So I can resize some icon and minimise the ones I don’t use much, instead of hiding them fully.
Shame that we still cannot deploy custom icons to all users in one go, there is quite a lot of request about this in UserVoice so hopefully it will be developed: Allow the admin to pin custom tiles to the app launcher for all users in the tenant
Other suggestion to improve the App Launcher, some not always clever but other would be great to have: Apps and App Launcher UserVoice.
An interesting concept that is often never used:
Today the scenario I had was just about making good use of Site collection content types, which I mostly do but also, and this is rare : shared columns between 2 content types. (note: Title column is already shared between all Content types)
I was developing the basis of an online form (with Nintex form) and here is the case study:
a form using the Content Type called “Pre-Meeting” will be used to enter some meeting agenda items that can be saved a few days before a meeting and sent to attendees for information.
Then during the meeting or straight after a new online form will be submitted using the Content Type “Meeting Minutes”.
What would be nice is to use the agenda items from the Pre-Meeting form to pre-populate the one of the Meeting form. The final solution will be a bit tricky (CSOM in UI or Workflow in background), but the point of this blog post is not that functionality but is about making good use of Site Collection Columns creation and especially duplication can be avoided: the columns created in the 1st content type can be added to the second content type and NOT re-created as new columns.
Since an image speaks better, here is the screenshot below:
After the first funny quotes started some years back with the 404 not found pages showing “oops… something happened”, making them more friendly and less scary, it seems that the whole IT industry is trying to have humour, even on “serious” screens like Office 365 Admin center…
I think I like it! better have fun at work, right? (and with all the TV geeks in SharePoint, it makes sense…)
Office 365 has humour
Over the past days several Office 365 client users reported a OneDrive For Business synchronisation issue, and I have to say that I usually just direct them to the IT Helpdesk but yesterday I decided that there was one too many so I went to troubleshoot it at a user’s desktop myself.
Nothing could be done to fix the random “red” icon when adding a SharePoint library to sync with user’s windows, remove the folder from OneDrive, uninstall and re-install OneDrive, none. And literally random, some files were also synchronising but still marked as red, and the Errors logs showing “please enter your credentials” but no option to enter them…
I was in a dead-end, until I found out that it is a current issue reported on the 15th October 2015 (5 days ago) and is actually clearly showing in the SHD (Office 365 Service Health Dashboard in the Admin center, see below post on Office 365 community). The resolution is to update Office 2013.
But my main take away from this is that as much as I thought that no-one would seriously read the SHD every morning (and you can’t receive them by email!), I now realised that I should have started searching through the various incidents list, so I will pay more attention in the future when an user issue comes up.
I believe we have had so much frustration over the years of not finding the answer in Microsoft provided sources that we (I) have the reflex of Googling (binging..) an issue straight away and not actually checking the official source.
Now go on your mobile device and make sure you have the mobile app to see SHD installed !
Office 365 Service Health Dashboard
This issue is now reported at Service Health Dashboard (SHD) as incident SP31654 starting at Thursday, October 15, 2015, at 3:00 PM UTC. The user experience of this incident is: Affected users are unable to sync files with OneDrive for Business. Users may see repeated prompts to enter their credentials, but entering them will not result in a successful sync. Tenant administrators can view current information and updates on SHD at the link here .
Source: Onedrive Business Sync – Credentials Required | Manage Office 365 | Microsoft Office 365 Community
So nice to be on Office 365 and not having a weekend downtime to upgrade a third party tool.
(read my comments on each item below)
We’ve made some changes since last time…
Workflow Gallery
[FS] Opening an existing workflow was a bit puzzling vs. on premises Nintex because it would always open blank until we open it manually as if opening a previous version. Now it doesn’t feel like we have lost them, they are visible.
Task Escalation
[FS] This is excellent. We already had it on premises for a long time, now on Office 365.
This means that we can build something like: if a task is still awaiting a Manager who has not completed it within 5 days then Nintex Workflow will escalate automatically to another person to approve such as the manager of that last task assignee. Real business value !
I have been using Wunderlist for a few years now, often tried a different shared-todo-list that can sync between devices and people simply but always came back to it.
So I am a big fan, although the release roadmap has not been super fast in the past 12 months, it kept doing a good job and that’s what counts.
Now Microsoft is assimilating Wunderlist team (and 13 Millions users) , I am just hoping that we are not going to see another scenario of really good-yet-small company that gets eaten by a giant just to get the brains and kill the product, I know this is more the Yahoo! style, so we should be safe with Microsoft. Fingers crossed !
\anyway, as a startup this is amazing for Wunderlist so Congratulations to the team !
