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What’s New in SharePoint Online: November 2011 Update
Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:52:29 GMT
Body: Our first update to SharePoint Online (SPO) since the launch of Office 365 (O365) became generally available on June 28, 2011 is now complete worldwide. We thought it would be a good time to share information about the new features and fixes available as part of this service update. On a broad level, this update enables greater reach to both people and external data, while at the same time increasing the number of supported devices and Web browsers. We also added some self-management recovery capabilities. But there’s a lot more, too.
Business Connectivity Services At SharePoint Conference 2011 (Oct. 3-6) in Anaheim, CA, Jeff Teper (Corporate Vice President of SharePoint engineering) announced, “Business Connectivity Services (BCS) is coming to SharePoint Online by the end of this calendar year.” Available now to all Office 365 midsize and enterprise customers worldwide, BCS in SPO enables them to connect to external data sources via Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) Web Services endpoints in both read and write modes.
Now, you can design solutions that extend collaboration capabilities that include external business data, such as line-of-business (LoB) applications that sit behind customer firewalls, or are being transitioned to the cloud (think SQL Azure). Best yet, you can download SharePoint Designer 2010 for free to help make the connections.
And for BCS experts, SPO now also supports external lists and data columns, the Business Data Catalogue (BDC) service for WCF connectors, and the Secure Store Service partitioned at the tenant level within customers’ SharePoint Online Administration Center. What is not yet available: external data search, rich client integration, profile pages and direct connectivity to SQL Azure without a WCF endpoint.
Want more information? Check out Steve Fox’s (Azure CoE) informative blog post. In addition, we’ve recently published new SPO BCS related documentation on MSDN:
External Sharing
BCS is all about breaking down the boundaries to external data. Now let’s turn to breaking down the barriers when you work with people. This service update adds support for working with people who are not part of your company, such as vendors, trusted business partners, and customers. With these external sharing capabilities, a company can invite external users to view, share, and collaborate on their SharePoint Online sites. This feature is turned off by default, but a SharePoint Online Administrator can enable external sharing for the whole company. Then, individual site collection owner administrators can decide if they wish to share externally.
Please note: External users may sign in to the service using a Microsoft Online Services ID and/or a Windows Live ID. Live IDs may include @Live.com, @Hotmail.com and @MSN.com user names, plus regional derivations.
For more information:
With the release of Windows Phone 7.5 codenamed “Mango,” Office 365 users can now access list items and work on documents stored in SharePoint Online lists and document libraries—in addition to email, calendar and contacts. This new support applies to all Office 365 plans, including those for small businesses and professionals (http://-based) and enterprises (https://-based).
For more information:
· Read the original Windows Phone TechNet blog post when Office 365 support was announced at TechEd 2011.
· Watch this video to see how easy it is to connect Windows Phone 7.5 to Office 365 services.
Better connections
In addition to earlier versions of Internet Explorer and Firefox, SharePoint Online now officially supports Internet Explorer 9 and Chrome. No matter which browser you prefer, you’ll get a better experience. Just launch your favorite browser. Then, hit your favorite SharePoint Online team site or intranet company site, work with Office Web Apps, and more.
Connections to other services are also better. For instance, Microsoft Dynamics CRM customers can now take advantage of the rich SharePoint Online document management functionality directly within the Microsoft Dynamics CRM application. As a result, users can create SharePoint Online Document Libraries dynamically within CRM—when and where they are needed. Companies can also add Document Management capabilities to entities such as Accounts, Opportunities, Cases or even custom entities in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
For more information:
· Get high-level details in the blog post here,
· Get more technical details in the blog post here.
Recycle Bin
Lastly, SharePoint Online makes it easier to recover from accidental deletions. This service update gives site collection administrators more control by significantly improving all site collection recycle bins. In other words, you can now restore an entire sub site (or document, list, library, etc.) within a few clicks, and within a few minutes.
Fixes
This update to SharePoint Online also includes numerous fixes. Many of these fixes were driven by customer feedback and Office 365 Support requests. We’re listening and appreciate your feedback. Some of the key fixes include:
Companies using SharePoint Online for small businesses will no longer be able to delete their root site—a great benefit considering that this offering is based around a single site collection. SharePoint Online-based Public Websites will no longer prompt unauthenticated users for credentials on their mobile devices. When Windows Phone 7.5, codenamed “Mango” was released, customers that applied a vanity URL to their Office 365 tenancy could not connect to their SharePoint Online site via the “Locations” section of the Office Hub. Now they can. The “-my” root site collection—the parent site collection to all of a tenant’s My Sites—has returned to the SharePoint Online Administration Center within the list of site collections. It is again possible to allocate server resources, assign owners, and now this site collection cannot be deleted.
The boundaries continue to break down; ever closer to collaboration from anywhere, with anyone, on any device. We hope all who are already enjoying the service will like all the new capabilities of SharePoint Online. And if you’re not yet using the service, try it today risk free for 30 days! To the Cloud!
Thanks,
The SharePoint Team
Published: 11/29/2011 9:00 AM
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Business-critical processes with SharePoint and SQL
Wed, 16 Nov 2011 20:45:22 GMT
Body: SharePoint 2010 provides the ability to connect to backend business systems, surface business data in SharePoint and make it accessible by, and useful to, employees across the organization. Almost every company of significant size uses ERP and CRM solutions to run core business processes. Over time, companies have developed detailed practices around using such systems to support vertical disciplines within the organization (e.g. product planning, financial performance management, supply-chain management, etc.), yet challenges remain with regard to driving visibility and collaboration, based on business data, across different disciplines and teams. These challenges stem from the fact that only a fraction of employees are licensed and trained to use those backend systems, and from the high cost and complexity of integrating such systems across different functions and teams.
With SharePoint and SQL, once the relevant business data is surfaced in an enterprise-wide collaboration platform, several benefits can be gained; first and foremost, access to the data that underlines core business processes can now be viewed, analyzed and acted on by any employee in the organization (based on business priorities and permissions granted). With the relevant business data readily available, better decision making, quicker and more effective exception handling, and faster time-to-market can all be achieved. In addition, users are able to interact with the business data through a user interface they are already familiar with instead of having to switch between multiple user interfaces which are oftentimes not as user friendly.
Interestingly enough, training-related cost reductions do not count for the bulk of the TCO reductions that could be achieved by implementing backend data connectivity with SharePoint. The more significant source of such efficiencies is the impact related to reducing business risk; as more functions in the organization are exposed to the business data that is related to their daily responsibilities, and as workflows are implemented to support cross-team exception handling and problem solving, more and more of the risk associated with the underlying business processes can be mitigated, leading to more efficient processes and to reduced operational costs.
To learn more about the benefits related to enable business-critical solutions with SharePoint and SQL, click here.
Published: 11/17/2011 9:45 AM
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SharePoint Conference 2011 – A Week In Review
Fri, 07 Oct 2011 03:28:08 GMT
Body: It’s hard to believe that SharePoint Conference 2011 just wrapped up. Most of the attendees are on planes back to all corners of the world, laden down with knowledge and swag and plans to meet again in Las Vegas next year.
We kicked off Monday with a great keynote by Jared Spataro, Jeff Teper and Kurt Del Bene, including announcements about integration with Office 365, the Certified Architects Program for SharePoint and an interactive donation for NetHope. Of course one of the highlights was the on-stage live demonstration of the failover of a 14-Terabyte SharePoint database – in less than 40 seconds.
We then kicked off the conference proper with more sessions than are possible to list in a single blog post. The SharePoint Express sessions in Microsoft’s booth proved extremely popular, with most of them turning into standing-room-only events. Videos from most sessions have already been posted on MySPC for attendees to download at their leisure to review.
Tuesday evening was another huge event – the Disneyland party, where we got to let our proverbial hair down (and Mickey Mouse ears out) for a few hours. We heard through the grapevine that one attendee rode Star Tours no less than 8 times that night. If you heard of anyone riding it more, let us know. We want to know if there are bigger geeks out there than we are.
Wednesday night we had our Ask the Experts session followed by the annual SharePint event at ESPN Sportszone. Both were well-attended, and the SharePint crowd agreed to reconvene on Thursday night to continue the party.
Another big star at SharePoint conference was the SharePoint monkey (whom some of the attendees suggested we call Franklin after the rumored return of a certain television comedy show). Twice a day attendees “found the monkey” in exchange for prizes, and on Wednesday afternoon we had the world’s largest (and to our knowledge only) monkey fling, where around 70 people shot monkey slingshots into the air, creating a heck of a spectacle.
SharePoint Conference 2012 will be the next time we all get to meet, and it’ll be in Vegas next November! You can imagine that there will be plenty of great things to see and do, and of course, a whole new parcel of places to find the monkey. We look forward to seeing everyone there!
Published: 10/7/2011 11:15 AM
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NetHope uses SharePoint to help 33 Leading Humanitarian Organizations share best practices.
Sun, 02 Oct 2011 22:28:27 GMT
Body: When natural disasters occur, the ability to coordinate relief efficiently and effectively is critical. Responders are faced with a challenging environment that includes increasing complexity of inter-agency coordination, damaged and limited communications infrastructure, outdated or paper-based mapping/topography information, and difficulty in disseminating information quickly (both between the various response participants and the public). These challenges have been compounded by the increasing frequency and severity of natural disasters as well as deepening global inter-dependencies occurring in the last decade.
One organization that is helping these countries tackle the digital divide is NetHope. Formed 10 years ago, NetHope is a nonprofit collaboration of IT leaders from 33 leading international NGOs that serve tens of millions of people each year in over 180 countries and that manage more than $30 billion (U.S.) in aid. NetHope members currently use SharePoint to share information, technology resources and best practices across their organizations in order to better support healthcare, education, agriculture, natural resource management, emergency response and microfinance programs. By fostering partnerships between NGOs as well as socially responsible corporations and foundations, NetHope leverages the power of collaboration and technology to scale humanitarian relief, emergency response and conservation programs to reach more people in need.
While NetHope has been using SharePoint and Microsoft technologies for more than five years, the non-profit consortium is migrating to Office 365 to take advantage of the advancements in collaboration, information sharing, and productivity offered by SharePoint Online and Lync Online.
Pooling knowledge and other resources amongst NGOs increases their ability to scale programs and reach more people in need. These organizations need to work around the clock, often providing as many as 20-25 programs simultaneously in different parts of the world. From providing health programs in sub-Saharan Africa to dealing with flooding in Pakistan to helping to resolve conflict in the Middle East, NetHope is looking to SharePoint Online and Lync Online to better connect its members, share resources and solutions, and improve responses to natural disasters, famine, and war.
NetHope and Microsoft together believe that technology can accelerate change and help to address some of society’s most pressing problems. Watch this video to see how NetHope, World Vision and SharePoint are working together:
Published: 10/5/2011 8:30 AM
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Guidance to Move to the Cloud on Your Terms
Wed, 28 Sep 2011 04:41:28 GMT
Body: Introducing the new whitepaper, “Hybrid SharePoint Environments with Office 365.”
hy·brid (n) - something (as a power plant, vehicle, or electronic circuit) that has two different types of components performing essentially the same function.
- Merriam-Webster.com
Are you evaluating how Office 365 fits into your overall communication and collaboration strategy plan, both today and into the future? Specific to SharePoint, are you planning for full cloud adoption within your firewall, or will you begin your move to the cloud with a mixed deployment across SharePoint environments – both on-premises and online within Office 365? To provide insight in this area, we’re excited to announce the new “Hybrid SharePoint Environments with Office 365” whitepaper - downloadable here: www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=154e9524-27a1-4c1f-b4ea-efeb0027b1bc
As of June 28th, 2011, Office 365 introduced the ability to achieve single sign-on (SSO) via Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS). Once established, this enables end-users to securely move between on-premises and online boundaries. The “Hybrid SharePoint Environments with Office 365” whitepaper provides step-by-step guidance for extending SharePoint and SharePoint Online beyond SSO – covering best practices for planning your cross-domain information architecture, direction for approaching security and compliance requirements, and insights on the ways branding & navigation play an important role in building a consistent end-user experience. The paper equally weighs a variety of business scenarios providing clear guidance about which deployment approach might make the most sense in your organization.
We believe you should move to the cloud on your terms and we encourage you to use the hybrid guidance and technical capabilities in this whitepaper to chart your cloud roadmap. The SharePoint team continues to plan and design for future hybrid scenarios and we are committed to supporting you every step of the way. We believe a thoughtful hybrid deployment plan will bridge gaps between existing investments, ease migration to the cloud and foster rapid, cloud-first innovation for your organization.
Enjoy the read,
The SharePoint Team
Related resources:
o Prepare for single sign-on (SSO) – Office 365
o The main Deploying Office 365 page
o The Microsoft Office 365 Deployment Guide for Enterprises
o SharePoint Online Planning Guide for Office 365 for enterprises
o Exchange Online hybrid deployment and migration with Office 365
Published: 10/4/2011 8:30 AM
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