While many new and exciting features are announced on the Office 365 Road map,only the sexiest few get reported – what about the rest?
Although the big announcements are exciting, I'm always interested in learning more about the underdogs:those features that have the ability to make a huge difference to users' day to day working lives, but often slip by unnoticed, lost among those improvements that we have all come to expect from the platform. Here are the my 4 favourite small features that failed to earn a plaudit in the roadmap, but are very much deserving of a mention:
1) Improved image attachment viewing in the Outlook web app
"When reading emails with image attachments, you now see big thumbnail previews, and you see thumbnails in the attachment well when composing an email, too."
I am one of those users who likes the web email client. It's a much lighter way to access email when you are a multi device user and you don't want to have to update all your email clients when you change your password (we've all been there...)This new feature, which is due to roll out soon, is just a little thing that makes that Outlook online experience better.
Have you ever attached an image to an email, only to have a panic that's it's the wrong one - "Ah...Is that the black one or the blue one?" - then diligently remove your attachment and re-add the "right one", all the while having no idea whether or not it's the same one you attached in the first place? Such a waste of time.
Now you can see thumbnails of your attached images, so you can be confident that you've got it right first time:
(Image removed)The side by side view has also been improved with better load timing.
If you know me at all, then you know that SharePoint is my passion, and I'm a fan of anything that gives information back to users and admins alike on engagement and usability. This means that these next two features are winners for me, and are both already launched and rolling out.
2) Site activity and insights on the Site Contents page in SharePoint
"The SharePoint Online 'Site Contents' page is being redesigned to help site owners, members, and visitors understand the activities occurring within the site, provide visibility on top-viewed content, a site map, and site tips. Think of this as site-level activities and analytics.
The new Site Contents page provides clear access to add lists, document libraries, subsites and apps. There are now also quick buttons to access common actions and deeper site settings, plus you have the ability to return to "Classic SharePoint", which maintains access to previous "Site Contents" user interface."
This gives direct feedback to site owners on what's working, what's critical to the team, where data is being used and updated, and where it isn't. In addition to the redesigned "SharePoint" page which points you to where and what you have been working on, this little gem is just a really nice engagement feedback piece to the content owners and department champions. Visibility of top viewed documents and trending data is always on the wish list, and now at least a little of this is being delivered.
3) Compliance Administrator role
"With the new Compliance Administrator role you can grant people access to important compliance and security features in Office 365. The Compliance Administrator can perform tasks in the Compliance Center such as manage data loss prevention policies, device management policies, and view auditing reports."
On the same topic, auditing SharePoint usage is always on the wish list for IT, Business leads and anyone in a compliance, internal communications or Quality role. Therefore it is great to see more control being added to the roles available so that auditing logs can be accessed in the new and much improved security and compliance centre. This one is in development, but you can already add users to simply review the audit logs already so its an extension of it. I do love delegated knowledge and this just continues as a strength of the Office 365 platform.
4) Copy and move to SharePoint
"Copy and move files between OneDrive and SharePoint in web experiences. We’re rolling out the ability to copy a file from OneDrive to a SharePoint document library. Later this year, we’ll add the ability to move a file as well."
This is our last one for today, and while it's currently in development, it promises great things. It is a fundamental change to the SharePoint user delegated control and is a big win in my books.
One of the biggest challenges customers have is the issue of copying and moving data. To properly leverage knowledge, you more often than not want a copy of something else as a starting point. Now before you all shout at me from a version control viewpoint - which is normally my soapbox! - I'm not condoning multiple copies of the same document. I'm also not saying that Content Types and templates are not the way to go - they are! But when writing a proposal, a letter, a cut down version of a report etc. It's really useful to be able to simply copy the original as a template.
It's also a pain when that original is in your OneDrive, as you have to either user explorer mode (IE only), download and upload, or use multiple browsers to fiddle with a drag and drop . So I think this one has promise...
What next?
There are loads more comment worthy features in the roadmap, and it's definitely worth a regular read. The clues in here and in the future of SharePoint conference show clearly that evolution of SharePoint and the integration of it within the Office 365 platform is continuing at pace.
My mantra is that "there is a better way of doing that", and with continual change should come continual evolution. Is your organisation continually changing to keep users engaged? Are you leveraging the Office 365 spend you have already made to use these new features? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
Business Cloud Integration Ltd offer Cloud, SharePoint and Office 365 consultancy in Cambridge, delivering solutions that increase company productivity, streamline and automate business processes, and simplify and enhance collaborative working.