plan to use OAuth 2.0 for authentication and authorization, before October 13, 2020. In addition, we strongly suggest that you plan on transitioning to Microsoft Graph based Outlook APIs to continue accessing Exchange Online data.
Please click Additional Information to learn more.
Additional information
Published By Microsoft On : May 17, 2018
Updated feature: New Start Page experiences for Office
Microsoft is updating the Office start pages for Word, PowerPoint and Excel. They begin rolling this feature out soon.
How does this affect me?
Users will see an updated Start experience for both Desktop (Windows) and Web versions of the Office apps (Word, PowerPoint and Excel) These updates will show a new experience that allow you to see documents important to you more easily, create content quickly and get updates on activities in your document.
We’ll be rolling out the Office desktop (Win32), in our May2018 update for the Office 365 ProPlus monthly channel. If you are on semi-annual channel for updates, you will receive these at a later date. To determine which channel you are configured for, please read our overview of update channels for Office 365 ProPlus.
Want to learn more? Click here:
Additional information
Published On : March 31, 2018
Do you Use Yammer to collaborate? If so, read on.
Action required by September 25, 2018
Starting October 16, 2018, Yammer will no longer support multiple Yammer networks associated with one Office 365 tenant.Microsoft will be consolidating your Yammer networks into a parent Yammer network. During this process, content will no longer be available from the subsidiary networks. We recommend you migrate your own networks prior to October 16.
How does this affect me?
On October 16, 2018, all subsidiary networks will be migrated to the parent Yammer network associated with your Office 365 tenant. After migration, the subsidiary networks, and all its content will no longer be available. Please ensure that you have saved and exported all your files and documents before the migration. This change is one of the steps required towards utilizing all the features and benefits of Office 365. Once all steps are completed, all Office 365 groups and tools will be connected to each other. Users will be able to easily access their SharePoint Online, OneNote and Planner tools within each of their corresponding Yammer groups.
What do You Need to do to Upgrade Yammer?
You can take control, and migrate all your subsidiary Yammer networks to your parent Yammer network before October 16, 2018. Click here for instructions on how to migrate your networks. Please ensure that you have saved and exported all your files and documents from your subsidiary networks. If you don’t migrate them yourself, we will migrate your networks on October 16, 2018. Please ensure that you have saved and exported all your files and documents from your subsidiary networks, before October 16. Please click Additional Information to learn more about Yammer networks and Office 365 tenants.
If you use Yammer, you need to keep reading, follow the real deal from Microsoft here:
Additional information
Published On : March 15, 2018
All New Microsoft Teams Admin Center
In late-March, 2018, Microsoft launched a new Microsoft Teams admin center. The new admin center will give you a single location to manage Microsoft Teams It has new functionality and the ability to manage Teams settings on a user level. This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap IDs: 24189 and 26982. This feature is only available to members of your organization that have been granted administrator-level permissions.
How does this affect user? It Doesn’t. If you are an Administrator? Read more here. There will be a lot more coming in this area as MS Teams grows.
Microsoft is Consolidating Yammer networks ( probably because they are all integrating into Teams)
Published On : March 15, 2018
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central – Finally Integrated with Office 365
Why is this important? Because did you know that before this, MS Dynanics really didn’t integrate with O365 Email and other features most of us would expect. This shows that MS Dynamics 365 is finally hitting the core of Office365 Capabilities. This is Big!
Here is What Microsoft says about it:
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is a new service designed to work with Office 365. An evaluation version of Dynamics 365 Business Central will be available via self-service signup. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central offers organizations a single, end-to-end solution for managing finances, operations, sales, and customer service. It offers great value because it integrates with other Microsoft cloud services, including Office 365, and can be customized or extended for specific industry needs with PowerApps, Microsoft Flow and Power BI. Dynamics 365 Business Central will be generally available on April 2, 2018 in 14 countries – United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Denmark, Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Italy, France, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Sweden, and Finland. Australia and New Zealand will be generally available beginning July 1, 2018.
How does this affect Your company?
As an administrator, you can sign up for Dynamics 365 Business Central through the Dynamics 365 Business Central website. It is not possible to sign up through the purchase services page in the Office 365 Admin center, because the product can only be purchased through our Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) partners. When you sign up for Business Central, you can assign subscription licenses to users who should have access. Additionally, individual users in your organization may be able to sign up for Business Central through the Business Central website. When a user in your organization signs up for Business Central, that user is assigned a Business Central license automatically.
What Can You Do to Prepare for this Change?
You don't need to do anything, but may consider updating your user training, and notifying your helpdesk. There are steps you can take as an administrator to prevent users from signing up for Dynamics 365 Business Central evaluation, if you choose. In this case, users’ attempts to sign in will fail and they will be directed to contact organization’s administrator. You do not need to repeat this process if you have already disabled automatic license distribution. Please click Additional information to learn more.
Additional information to learn more.
Real Estate Executives focus on replacing outdated systems and the need for cloud and mobile solutions.
Positive year-over-year growth is almost any businesses primary objective. In the commercial real estate or CRE area, there seems to be an accelerating disruption curve caused by “rapid changes in tenant dynamics, customer demographic shifts, and ever-increasing needs for better and faster data access”. This disruption influences how these companies work and affect their ability to achieve maximum and revenue.
1) Real Estate Investment Staying Strong in the United States
It’s a good time to be a real estate developer. The United States continues to be the most favored destination for real estate investments, according to the Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate (AFIRE). In their annual survey, foreign investors placed the United States as the top destination to invest in real estate.
According to the AFIRE’s press release, 95% of respondents to the survey say they will maintain or increase their investment in the United States. Dallas—where HingePoint is headquartered—ranks 12th in the world for places to invest in real estate. Almost half of the top cities to invest in are within the United States.
2) Need to Keep Top Talent
With increased investment in the United States, real estate developers will need to keep top talent and get them up to speed faster when they hire new employees. Onboarding can be frustrating at a company that does not have a process in place or a one-stop shop for internal employees and contractors. They’ll need to onboard new talent more efficiently and give instant access to needed information so employees can do their job better and come up to speed faster.
Many developers and construction companies expected to grow are upgrading their internal SharePoint sites so employees can instantly access what they need to be more productively.
Deloitte seems to think that competition for talent is going to be fierce.
“A shortage of candidates with strong skills in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM); rising urbanization; and Millennials’ preference for an open and flexible work culture are changing the employment marketplace and will result in significant competition for talent.”
3) Cloud and Mobile
Cloud computing is Internet-based computing, where you can access shared resources, data and information on-demand. This information is stored on a computer or server that you can access through the Internet. Accessing the cloud with a mobile device gives you access to your entire business on the go. You can communicate and share virtually any document with anyone anywhere.
4) Take Control of Data
Taking control of company information is one of the most difficult and one of the most critical tasks any company can take on. And believe it or not, SharePoint is still one of the top enterprise tools out there for collaboration, and sharing and organizing information.
Anyone can start using the cloud and mobile devices. Any company can stand up SharePoint and make it a company initiative for all employees to use it. But if the information is not organized and found easily, and you can’t maximize the out-of-the-box solutions or customize SharePoint to work the way you want it, your enterprise style tools probably won't be effective.
Bryce Finnerty, CEO and Founder of HingePoint, said more commercial real estate developers are completely changing their systems.
“Many developers are going straight to customization. They want their systems and software to work the way they want it,” he said.
5) Getting rid of the old, upgrading legacy systems
Many commercial real estate developers are still using systems created in the first decade of this century, and some are still just relying on 2D CAD, email and paper. With mobile, the cloud and Autodesk’s newer capabilities, commercial real estate developers are seeing that they can leapfrog in productivity.
Many developers will begin to completely overhaul their legacy systems and software. They will take an integrated approach, which means software will automatically share data and information with other software. For example, many developers want SalesForce and SharePoint to share information and data with each other. It streamlines effort of employees and makes collaboration better.
Manual data entry and redundant tasks will dramatically fall. More employees will have access to critical information they need to do their job effectively.
New technology allows Commercial Real Estate to build prototypes with photorealistic renderings and validate design selections. This helps developers sell properties with renovations first, gets approvals faster, and markets buildings faster for less upfront cost.
3D Virtual Prototypes speed up the design and construction phases on projects. Clients often gain 20% on their project timelines. Improved collaboration, decision-making, visualization, and clash detection are benefits proven to reduce costly change orders, delays, and rework.
7) New tech like 3D printing and augmented reality
Augmented and virtual reality are so new for commercial real estate, some headsets are still being tested. For example augmented reality headsets like DAQRI’s Smart Helmet could revolutionize how new developments are built and how construction companies troubleshoot problems.
They are also altering how real estate developers show off new properties. Instead of photorealistic prototypes on a computer screen, marketers can send headsets to prospects to let them literally walk around a multi-million dollar condominium or office. It makes data truly 3D.
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About HingePoint
HingePoint offers cloud and mobile applications for construction and real estate that are easy to adopt and employees love. Specializing in the systems that run the construction and real estate business including SharePoint, Salesforce, Procore, MS Dynamics, and Autodesk. Scale and grow profitably with Financial and Project Management Dashboards, document management, and workflow automation for field to office collaboration.
HingePoint
8105 Rasor Blvd.
Suite 241
Plano, TX 75024
(214) 301-0000
www.hingepoint.com
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[post_content] => Microsoft has officially released SharePoint hub sites and is gradually rolling them out to Office 365 customers.
The first announcement of SharePoint hub sites was last fall at Microsoft Ignite.
What is a SharePoint hub site in Office 365?
SharePoint hub sites enable you to organize your intranet by associating multiple team sites and communication sites together in SharePoint. Hub sites provide common navigational structure, look and feel, and search across associated sites. You can use SharePoint Online hub sites in Office 365 to organize concepts, teams, divisions, or resources throughout your organization, making it easier to:
Search across all associated sites
Discover related content, such as news and other site activities
Apply common navigation and branding across associated sites
SharePoint hub sites combine news and activities from your different associated sites and display the roll-up on the hub’s home page. This could potentially have a significant impact on the way you construct intranets and departmental sites within your organization. The association can be changed whenever you like, meaning that making changes to the organizational structure will be as simple as adjusting a setting.
Desktop SharePoint Hub SitesMobile SharePoint Hub Sites
Searching for content across the SharePoint hub
When you search from a SharePoint hub site, content on the current hub site, as well as content on any associated sites, is displayed in the results. Users searching for items will only see results for which they have access to. This feature greatly simplifies the process of managing what information users have access to.
FAQs
Q: When can I expect to see SharePoint hub sites appear in my Office 365 tenant?
A: SharePoint hub sites with begin rolling out to Office 365 First Release customers in the first half of 2018.
Q: Can I join one SharePoint hub site under another hub site?
A: No, you won't be able to join a SharePoint hub site to another hub site.
Q: Can a team site or a communication site be joined to more than one SharePoint hub site?
A: No. It will only be possible to join a site to one hub site at a time. It is possible to link to various unjoined sites in the top navigation. And it will be possible, within seconds, to join and/or unjoin a site as the business changes.
Q: Can a hub site replace my current organizational portal?
A: Hub sites are designed to let you dynamically organize closely-related sites, bringing together similar projects, binding related assets, and presenting common activity. Customers with portals that include customization beyond the web parts and extensions that the SharePoint Framework currently supports are likely to continue using the SharePoint publishing infrastructure, which continues to be fully supported in both SharePoint Server On-Premises and SharePoint Online.
Q: When should I use a team site? When should I use a communication site?
A: Your SharePoint team site lets you share content, knowledge, news, and apps with your group as you collaborate on a project. A communication site lets you tell your story, share your work, and showcase your product across the organization.
What's Next
We can't wait to start planning and constructing solutions with SharePoint hub sites in 2018. HingePoint believes hub sites will be most valuable in an intranet scenario because of the navigation abilities of cross-site collections that have been lacking in previous SharePoint versions.
If you're trying to customize SharePoint hubs to meet your organization's unique needs, we'd love to hear what you're looking to accomplish! Feel free to start a live chat with our solution consultant on this page, email us, or call us at (214) 301-0000 to get started today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgeYRrKB5U8
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About HingePoint
HingePoint offers cloud and mobile applications for construction and real estate that are easy to adopt and employees love. Specializing in the systems that run the construction and real estate business including SharePoint, Salesforce, Procore, MS Dynamics, and Autodesk. Scale and grow profitably with Financial and Project Management Dashboards, SharePoint document management, and workflow automation for field to office collaboration.
HingePoint
8105 Rasor Blvd.
Suite 241
Plano, TX 75024
(214) 301-0000
www.hingepoint.com
[post_title] => What is a SharePoint Hub Site?
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[post_content] =>
Construction Project Management: Stop Using Spreadsheets
Having and maintaining accurate, up-to-date employee data is crucial in the construction business.
If your business is rapidly growing (like so many other construction companies in the Dallas area where HingePoint is headquartered) and you’re onboarding employees, vendors, and contractors, accurate data on who your employees are and what they are working on is critical for success.
Although it sounds like a simple task, project management for construction companies can be quite challenging and lead to more serious issues if not managed properly.
The Spreadsheet Problem
Many of our clients in the construction industry previously used Excel spreadsheets to manage their financial data, employee data, project status, and assets. Some were using old versions of SharePoint with unorganized data. When working with software and older systems, data about employees are prone to be full of errors (out-dated and inaccurate).
The trick is to get up-to-date, accurate information out of your data management system instead of old, error-prone data.
Spreadsheets are great tools for handling smaller and more manageable datasets. But what happens when you start hiring 10, 100, or even 500 employees at a time while managing employee data in a spreadsheet or in multiple, unstructured databases?
It gets unmanageable - fast.
As your construction business grows, more departments need human resource employee data because more information is attached to each employee. And soon, just having the right name, address, phone number, and social security number across the enterprise become more challenging if you don’t have the right controls and organization.
If this data is in an actual spreadsheet, then anyone can enter and change data in that workbook.
(See: Why spreadsheets don’t manage big data sets well)
The Situation
For example, a manager could get access to a Human Resource spreadsheet with employee names and other important information. Let’s say the manager has an employee named Suzanne, but she likes to be called Suzy. The manager changes the data because they can and there are no restrictions preventing it.
But there is a big problem. Now the source data – the system of record – is not consistent/accurate.
Suzanne will be called different names in different versions of spreadsheets.
(Check out our FREE eBook on The Secret To Systems Integration: The System Of Record.)
Throw time in there, too. Perhaps “Suzy” is a contractor who is keeping her time in a spreadsheet that gets sent to her manager. The manager sends Suzanne’s hours and all contractors to Human Resources so they can get paid. The manager’s project data is being merged with HR’s data.
The problem is that we have two different names in the system. “Suzanne” and “Suzy”.
No VLOOKUP formula or Pivot Table is going to solve this. It’s going to take someone to manually go in and fix the data.
This might not seem like a big deal, but as the company grows, these smaller errors will multiply in other departments. Once this happens, the employee data cannot be trusted, and it will take a lot of manual work to fix the errors each pay period. The data problems can become so big that businesses end up just not trusting their data, causing a lot of rework, manual data entry, etc.
The Solution
A lot of construction companies we work with the hope that the software an IT company is going to install will solve the data problem.
Unfortunately, this just adds another layer of complexity to the original problem.
The problem that needs to be solved is how you're going to clean up your data, actually collecting it, and then showing it in a way that lets you see the data in a new light.
Ideally, you want to make decisions with information that automatically reports to you.
Seeing year-over-year and month-to-month views of data can quickly identify trends. With the right devices collecting the data and the right systems transposing it into information, humans can focus on making strategic decisions that will make their customers happy.
That is how technology should work. And that what HingePoint can help you acheive!
If you're looking to solve your company's HR and Project Management employee data problem, we'd love to hear what you're looking to accomplish! Feel free to start a live chat with our solution consultant on this page, email us, or call us at (214) 301-0000 to get started today.
--
About HingePoint
HingePoint offers cloud and mobile applications for construction and real estate that are easy to adopt and employees love. Specializing in the systems that run the construction and real estate business including SharePoint, Salesforce, Procore, MS Dynamics, and Autodesk. Scale and grow profitably with Financial and Project Management Dashboards, document management, and workflow automation for field to office collaboration.
HingePoint
8105 Rasor Blvd.
Suite 241
Plano, TX 75024
(214) 301-0000
www.hingepoint.com
[post_title] => Best Practices for Construction Companies to Control Employee Data
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[post_content] =>
SharePoint's Two-Way API Integrates Document Libraries Right into Procore
Procore customers can now automatically update SharePoint and Procore libraries simultaneously with a new SharePoint Two-Way Sync integration and connector, built on Procore Construction OS, that is available in the Procore App Marketplace.
SharePoint Two-Way Sync shares and mirrors files and documents in both SharePoint and Procore libraries through a new connector created by HingePoint, a Dallas-based company that integrates and develops systems such as SharePoint and Procore.
The SharePoint Two-Way Sync brings Microsoft’s enterprise-grade document libraries right into Procore with two-way, real-time sync of folders and documents. When a folder is updated in SharePoint, it updates in Procore. If a file is deleted in Procore, it is deleted in SharePoint. Etc.
“This is not an embedded form that anyone can access, it's an actual API integration that lets SharePoint and Procore libraries mirror one another, while having the security of both systems," HingePoint CEO and Founder Bryce Finnerty said. “If you are a user with rights to a Procore project and you’re a SharePoint user with rights to a document library, you can access the synced files."
A growing number of construction companies use SharePoint as their system of record to store important data about employees, contracts, and project status. This connector eliminates multiple repositories of documents in both Procore and SharePoint, and connects the construction unit to the rest of the company.
The new integration that HingePoint provides for Procore reflects each organization’s commitment to openness and building out the construction technology ecosystem. With the new connector, companies can automatically and securely sync files between Procore and SharePoint or Office 365, which will save time and confusion when managing project documents.
It also creates better collaboration with the teams that are not in the construction space.
HingePoint integrates software so data can move from one system to another. They specialize in building custom tools that detect and collect data, so a business can project trends about their business.
Leveraging SharePoint’s API with Procore’s open system, this integration automates document sync, saving time and the effort of updating two systems that track and report documents. This integration allows everyone – from the owner to the general contractor – to have access to relevant documents needed to finish a project.
“We’re excited for the SharePoint connector from HingePoint to launch on the App Marketplace, as it will have an immediate impact for our users who will be able to take advantage of it,” said Laura Paciano, Senior Manager, Partner Programs, at Procore. “We first began talking with HingePoint about an integration at Groundbreak, which was just over five months ago, so for the connector to now be ready is a testament to their commitment to the construction industry and value of the App Marketplace.”
About HingePoint
HingePoint offers cloud and mobile applications for construction and real estate that are easy to adopt and employees love. Specializing in the systems that run the construction and real estate business including SharePoint, Salesforce, Procore, MS Dynamics, and Autodesk. Scale and grow profitably with Financial and Project Management Dashboards, document management, and workflow automation for field to office collaboration.
HingePoint
8105 Rasor Blvd.
Suite 241
Plano, TX 75024
(214) 301-0000www.hingepoint.com
[post_title] => Automatically Sync Documents Between SharePoint & Procore
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With the seamless integration of Office 365 and SharePoint Online, Microsoft has breathed new life into SharePoint, one of the most used platforms for collaboration, document management, team collaboration, IT support, web portals, project management, financial reporting, forms routing, and much more. The problem is very few companies take the time to maximize what Office 365 can do!
SharePoint Online improvements over the last year include upgrades that drastically impact users in terms of transporting cloud-based Office 365 capabilities onto the SharePoint platform. HingePoint identifies a few improvements we use to get the most out of Office 365 and SharePoint.
The ability to leverage Office 365 Groups, which deliver a means of group communication, is a solid alternative to popular messaging applications, such as Slack. Using Groups gives your team the ability to view, edit, share all group files, view and schedule group meetings with ease allowing for better communications among team members. [Read more about custom integrations and consulting for Microsoft Teams here.]
Using Microsoft Planner to your company’s teams or groups to create multiple task lists associated with different projects or daily to-dos. Microsoft Planner has many of the same filtering capabilities as SharePoint lists, so it is a niche replacement for tools that previously had to be built from scratch or customized from other list templates. Read more about Microsoft Planner here.
The new workflow capabilities of Microsoft Flow feature code-free interaction with hundreds of third-party services such as Salesforce, Zendesk, Facebook, Twitter, OneDrive, SharePoint, Microsoft Dynamics, and more. Microsoft Flow puts real power in the hands of regular users by easily connecting and automating services vital to your business.
SECURITY: Limit who, outside your organization, gets to see your content. Granting external access in SharePoint Online is a breeze and no longer a time-consuming inconvenience. Simply connect a Microsoft account to their company e-mail or create guest links to give users access to folders, individual files, and sites within your environment. Don't want anyone with a gmail account to have access, no problem! Share your content with a specific group of people in your organization by setting permissions through Active Directory Security Groups. Use policies that will allow or block certain user behavior (such as documents with credit card info or employee salaries). Create a policy that blocks people from sharing that kind of information between one another.
A new layout that includes rich text, images, videos, news, highlighted content, customizable dashboard, and recent site activity allows for a more mobile-friendly content display. Mobile SharePoint access used to be a nightmare due to the lack of responsive You can now access SharePoint from anywhere and communicate with your team remotely to get more work done with ease.
Embedding Power BI reports to a SharePoint page - display charts, dashboards, reports, KPIs, etc. on your SharePoint site to make the information readily available to users. Additionally, the analysis/metrics tools are now available within the program instead of having to import them; so significant time is saved on importing data from other sources.
We have guru developers and architects that have ALL the Microsoft certifications. Create your own Web Parts, .Net, Office365 APIs, SharePoint Online and Integration with Microsoft Exchange, Active Directory (AD), and SQL Server.
If you properly implement SharePoint, it will transform your company’s productivity. Employees will be more efficient, you’ll have better access to your company’s data, and you’ll be able to better report on key metrics. HingePoint’s custom SharePoint solutions have helped many companies struggling with unorganized data and manual, multi-step processes. Those same customers have transitioned into a more organized, productive organization through automated workflows and easy-to-search information.
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About HingePoint
HingePoint offers cloud and mobile applications for construction and real estate that are easy to adopt and employees love. Specializing in the systems that run the construction and real estate business including SharePoint, Salesforce, Procore, MS Dynamics, and Autodesk. Scale and grow profitably with Financial and Project Management Dashboards, document management, and workflow automation for field to office collaboration.
HingePoint
8105 Rasor Blvd.
Suite 241
Plano, TX 75024
(214) 301-0000
www.hingepoint.com
[post_title] => Benefits of Using SharePoint & Office 365
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[post_content] => Microsoft SharePoint is one of the best tools to manage company data. However, finding an expert SharePoint consultant can be a difficult and time-consuming task. Here are a few things to look for when searching for a qualified SharePoint consulting and development partner.
What to Look For in a SharePoint Consultant:
A good SharePoint Consulting Firm is a company that:
Has both consulting and development experience in your industry.
Can customize the out-of-the-box capabilities of SharePoint.
Understands how to organize data.
Let’s look at each of these in detail.
Experience in Consulting & Development in Your Industry
You don’t want a company with little experience in your industry. If the consultant cannot prove their track record of satisfied customers, then you might need to look elsewhere.
Always ask, what brands the SharePoint Consultant has worked with. Depending on what kind of solution you want, you may want to find a SharePoint consultant that has worked with trusted brands. For example, HingePoint has worked with brands like Marriott, Verizon, Presidio, and IHG.
Make sure that they have experience working in your industry (or a similar industry).
Ability to Customize SharePoint's Built-In Capabilities
To meet your business' specific needs, SharePoint consultants sometimes only need to use the standard "out-of-the-box" (built-in) capabilities that come with SharePoint.
But sometimes, they need to be able to customize SharePoint so it works the way you want.
If you're looking for customization and the consultant can only perform basic configuration without any customization, you're going to be unsatisfied.
The flip side is also true: if a SharePoint consultant only tries to push customization when you just need something basic, they aren't the right fit.
Always ask, "Do you just configure out-of-the-box or do you customize SharePoint?"
Understands How to Organize Data
Let’s face it, if you're using SharePoint, you most likely want to manage all the information in your company. SharePoint is a great document management system. Without it, your documents are probably unorganized and difficult to find. If the SharePoint consultant does not know how to make a hierarchy of data, you might not have the right fit.
Always ask,"Are you going to help me organize my data? Manage it on an ongoing basis?"
Conclusion
Hiring a SharePoint consulting firm can be an investment that provides a positive ROI almost immediately.
If you're in the process of finding the right consultant, we'd love to hear what you're looking to accomplish! Feel free to start a live chat with our solution consultant on this page, email us, or call us at (214) 301-0000 to get started today.
About HingePoint
HingePoint offers cloud and mobile applications for construction and real estate that are easy to adopt and employees love. Specializing in the systems that run the construction and real estate business including SharePoint, Salesforce, Procore, MS Dynamics, and Autodesk. Scale and grow profitably with Financial and Project Management Dashboards, document management, and workflow automation for field to office collaboration.
HingePoint
8105 Rasor Blvd.
Suite 241
Plano, TX 75024
(214) 301-0000
www.hingepoint.com
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Automations, implementation, flexible frameworks with Microsoft Power Automate
Automations, implementation, flexible frameworks. They all sound great, but how do they actually benefit your business? With Microsoft Power Automate, the possibilities may be endless but the benefits are easy to see. HingePoint is breaking down three key examples of how to supercharge your workflow and improve your organization’s productivity, processes, and bottom line. Grab your notepad and prepare to reimagine your business. Now let’s dive in.
1. Easily integrate with hundreds of software applications
When businesses perform automation, the main barrier we see them face is the connectivity to specific services they already use. For example, integrations that connect data from a SharePoint list or from an Excel sheet to the OneDrive for storage aren’t always available. Power Automation seamlessly integrates with SharePoint project management tools, SharePoint workflows, and other systems that may already be in place within your organization.
Our approach: To resolve this issue, we use SharePoint Designer Workflow, lists, and libraries to perform the automation. We also utilize Microsoft Flow to integrate with thousands of other software and services. Not only does Power Automate easily connect with Microsoft products, but it also communicates with ease with other programs.
2. Automated triggers so you don’t have to lift a finger
In any automation, the most important step is defining what trigger or action signals the start of an automation process. When do you want automation to be sent and what determining factor dictates that initiation?
Our approach: We use the Microsoft Flow Triggers to start the automation process. These triggers specify how and when a workflow gets carried out. We also create custom triggers specifically to collect data and perform further business operation logics.
3. Email automation that actually works
Power Automate can decipher an email’s content and process it according to predetermined filters. For example, an organization can utilize email automation for their invoice approval process. Power Automate takes an invoice as an email attachment and moves it into the library for automatic invoice approval. Simple, easy, and effective.
Our approach: We implement a filter according to specific keywords in an email’s subject line, body content, or by the email sender’s address.
How to set up Power Automate in your business
If your team isn’t already implementing Microsoft Power Automations (formerly Microsoft Flow), we highly recommend you explore the benefits it can bring to your workflow. From seamless integrations to preset power automation, your team can work smarter, not harder, with this tool. As a SharePoint consultant, we understand the complexities that come with integrations and setups. HingePoint has over 15 years of experience with SharePoint and has helped more than 200 companies implement SharePoint solutions. Our unique process ensures that you get a solution that works for you and even comes with a performance guarantee. That’s how sure we are that you’ll love Power Automate. If you’re ready to get started, we are here to help. Contact HingePoint today to learn more about how Microsoft Power Automate can work for you.
Procore customers can now 
“This is not a simple connector product app, it’s an actual real-time API integration that lets MS Teams, SharePoint, and Procore libraries mirror one another while having the security of both systems. This expands our solutions for the construction industry” HingePoint Managing Director Bryce Finnerty said.
HingePoint is offering a pricing model that will allow clients to license a turn-key solution that can be set up in a few hours. A solution that our clients can host in their own 
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Mobile SharePoint Hub Sites
As your construction business grows, more departments need human resource employee data because more information is attached to each employee. And soon, just having the right name, address, phone number, and social security number across the enterprise become more challenging if you don’t have the right controls and organization.
If this data is in an actual spreadsheet, then anyone can enter and change data in that workbook.
(See: Why spreadsheets don’t manage big data sets well)
Leveraging SharePoint’s API with Procore’s open system, this integration automates document sync, saving time and the effort of updating two systems that track and report documents. This integration allows everyone – from the owner to the general contractor – to have access to relevant documents needed to finish a project.
“We’re excited for the SharePoint connector from HingePoint to launch on the App Marketplace, as it will have an immediate impact for our users who will be able to take advantage of it,” said Laura Paciano, Senior Manager, Partner Programs, at Procore. “We first began talking with HingePoint about an integration at Groundbreak, which was just over five months ago, so for the connector to now be ready is a testament to their commitment to the construction industry and value of the App Marketplace.”
Apporove the Case
Dashboard
Workflow 2: New project request
Dashboard
History
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