ABOUT THE AUTHOR @shareptjasper
Jasper Oosterveld lives in Amsterdam with his wife Katie, daughter Flora and their sweet little dog called Millie. Jasper has worked with SharePoint since 2008 as a SharePoint Consultant. In his role as a SharePoint Consultant he supports customers with the process of implementing SharePoint.
Collaborating in the SharePoint and Office 365 community is his passion. Jasper speaks regularly at SharePoint and Office 365 community events such as DIWUG, Office 365 Users Group, SharePoint and Office 365 Saturday, SharePoint Connections and the European SharePoint Conference. He is the co-founder of the site SPCNL and the SharePoint Business User Group NL. CONTENT
Acknowledgements ...... 6
Introduction to working on Office 365 ...... 7
Working with personal documents ...... 10
OneDrive for Business ...... 12 iPad ...... 14 iPhone ...... 22 Surface RT ...... 27 Nokia Lumia 720 ...... 28 Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 ...... 31 Samsung Galaxy S2 ...... 37 Conclusion ...... 40
Working with team documents ...... 41 iPad ...... 42 iPhone ...... 50 Surface RT ...... 52 Nokia Lumia 720 ...... 56 Samsung Galaxy S2 ...... 57 Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 ...... 59
Device channels ...... 59 Conclusion ...... 60 Sources ...... 60 Communicate with colleagues using e-mail on Office 365 with any vicede ...... 61 E-mail ...... 62 Conclusion ...... 70
Communicate with colleagues through chat on Office 365 from any device ...... 71 Surface RT ...... 74 Nokia Lumia 720 ...... 79 iPhone ...... 81 iPad ...... 83 Samsung Galaxy S2 ...... 85 Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 ...... 87 Conclusion ...... 87
Communicate with colleagues through Social on Office 365 with any device .... 88 Nokia Lumia 720 ...... 90 Surface RT ...... 94 iPad ...... 98 iPhone ...... 102 Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 ...... 103 Samsung Galaxy S2 ...... 108 Conclusion ...... 110 Taking Notes with OneNote from any Device on Office 365 ...... 112 Surface RT ...... 114 Nokia Lumia 720 ...... 116 iPad ...... 119 iPhone ...... 122 Samsung Galaxy S2 ...... 123 Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 ...... 123 Co-authoring ...... 124 Conclusion ...... 125
Perform my administrator tasks ...... 126 iPad ...... 128 iPhone ...... 132 Surface RT ...... 133 Nokia Lumia 720 ...... 134 Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 and Galaxy S2 ...... 135 Conclusion ...... 136
Useful links ...... 137 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This e-book is an extension of my Office 365 blog series published on the Sharegate blog. I decided to write about Office 365 because it’s becoming such a major part of my life as a SharePoint Consultant. Microsoft changed their strategy for SharePoint and announced to go Cloud first at the SharePoint Conference in 2012. I already had an interest for SharePoint Online and Office 365, but this changed everything. I knew at that point that Office 365 was the future for Microsoft, SharePoint and myself.
This e-book wouldn’t have been possible without the help of a couple people. I really want to thank Sharegate for their hospitality to place the articles on their blog, and help creating this e-book. I also really want to thank Benjamin Niaulin, one of the nicest people I have ever met. He is a real inspiration as a person and as SharePoint Geek! A lot of appreciation goes out to Dave Ruijter and Frank op ’t Landt for letting me borrow their Android devices. Sorry for all the Apps and screenshots guys!
Last but not least, my wife Katie. I know it’s not always been easy taking care of our beautiful daughter and hear my typing and mumbling in the background about Cloud, documents and Apps.
I really hope you enjoy reading this e-book and wish you all the best in your Cloud adventures!
6 INTRODUCTION TO WORKING ON OFFICE 365 INTRODUCTION TO WORKING ON OFFICE 365
Microsoft fully committed to the Cloud with Office 365. One example of this commitment is Power BI for Office 365 that’s exclusively distributed by Office 365, and this is just the beginning. I am certain that all the latest features and improvements for SharePoint, and other Microsoft products, are released in the Cloud first before on-premises availability. Microsoft will use the Cloud to test and approve updates and new features before distributing these to the on-premises platform. By doing this, Microsoft regains close control of their products, installed on their own servers, instead of sending it off to customers, resulting in many issues due to lack of Governance or installation and configuration errors. This makes it easier to release new features in a shorter release cycle, compared to the previous three years release cycle.
The rise of smartphones and tablets changed everything in the technology market. Customers got “spoiled” with user friendly mobile devices. These devices are easy to use, even for non techies, with many Apps. The Apps are easy to install, fulfill business/market demands and receive regular updates. Customers, who are end-users during the day, expect the same of their Enterprise software and don’t want to wait three years for a new release, or a year for an update. They’d rather have it yesterday than today. I believe this is the power of Office 365 and the future of Enterprise software (or shall we call it services?).
8 I am a practical person, so when I read the following statement, my mind starts to wonder:
“ Your business evolves. So does Office 365. You can work from wherever you want, whenever you need to. That means whatever you need to do to succeed gets done. You always have the latest features, to help you work smarter. Plus, it’s the Office you already know, so it’s easy to use.”
This is a very interesting statement because it literally means I should be able to get my work done with Office 365 no matter my location, time and device. It doesn’t mention the word device, but in this day and age, the majority of people work with smartphones and tablets. They expect to be able to work with these devices. I want to put this to the test! In this blog series, I am going to investigate if I can work with an iPad, iPhone, Surface RT tablet, Nokia Lumia 720 or Android Phone and tablet to work with my documents, communicate with my colleagues, connect to my SharePoint portal, gather and take my notes and perform my administrator tasks.
9 WORKING WITH PERSONAL DOCUMENTS WORKING WITH PERSONAL DOCUMENTS
People work with documents on a daily basis. I work with request for proposals, tenders, functional and technical designs and presentations. I don’t do this alone but with my colleagues, we really connect and collaborate. SharePoint Online is the perfect platform for storing your documents and collaborating with colleagues, partners or even customers. Before we dive into the possibilities and features of storing and working with documents in SharePoint Online, we have to divide this into two parts:
• Personal documents • Team documents
This chapter focuses on the personal documents. The next chapter will dive into working with team documents.
11 ONEDRIVE FOR BUSINESS
You use OneDrive for Business to store your personal (work related of course) documents like the documents you currently store in your My Documents folder. The following figure illustrates an example of OneDrive for Business:
Microsoft has been so kind to provide you with a whooping 25GB to store your personal documents! Believe me, that’s a lot! I am guessing the current storage of most My Documents folders out there won’t even reach 2GB. You can buy additional storage to increase the limit to 50GB, 100GB, 250GB, 500GB or even 1TB.
12 One of the advantages of storing your personal documents in OneDrive for Business is sharing these with your colleagues:
You are also able to share your documents with external people such as customers or suppliers. We can even take it a step further by creating an anonymous link for viewing or editing the document:
13 These features only work when your Office 365 Global Administrator enabled this setting for the My Site Host of your Office 365 tenant. Let’s take a look at how you can work with OneDrive for Business by using mobile devices.
IPAD
Last Christmas, I treated myself to a present and bought the iPad Mini Retina. Well, my wife kind of permanently borrowed my iPad 2, so she left me with no choice ;) Although I am a Microsoft man, I really like the iPad Mini! It’s a hell of a device! Really fast, light and a beautiful screen, but please, don’t tell anyone ;)
The iPad comes with a free OneDrive for Business App:
14 You can view an Office document by clicking on the name, for example a PowerPoint presentation:
The presentation opens in the OneDrive for Business App and you can view its content, but there isn’t an option to actually edit the document with the App. You have two options for editing Office documents:
• 3rd party Office App • Browser
There are many Apps available on the iPad to work with Office documents such as Documents to Go or iWork. I advise to download a trial of an App to find out if the App works for you and your colleagues.
15 Let’s take a look at editing within the browser. By clicking on the three dots at the right bottom of the screen, the following figure appears:
By clicking on Launch Web App and logging in, you are able to view the PowerPoint presentation in the browser:
16 Click on Edit in PowerPoint Online:
17 This time around, with SharePoint Online 2013, you are able to edit Office documents in the browser with the iPad. This was a major issue with SharePoint Online 2010, due to the requirement of installing Silverlight. This wasn’t possible with the iPad, so the interface was really unreliable and unstable. Microsoft dropped Silverlight as requirement to run Office Online, so bye issue! After you exit the PowerPoint presentation, you are actually able to use the Safari browser to view your OneDrive for Business documents:
In case you prefer to just work with the browser instead of the OneDrive for Business App, you have the option to do so. The new and improved browser interface works really well, but more about the new mobile interface in the next chapter.
You have to realize that the documents aren’t available offline by default! You have to select this option by clicking on the arrow icon on the bottom of the screen. After clicking the button, a message appears. Don’t blink otherwise you’ll miss the confirmation of the offline availability of the document:
18 This is very important to remember! Let’s say you want to prepare an important proposal in the train but you forgot to store it offline... That will definitely ruin your day.
19 One option I really like is the ability to share a document within the OneDrive for Business App:
Enter the e-mail address of your colleague and decide if he or she can edit the document. Click on Add:
20 As you can see, it’s really easy to adjust the sharing setting:
21 IPHONE
The iPhone also comes with the OneDrive for Business App. The App has the same features overall, but of course the screen is smaller, so the look & feel is different. The following figure illustrates an example of the home screen:
Let’s take a look at a PowerPoint presentation:
Not too bad at all. I mentioned in the introduction that the App has overall the same features.
22 The main difference appears here because you don’t have a shortcut to open the presentation in the browser:
You have to install the Office Online App to edit Office documents:
23 The following figure illustrates the view of the PowerPoint presentation in the App:
You have basic editing options available:
24 Let’s change the text of the slide. You simply click on Edit Slide Text:
Select the text you want to change and the following figure appears:
25 After you made the changes, you can share or save the new presentation:
A very annoying issue occurs on the iPhone when you want to save the new presentation with the same filename. You have to rename the presentation:
Don’t forget to delete the old presentation and rename the new one. This is an unfortunate bug with OneDrive for Business. Let’s hope this gets fixed in a future release.
26 SURFACE RT
The OneDrive for Business App for the Surface RT looks very similar to the iPad App:
The power of the Surface RT, especially as a work tablet, shows itself when you open the presentation in a fully functional PowerPoint Office client:
27 This is great! Don’t get me wrong, I love the iPad, but to work with a tablet every day for actual work stuff, the Surface RT wins for sure because you can use the full Office 2013 suite. There is one major feature missing compared to the iPad App, the offline access. This doesn’t exist for the Surface RT App. You’ll have to download the documents before going offline. Very strange that the iPad, not a Microsoft device, has this feature but an actual Microsoft device is missing such an important feature.
NOKIA LUMIA 720
Although I think the iPhone is a magnificent device, the Nokia Lumia 720 is a great alternative. The operating system, with its live tiles, is original and refreshing. The out-of-the-box integration with Outlook, Social networks and SkyDrive is a real winner. The Nokia Lumia 720 doesn’t have an App for OneDrive for Business. I really have no idea why, but you have to use the Office Hub:
Funny to see that the word SkyDrive is still present in the App. Seems that someone forgot to change it to OneDrive. You have to add a new place by clicking on the folder icon. To do so, you’ll need the URL of your OneDrive for Business:
28 After entering your credentials, only the first time, you see the content of your OneDrive for Business:
Click on Documents and you are able to view your documents:
29 Any Office document can be opened with your Nokia Lumia 720:
You can also edit every Office document. Not my favorite method, but when you just need to change some text, it does the job.
30 SAMSUNG GALAXY TAB 2
Unfortunately, the Galaxy Tab 2 doesn’t have an OneDrive for Business App so you have to use the browser. Microsoft did announce at the SharePoint Conference 2014 that an Android App is to be released this year. Before you think the browser is probably a fine alternative, please hold that thought and keep on reading. To be fair, everything starts out fine:
The home page of OneDrive for Business looks good and similar to the iPad. I really like the look & feel with the large icons and squares. Let’s click on the call-out menu:
31 You have two options here:
1. Open the presentation 2. Share the presentation
Everything starts to get messy when you open the presentation:
32 There isn’t a top navigation bar available to edit the presentation or start a slideshow.
Swiping through the presentation is a complete disaster because the animations don’t work and everything feels really clumsy and unfinished. Just take a look at the following example:
33 This is a Word document displayed in the Office Web Apps on my laptop’s browser, looks nice right? Hold on! Let’s just see what the Galaxy Tab 2 does. Are you ready?
34 I am speechless, believe that doesn’t happen often. I am so annoyed that I almost forget to show you the share feature:
35 Again, everything looks to be alright until you want to add a colleague:
The username autocomplete feature doesn’t work. You have to press enter on the keyboard and then the magic happens. The keyboard fills almost the whole screen. In my opinion, the Galaxy Tab 2 is a terrible tablet while trying to work with personal documents in Office 365.
36 SAMSUNG GALAXY S2
The Android phone, just as the Nokia Lumia 720, doesn’t come with an OneDrive for Business App. This is solved with the Office App:
In our case, we selected Office 365 because our personal documents are stored in OneDrive for Business. The following screenshot shows the URL you have to enter. My advice is to send the URL to yourself and copy and paste it. That will saves you valuable time.
37 Let’s take a look:
The document names are cut off, not very nice. Let’s open a Word document:
38 The Office App is very buggy. For example, in the following figure, you can see that pictures aren’t always displayed:
The same issue occurs, as with the Galaxy Tab 2 tablet, the formatting is totally off and messy. It’s also not possible to edit documents:
Unfortunately, also no good news for Android fans on the mobile and tablet front.
39 CONCLUSION
OneDrive for Business is the way forward for storing personal, work related, documents. End-users get 25GB storage to store their documents, OneDrive for Business connects with Windows Explorer, is available for mobile devices and it’s easy to share documents with colleagues or external people. This really beats working with the My Documents folder.
Instead of only giving praise for OneDrive for Business, there’s a couple of pain points. Although OneDrive for Business is available for mobile devices, the Apps are far from perfect. The main issue at this moment is offline access. You need to manually select the documents you want to have available offline or download the documents. This is something end-users can easily forget and find annoying.
Sharing documents brings certain risks because an end-user can, by accident, share a content sensitive document with users who aren’t allowed to view the content. This can get even worse if this document is shared with people outside of the company. You really have to assess the risks of sharing content internally and/or externally. There isn’t a management interface where the administrator has an overview with all the internally and externally shared documents.
There are of course other alternatives in the market for storing personal documents such as Dropbox. I would recommend reading Benjamin’s post about this subject: http://en.share-gate.com/blog/sharepoint-2013-skydrive-pro-vs-dropbox
The following article is from Microsoft and contains valuable information about OneDrive for Business:
What is OneDrive for Business
40 WORKING WITH TEAM DOCUMENTS WORKING WITH TEAM DOCUMENTS
In the previous chapter, I talked about the use of OneDrive for Business to work with personal documents. This post is dedicated to team documents. These are documents stored on SharePoint project or team site, that everyone wants to be able to access anywhere, anytime on any device. These are often very valuable documents with critical information that influence business decisions on a day-to-day basis. ouY can imagine that certain professions, such as Sales Managers or CIO’s, need these documents to quickly make important business decisions. Let’s start by taking a look at the iPad.
IPAD
There isn’t a Microsoft App, comparable to the OneDrive for Business App, to access your team documents. You’ll have to choose from a selection of 3rd party Apps:
• SharePlus • Colligo • Harmon.ie • Filamente
I am not doing a comparison between these Apps in this e-book. My advice? Download a free trial version, perform intensive tests and see what App suits your business needs. Please make sure you can access your files offline because you aren’t always online with a tablet. Also make sure the App supports Office 365! A while ago, this wasn’t the case with every App. My expectation is that this isn’t the case anymore, but better be safe than sorry.
42 Most Apps don’t have an Office editor, so assume that you’ll need an additional App to edit Office documents. You can also decide to use the browser. This is a decision you have to make. My recommendation is to thoroughly test multiple Office 3rd Party Apps before you buy one for your business. Invite a couple end-users and ask them for their opinion because they have to work with it after you bought it.
I decided to look at using the browser to work with team documents. Let’s start the day with opening the overview of your favorite SharePoint sites:
By default, the HTML 5 contemporary view is activated. This is a new feature of SharePoint Online 2013. The sites are presented in a more compact view compared to the default view:
43 The default view is stretched out and doesn’t fit the whole screen. It shows redundant information such as your profile picture, the top navigation and the Search bar. When you select Sites, you just want to see sites, nothing more!
That’s what the contemporary mobile view does. This view is really only for viewing content; you can’t use it for administrative tasks such as changing library or list settings. You need to use the PC view to execute those kind of tasks.
The contemporary view only works with the following site templates:
• Team site • Blank site • Project site
44 A Publishing site won’t have this view available. You can only use the PC view or you have to create your custom view by creating a Device Channel, but more about that later. You are interested in viewing your Accounting team site:
Only documents are displayed. It’s very easy to open an Office document by clicking on the name:
45 Office Online enables you to edit the Word document in the browser:
46 It’s pretty cool that we are now able to use the browser to edit Office documents on the iPad. My advice would be, if you really start to work with Office documents on a daily basis, to buy an external keyboard. This will make life a lot easier for you.
47 The contemporary view only displays the web parts with content on the home page. I added a calendar and link web part and this is what happened:
These web parts are now also available in the view, but this doesn’t work for all web parts. For example, I placed a discussion web part on the home page and it didn’t appear. What’s very cool about the contemporary view, is the icon on the bottom left:
48 You are now able to use the SharePoint Online Top Navigation. I really like the use of tiles with big icons, this really prevents you from clicking on the wrong link. At least, that’s what happens with my fat fingers in the PC view ;)
49 IPHONE
The iPhone has the same Apps as the iPad. So make your pick and choose wisely. Let’s look at working with the browser. I really didn’t like using the browser with the iPhone. Why? Let’s take a look:
The screen is very small and doesn’t fit all the data so you have to scroll. Let’s go to your Accounting Team Site:
Again, not all the data fits on the screen. This makes sense of course, the iPhone isn’t an iPad and has a smaller screen, but it didn’t do it for me. You aren’t able to actually edit the Office documents. I just want you to be aware of that before you get disappointed. Let’s open a Word document:
50 You are able to change the font size by clicking on the text and on the arrow that appears on the left side of the screen:
Click on Aa:
Now you are able to select your preferred font size. A nice and nifty little feature.
51 SURFACE RT
The Surface RT doesn’t have any of the Apps listed in the Apple store. Perhaps these companies don’t see any market or future in Windows 8? I did encounter the following Apps:
• GimmalPoint • Onvelop • METROpoint • SP Launcher
I would advise Microsoft to create their own App to support business users who want to work with the Surface RT and SharePoint. Let’s look how the browser holds up on the Surface RT. The tablet runs on the latest version of Internet Explorer and automatically loads the contemporary view:
52 No difference with the iPad here! The cool thing about the Surface RT is the availability of the Office 2013 suite. That means you can edit the Office documents in the designated Office client with all its full features. You can use Office Online, but the virtual keyboard takes up half of the screen and isn’t really user friendly. My advice is using the external keyboard. Talking about the advantage of the Office 2013, you can create and upload new Office documents directly into your SharePoint portal. Go toSave As:
53 In case your SharePoint portal isn’t available, you can add it by clicking on Add a Place and enter your username:
Click on Next:
54 By default your OneDrive for Business and Team Site home page are available:
In many cases, the default folders, home page and OneDrive for Business, aren’t sufficient. Therefore, you can click onBrowse and copy and paste the URL of your team or project site: 55 After this, the location will be available when you want to save an Office document.
NOKIA LUMIA 720
Strangely, there aren’t any Apps to work with team documents as there are for the iPhone and iPad. You have to use the Office Hub and connect it to a document library. I described this process in the previous chapter. The browser features of the Nokia Lumia 720 are comparable to the iPhone.
56 SAMSUNG GALAXY S2
Working with team documents requires the Office App:
Only this time you have to select SharePoint and enter your credentials. The following figure appears:
57 Click on Accounting:
Click on documents:
You are now able to view your team documents.
58 SAMSUNG GALAXY TAB 2
I can keep this part short because, just as with the personal documents, the browser can’t be used to view or edit team documents. There are 3rd party apps available such as SharePlus and Filamente. I would advise to use one of these Apps in combination with an Office App.
DEVICE CHANNELS
Although HTML 5 Contemporary view is a huge improvement compared to the mobile view in previous SharePoint versions, you aren’t able to extend it. By creating your own Device Channel you can create a mobile view for a tablet or smartphone. You create the look & feel and decide what to display in the view, a very cool feature! Be warned: this only works for publishing sites! The following links contain more information about Device Channels: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/jj191506(v=office.15).aspx#bk_DeviceChannels http://blog.mastykarz.nl/device-channels-sharepoint-2013/ http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj862343.aspx
59 CONCLUSION
In this chapter and the previous one, I showed you the possibilities of working with personal and team documents in SharePoint Online with mobile devices. The personal documents are supported by an App for every mobile devices, unfortunately this isn’t the case with team documents.
By now, you probably have the following question: “Jasper, what tablet or smartphone would you recommend?” To be honest, I don’t see people editing an Office document with a smartphone, so reading is sufficient. The iPhone and Windows Phone support this scenario with 3rd party or out-of-the-box Apps. The tablets are a different story because with a tablet, you can actually get some work done! I find this very difficult and think it’s mostly a matter of personal choice and preference for a certain tablet. You don’t have a tablet? You want to work with Microsoft Office, OneDrive for Business and SharePoint and want to access your work e-mail with Outlook? Go for the Surface tablet, but please get the latest one because the RT is a bit slow and old by now, or get another Windows 8 tablet. Nokia is releasing a new, really nice looking Windows 8 tablet. You already have an iPad and love Apple and never want to use a different device? Stay with the iPad. You can get your work done, but probably not a smoothly as you expect or hope. This is especially the case while creating and saving Office documents.
SOURCES
Please read the following articles if you want to know more about mobile views and SharePoint (Online) 2013:
Plan mobile views for SharePoint 2013
Mobile device browsers supported in SharePoint 2013
Configure a SharePoint site for mobile devices
60 COMMUNICATE WITH COLLEAGUES USING E-MAIL ON OFFICE 365 WITH ANY DEVICE COMMUNICATE WITH COLLEAGUES USING E-MAIL ON OFFICE 365 WITH ANY DEVICE
Communication is an important part of our daily work life and really evolved over the years. From sending telegrams and letters, to calling colleagues with telephone and sending papers by fax, our communication methods have changed rapidly over the last 100 years. Currently, we mainly use the following tools for communication:
• E-mail • Chat • Social
In this post, I will talk more about communication through e-mail and Office 365. The upcoming chapters are dedicated to chat and social.
E-mail was invented in 1993. This was long before I joined the workforce because I was only 12 years old at the time. I can only imagine what an impact the introduction of e-mail had on the business world. Being able to send a digital letter? Sending it to anywhere and everywhere in the world? The recipient even received the message within seconds! Quite the change from the phone or fax. This was also the start of the decline of personal contact between people, because what’s easier than sending an e-mail instead of calling or talking in person to a colleague?
62 Although 1993 has been more than 20 years ago, e-mail is still a very popular means of communication, and I don’t believe that the end is in sight. You still receive e-mail notifications for Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Not to mention the updates from sites such as Groupon! I receive many e-mails every day. We still have a long relationship with e-mail ahead of us.
In this chapter, I am not going to talk about the e-mail clients for all the mobile devices and tablets, but I would like to talk a about the new Outlook Web Access (OWA) App for the iPad! Microsoft released the App in the summer of 2013. Although the out-of- the-box e-mail and agenda App for the iPad does the job, most people would prefer to use the Outlook client they work with every day. The first thing you notice is the great design:
I really like the clean look & feel of the App given by the use of the light colors. It’s very easy to reply to an e-mail:
63 You can only attach pictures in the e-mail because you aren’t able to store documents on the local iPad hard drive. This is a common issue with the iPad. Unfortunately, there isn’t an integration with the OneDrive for Business App to add documents. Hopefully, this will be included in a future update. The OWA App is full of little nifty features, one of these being focusing on the e-mails and removing the left panel. To do so, just click on the icon with the glasses:
64 You can use the arrows to browse through your e-mails. The full width of the screen of the iPad is being used.
The App doesn’t only support e-mail, you are also able to access your calendar and contact list. Just click on the three blocks on the bottom left side of the screen:
65 I already mentioned it before, but the large icons are great. Especially for men ;-) Let’s take a quick look at People:
66 All the contact details per colleague are shown, and you can immediately send an e-mail or create a meeting request. Just use the two icons under the job title. Talking about meetings, the calendar is also present and it’s, no surprise, really easy to create a new meeting request. All the features you would expect are present: add a meeting room, invite colleagues, check the schedule and create an online meeting. Another clever feature appears when you type the name of a colleague:
67 I love that the App is nice enough to give you a suggestion with a profile picture! Can’t get enough? Here’s another! The App also supports basic voice commands. For example, you can ask your iPad Mini to search for a keyword within your e-mails:
68 “Search for Marketing”
69 I know it’s nothing fancy, but for the voice fanatics who stalk Siri everyday, this is pret- ty cool. Do you want to learn more about the App? Are you curious what the App looks like on the iPhone? Click here to read the official Office 365 blog.
What about the Surface RT? For starters, you don’t need to use that awful Windows 8 mail App anymore because the Office 2013 suite is extended with Outlook 2013. That’s very good news for Surface RT owners. Thank you Microsoft.
CONCLUSION
Office 365 supports e-mail for all your mobile devices and tablets. Every device has an out-of-the-box App for sending and receiving e-mails. Although these Apps are sufficient to work with e-mail, I really like Microsoft’s strategy of providing you with an alternative. The OWA App for the iPad is great! The design is clean, the usability is perfect, all the e-mail features you expect are there and it’s even extended with your contact list and calendar. For people out there who really insist on working with the full-blown Outlook client, the Surface should be your pick.
70 COMMUNICATE WITH COLLEAGUES THROUGH CHAT ON OFFICE 365 FROM ANY DEVICE COMMUNICATE WITH COLLEAGUES THROUGH CHAT ON OFFICE 365 FROM ANY DEVICE
E-mail is often misused as a communication tool. People tend to send short messages or start discussions. In my opinion, e-mail isn’t the correct tool for this type of communication. How often have you received similar e-mails as mentioned below?
• “Are you at the office?” • “Have you read my proposal?” • “What do you think of the new SharePoint 2013 Social features?” • “How was your weekend?”
I received quite a lot of these. To be completely honest… I am sometimes guilty of sending these type of e-mails (insert picture with look of shame here). Time to stop people! What is the alternative for these questions? This is where Microsoft Lync steps in. In my eyes, Lync is the chat communication tool for businesses. The following figure shows an example of the Lync desktop client:
72 Every colleague, including myself, is displayed with a status. I can be available for a chat, too busy, not at my computer or I don’t want to be disturbed. This is very helpful so you don’t “bother” colleagues who aren’t available. The Lync status is integrated with Outlook. You are in a meeting?
The following figure is a screenshot from our internal Team Site. We ask questions in a discussion board:
I hope you noticed that Lync is integrated with SharePoint. All the columns with a username display the Lync status. By browsing over his name, I can see Frank’s business card. This enables me to immediately ask Frank a question about a topic he created in the discussion list. This is truly one of the biggest advantages of Office 365, all the services are integrated with each other.
73 I just love the usability of Lync, it’s very easy to use and self-explanatory. I can easily start a chat, call, share a video or share my monitor or Applications. Lync can even be used for online meetings, I will talk a bit more about that later. Lync as desktop client works well, but what about tablets and smartphones? This time, we will start with the Windows devices.
SURFACE RT
The home screen starts with a mention of your upcoming meeting. Another example of the integration between all Office 365 services. From here you are able to find a contact, start a chat, listen to your voicemails or view all your upcoming meetings. To actually see the status of your colleagues, you have to click on a group:
74 It’s very easy to start a chat, just select a colleague and chat away:
In combination with the type cover keyboard, you can really get your work done with the Surface RT Lync App.
75 To be honest, I don’t think a lot of people will actually chat extensively with Lync on their mobile devices. The real power lies within online meetings. You are able to connect with any meeting including a Lync Meeting URL:
This is truly powerful and really enables your mobile device as an asset for every business. Just think of Sales Managers or Consultants. They are often on the road, and not able to use their laptops but what do they have? Yes, a mobile phone and/or a tablet. Let’s quickly dive into the demos!
Our SharePoint department at Macaw organizes knowledge sessions every three weeks. These are sessions about new SharePoint features or customer/project experiences. Not every colleague is able to join the meeting at the office. To resolve this, we create a Lync Online meeting with every session. I joined with my Surface RT tablet:
76 My colleague Ruben shared his desktop and I am able to view his presentation. Ruben also did multiple demos. The demos were easy to follow with the App:
The Lync App for the Surface RT is divided in three screens. The second one shows the participants of the meeting:
77 The third part shows the chat between the participants. This makes the App very interactive and user friendly. Next stop is the Nokia Lumia 720.
78 NOKIA LUMIA 720
Although the Lumia has a smaller screen, it doesn’t affect the usability of the App. I really like the overflow between the different sections. You can already see a bit of the text on the right side of the screen before you swipe to the right:
This is a very cool, standard Windows Phone feature! The home screen allows you to enter a status update, and if your are vain person, you can stare at your pretty face ;-) You are able to view upcoming meetings, that’s a feature available for every Lync App, but this gets interesting when a Lync Online meeting URL is included:
79 You probably know by now that I enjoy nifty features in the Office 365 Apps. I just found another one! Do you want to reply to a question? The most recent part of the conversation is at the top of the screen:
Features like these really improve the usability of an App.
80 IPHONE
The iPhone home screen within the App looks a bit different compared to the Nokia Lumia 720:
Your profile picture is a bit smaller, the option menu is present and you are able to change your status. The chat screen is very similar to the Nokia Lumia 720, and works as you expect it to:
81 All smartphones have cameras these days that takes beautiful pictures. The camera can also be used for video calls. I never used this feature, but I do like the look & feel:
The profile picture of your colleague caller is displayed on the whole screen, meaning you can’t act surprised when you pick up ;-). The following figure shows an example of a video call:
Although I wouldn’t necessarily use this feature, I can see the advantage it gives when you want to show items in your surroundings such as notes on a whiteboard.
82 IPAD One of the advantages of a tablet is, of course, the size of the screen because more content is shown. Unfortunately, the home screen of the iPad App isn’t great at all:
I don’t want to immediately see the options in the right side of the screen. I would have preferred a look & feel comparable to the Surface RT. The chat screen is good and works well though:
83 I just find the App to be a bit boring and expected a little more of an iPad App. Where is the originality factor in there?
84 SAMSUNG GALAXY S2
I really like the concept that every device has its own look & feel. This isn’t any different for Android:
The Lync App feels well finished and contains the features you’d expect to be available. For example, the contact details of a colleague:
85 You can start a new regular or video chat, make a call or send an e-mail. Let’s start a new chat:
The keyboard takes up half the screen, but that’s not such a bad thing since you focus on the latest conversation, the one you are replying to.
One of my favorite feature for the Lync App is the integration with your Outlook agenda, and it’s also available for the Samsung Galaxy S2:
86 SAMSUNG GALAXY TAB 2 Unfortunately, the Lync 2013 App isn’t compatible with the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2. I find this very bizarre and unacceptable, but what can you do?
CONCLUSION
Lync is one of my favorite business tools for the communication between colleagues and online meetings. I really use Lync every day to collaborate with my colleagues. Your Office 365 global administrator can enable external communication, with specific domains or all domains, to chat with external people, making it a very useful and powerful feature to communicate with your customers, suppliers or partners. Just imagine using this feature in project scenarios in combination with SharePoint. You store the project document in SharePoint and have your project meetings online with Lync. You have a question for the customer’s project member? Launch Lync and chat away.
87 COMMUNICATE WITH COLLEAGUES THROUGH SOCIAL ON OFFICE 365 WITH ANY DEVICE COMMUNICATE WITH COLLEAGUES THROUGH SOCIAL ON OFFICE 365 WITH ANY DEVICE
I find it interesting to use the word Social in a world where people are becoming less social in thier personal interactions with each other. I really recommend watching the movie ‘Her’ from Spike Jonze. A brilliant movie that gives us an amazing look at the technology and Social future that’s ahead of us.
Nowadays, almost everyone, maybe apart from my parents’ generation, is communicating through Apps on smartphones and/or Social sites such as Facebook or Twitter. I don’t want to sound like a hypocrite because I also use this way of communicating. Let’s be honest, this isn’t a good evolution in communicating, but unfortunately, that’s the world we live in. Communication needs to be fast and quick! How did we get here? Let’s take a quick look at the background of Social.
The Social phenomenon started with Myspace, but really took off with Facebook in 2004. First aimed at the public market (mainly students), it got picked up by businesses in 2007 with the introduction of business pages. From this moment, a business was able to virtually connect with their customers or potential ones. Around this time, Twitter also took off, as did LinkedIn. These Social networks didn’t stay unnoticed by businesses and they expected up-to-date Social features in SharePoint. I won’t go into details about the development of Social in SharePoint, but it’s quite clear that Yammer is becoming the Social platform for SharePoint and Office 365. Although SharePoint Online 2013 comes with new and improved Social features, Microsoft didn’t acquire Yammer for 1.2 billion dollars, without a reason. In my opinion, Yammer is here to stay and SharePoint Social is going to go.
89 NOKIA LUMIA 720
I really start to like the Office 365 Apps for the Nokia Lumia 720. Especially navigating through the menu works very smoothly, and this isn’t any different for the Yammer App. The App starts with my feed:
You‘ll notice the clean design and neutral colors. You can immediately start a chat with your colleagues by clicking on the + symbol:
The App allows you to add pictures, but not documents. That’s very strange because this is a Windows device and I can work with documents on the phone. Hopefully, this feature will be addded in a future update. The next screen displays your inbox:
90 All your read and unread message are accessable. You will use this screen to keep track of your Yammer activities. The next screen displays your notifications:
This screen keeps you notified about new followers or likes. Yammer makes use of Yammer Groups, for example on departments or activities:
91 This allows you to browse in a group and leave a message. If you have a favorite Yammer group, you will love this cool feature. You can just add groups to the homescreen:
The App makes use of the native device features. The Windows Phone has tiles, so use tiles! That should be a tip to every App developer. In this example, you can quickly connect to the Yammer group and communicate with your Sales & Marketing colleagues. The last screen displays all the Yammer users:
92 Every colleague has a Yammer profile. This profile enables me to directly communicate with Pavel by leaving a private message:
93 SURFACE RT
I am going to be honest and blunt here, the Surface RT Yammer App is terrible and feels unfinished. I really express myself politely because I could have use different words to describe this “App”. For some reason, the Surface RT App is a world of difference compared to the Nokia Lumia 720 App. Let me guide you through it. The following screenshot illustrates the home page:
Although the design is kind of bland, you can easily browse through your feed. Let’s leave a reply to Garth’s message:
94 This works, as it should, but once you try to add a colleague to the message, something strange happens:
The auto correct feature is enabled for some bizarre reason. The people suggestion does appear, but this shouldn’t happen. Ok, next step. Let’s leave a message for your colleagues: 95 There is the ONE advantage of the Surface RT App: the option to add documents. That’s actually really useful and missing on the Nokia Lumia 720 App. I will talk a bit more about this with the iPad, iPhone and Samsung Apps. You open the settings of the App by clicking on the name of the Yammer network:
96 Hopefully, you noticed a missing option, an overview of your colleagues. For some reason, this important feature isn’t available. This is an essential feature to directly communicate with your colleagues! Just when I though the issues stopped here, I decided to click on Notifications:
What the heck? A browser session opens and I have to Sign Up for Yammer? What is going on here? This App is such a major disappointment, I would recommend using Internet Explorer instead of it. I am feeling a bit down after dealing with this App, let’s quickly move on to the iPad.
97 IPAD
The iPad Yammer App has a totally different look & feel compared to the Windows Phone and Surface RT. The App starts with the messages from your inbox:
98 The My Feed isn’t available and is replaced by Top Conversations:
You get an overview of the most popular (active) conversations. That’s a really nice feature, but I wish the default My Feed was also present. Let’s reply to a message:
99 This works as expected. Just like other iPad Apps, you can’t add attachments but only pictures. You are able to open the attachment, in this case a Word document, and even leave comments:
100 That’s very cool and really stimulates collaboration on the road. Are you going to work on the train? Start Yammer and review documents and chat with your colleagues. Unfortunately, the iPad Yammer App is also missing the essential People feature. Although this feature is missing, you can click on the profile picture of a colleague:
You are now able to save your colleagues contact details to your iPad. This is especially useful in external collaboration scenarios. Imagine you are using Yammer to collaborate with customers? You can save a customer’s contact details directly to your iPad.
101 IPHONE
I really like the Yammer iPhone App. It’s fast and all the features you expect for a mobile device are present. The design feels well finished and suits the iPhone. In contrary to the iPad App, the iPhone has a My Feed:
The last replies are displayed under the actual message. That’s a great feature to quickly see the latest replies and stay up-to-date. You are also able to view documents and place annotations. This also makes the iPhone very suitable for using Yammer on the road. The People feature is present:
You can scroll down or start typing the name of your colleague:
102 I really like the contact detail pag.
You can immediately send an e-mail or place a call. It doesn’t stop here, you can save Alex’s details to your iPhone. That’s a very cool option and addition to the Yammer App.
SAMSUNG GALAXY TAB 2
I had some issues getting the App to load. I hope this was just a glitch because the Yammer App is actually really good. The home screen starts with the My Feed:
103 Again, a really nice and clean look & feel. Where most Apps only have one feed, the Galaxy Tab 2 App comes with all feeds also available in the browser:
104 Let’s take a quick peek at the menu:
All the necessary features are present. That’s great news for the owners of this tablet with an interest in using Yammer. Especially compared to the Surface RT App that’s lacking many features and has a questionable look & feel. One of the most important features is, of course, replying to questions or updates to collaborate or connect with colleagues:
105 Unfortunately, you aren’t able to view the message you are replying to. That’s not really user friendly.
There is a hidden feature in the Yammer app. You are actually able to add an attachment! Click on the paperclip logo:
106 You can use Dropbox to attach documents. That’s a great and useful feature! Well done Yammer and Galaxy Tab 2!
The App contains features we have seen on at the other devices such as the people page, viewing Office documents and leaving comments and adding local contacts to Yammer.
107 SAMSUNG GALAXY S2
After working with the Yammer App for the Samsung Galaxy S2, I have to conclude that the Android Yammer Apps are actually really good! The display of the conversations fits the screen:
One minor issue, at least for me, is the reply feature:
108 You can’t see the conversation you are replying to. At least, this is a good memory exercise for yourself.
One of my favorite features is the People view and the profile information of your colleagues:
109 CONCLUSION
I really like Yammer and see the possibilities it has for businesses to improve internal collaboration. You can connect and collaborate with your colleagues through Yammer, anywhere and at anytime! That said, there is still a lot of work to be done for the mobile Apps especially the tablet ones. The Surface RT App should be completely redone and the iPad App should receive additional and essential features. Looking at all the differences between the devices, I decided to create a table with the most important Yammer features.
I want to provide a bit more information about external networks and extended status updates. In this chapter, I talked about internal social communication. Yammer also enables external communication by creating an external network. This is a great asset in extranet scenarios. No surprise to see which App is missing this feature though…
110 Extended status updates are posting a poll, praise someone or post an event. The following figure shows these options:
At the moment, these features are only available in the browser. It’s important to realize that the Apps aren’t developed for administrator tasks such as creating new networks or adding new users. The Apps are perfect for quickly sharing updates, pictures or documents.
111 TAKING NOTES WITH ONENOTE FROM ANY DEVICE ON OFFICE 365 TAKING NOTES WITH ONENOTE FROM ANY DEVICE ON OFFICE 365
OneNote is a great tool for taking personal or business notes. I have been using it for years to store information about projects or SharePoint. Click here to read more about this amazing product. The advantage of OneNote isn’t only the ease of storing notes, but also the accessibility on multiple devices. OneNote is available on all mobile devices through an OneNote App. In this chapter, I want to explore the advantage of OneNote in project scenarios. OneNote is integrated with SharePoint since the SharePoint 2013 release. Every project site has a default OneNote Notebook:
113 This is a great new feature to centrally store all the notes about a project. All the project members are able to create notes or view notes. Let’s take a look at how our favorite mobile devices support this scenario.
SURFACE RT
The biggest advantage of the Surface RT, as a work tablet, is the presence of the full Office 2013 suite. That’s really a winner in my eyes. You can use the local OneNote client to work with project notes:
114 The downside of an App, based on software or a website, is that some features aren’t present. You don’t have to worry of any of your favorite OneNote features to be absent because it’s all here. The full blown OneNote client, in combination with the type keyboard, makes the Surface RT the perfect tablet to work with on OneNote. The Surface RT does have an OneNote App available! The App has a nifty little feature for editing your notes:
This feature seems to be made for working with a pen, especially with the draw option. Personally, I don’t use this App because I can work with the OneNote client.
115 NOKIA LUMIA 720
All mobile devices have an Internet browser, meaning you can use the OneNote Online. Well, can you? Let’s open the OneNote Notebook of your project site on the Nokia Lumia 720:
This is really unworkable because the frames don’t move at all. You can click on any of your OneNote pages, workshop 1 or 2, but nothing happens. To open the OneNote Notebook in the App, you have to click on Open in OneNote. You have to the flip the phone to be able to do this:
116 After clicking on Open in OneNote,the App opens:
This actually works very well, but don’t cheer to fast because this is what happens when you want to add text:
117 The keyboard takes over the screen, literally! This makes adding notes a real pain. There’s a couple extra features available:
I won’t recommend using the Nokia Lumia 720 App for adding notes but more for reading. Although, it’s pretty cool being able to take a picture and add it to a Notebook.
118 IPAD
You are finally able to work with Office documents (Office Online) in the browser with the iPad, due to the absence of Silverlight, which couldn’t be installed. The following figure illustrates an example of an OneNote Notebook opened in the browser:
The keyboard, not as extreme as the Nokia Lumia 720, takes over the screen, but this can be solved by using an external keyboard. The App works very well and has enough formatting options:
119 You can change the font size and style or use one of the many tags. One of the features I really find useful is adding images:
120 You can bring your iPad to a workshop and take pictures of the whiteboard with important notes. The only downside with this is that you can’t change the size of the picture. To do so, you have to use the client version.
121 IPHONE
The iPhone App has the same issue as the Nokia Lumia 720 App. You can’t use the Office Web App at all. Before you can start using the iPhone App with an Office 365 Notebook, you have to login with your Hotmail e-mail address. The App for the iPhone works a lot better for adding or editing notes though:
The keyboard only takes half of the screen. There is one feature I really liked and is especially useful when you have many Notebooks:
You can search for words to find specific Notebooks. Nice!
122 SAMSUNG GALAXY S2
Office Online doesn’t work at all for the Galaxy tablet and phone. The App isn’t great either because the keyboard takes up 80% of the screen, or trying to place the cursor in the middle of the screen is almost impossible. Let’s quickly move on to the Galaxy Tab 2.
SAMSUNG GALAXY TAB 2
You are able to open the Notebook in the browser, but editing text is very unstable and it’s very difficult to set the cursor at the location where you want to start typing. The following figure gives you a good example of what happens:
Due to the instability, this option is a no go. Let’s quickly move on to the OneNote App:
123 The App works fine and does what it needs to do. You can add text, pictures and even an audio note. Sufficient to quickly read notes and add text. Nothing fancy, but for most scenarios, this is really sufficient.
CO-AUTHORING
I hope that most of you are familiar with the concept of co-authoring. This allows multiple users to work together in an Office document at the same time. You can use Office Online or the Office clients. This is really a cool and useful feature that improves productivity. Co-authoring doesn’t work well with OneNote in combination with the Apps though. I did a test where I opened a Notebook in the browser and on a mobile device. After a minute the following error message appeared:
By clicking on the error the following screen Appears:
124 This creates an unworkable situation for co-authoring. I would propose to only use the OneNote client for adding or changing notes. The mobile devices should be used for viewing notes.
CONCLUSION
Although co-authoring doesn’t work properly and creating notes on the phones isn’t really workable, OneNote is still a very powerful tool for project scenarios. By storing your project notes on a central location, all the project members can use their mobile device of choice and always view the project notes. The real power of the mobile devices, in combination with the OneNote App, is taking notes and adding pictures to your project Notebook. I have been in many project (for example workshops) meetings where project members sketch on a white board. Just take a picture with your phone and add it to the project notes! The Apps for the tablets enable you, especially in combination with an external keyboard, to add important project notes to your project Notebook. This saves valuable time instead of writing it on paper and adding it afterwards in OneNote.
125 PERFORM MY ADMINISTRATOR TASKS PERFORM MY ADMINISTRATOR TASKS
The Office 365 Admin Center is the central location to control your Office 365 tenant:
An administrator is able to add new users, buy licenses, create service requests, configure Office 365 services such as Exchange or SharePoint and stay up-to-date about the status of the tenant. This is all possible by using the browser on your mobile device. During this whole series, we have seen that using Apps can be very beneficial and productive. You don’t have to worry about browser compatibility, just start an App and get your work done! How can administrators perform their administrator tasks anywhere, anytime on any device? Microsoft launched the Office 365 Admin Center App.
127 IPAD
Although Office 365 is hosted by Microsoft, it’s still important for the company’s administrator to stay up-to-date about the status of all the services. Microsoft promises a high uptime, but unfortunately this doesn’t guarantee there won’t be any issues with services. The home page of the Office 365 provides you with an overview of all your Office 365 services:
Apparently, there is an issue with Exchange Online. Let’s take a look:
128 Every Office 365 services contains one or more sub services. The status ofManagement and Provision isn’t green. What’s going on there? The following screen provides more detailed information:
129 You get a full overview of the issues with Management and Provisioning. The last screen available in the App shows you maintenance announcements:
130 You are now up-to-date with all service issues and upcoming maintenance.
131 IPHONE
The iPhone App isn’t any different than the other mobile Apps. This must be actually the first App with no difference in features between all mobile devices. The following figure shows an example of the App:
132 SURFACE RT
Unfortunately, I have to mention something negative about the Surface RT again. There isn’t an Office 365 Admin App available. We have one for the Nokia Lumia 720, iPhone and iPad but Surface RT is left out. Come on Microsoft! The alternative is using the RSS feed:
Load this RSS feed in your favorite RSS reader or use Outlook 2013.
133 NOKIA LUMIA 720
The Nokia Lumia 720 Office 365 has the same features as the iPad and iPhone. The following figure illustrates an example:
134 SAMSUNG GALAXY TAB 2 AND GALAXY S2
Both Android devices have the same look & feel. The following figure illustrates the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2:
135 CONCLUSION
By now, you probably start to think: Is that it? Yes, this is it! The Office 365 Admin App is great to stay up-to-date about the status of your Office 365 Tenant. Unfortunately, that’s the only feature available. It’s literally nothing more than a RSS reader with an Office 365 branding. There is a lot missing. I would like to see an alert feature in future updates. At this moment, I have to open the App to see if there are issues with my tenant. For tablets, it would be great to get a notification and for mobile phones, a text message.
Where are the other administrator tasks? Why can’t I add a new service request? Or a new user? The name of the App is very misleading because, at the moment, it’s just an RSS reader showing you the RSS feed of your Office 365 tenant. There is much to be improved in future versions of this App.
136 USEFUL LINKS
INTRODUCTION
Power BI for Office 365 Is Microsoft Power BI a Game Changer?
WORKING WITH PERSONAL DOCUMENTS
OneDrive for Business (formerly SkyDrive Pro) SharePoint 2013 SkyDrive Pro vs Dropbox - And Why is it Better? What is OneDrive for Business?
WORKING WITH TEAM DOCUMENTS
Device channels and device channel panels Device Channels in SharePoint 2013 SharePoint 2013 Design Manager device channels Plan for mobile views in SharePoint Server 2013 Mobile device browsers supported in SharePoint 2013 Configure a SharePoint site for mobile devices
COMMUNICATE WITH COLLEAGUES USING E-MAIL ON OFFICE 365 WITH ANY DEVICE
OWA for iPhone and OWA for iPad
TAKING NOTES WITH ONENOTE FROM ANY DEVICE ON OFFICE 365
All your notes, on all your devices, all up to date
137 THE SHAREPOINT MIGRATION TOOL
START YOUR FREE 15-DAY MIGRATION TODAY
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