How to make cool modern SharePoint Intranets Part 1 – Strategize (scope & plan)

28th of February, 2019 / / No Comments

Over the last year, we have seen many great advancements with SharePoint communications sites that have bought it more closer of being an ideal Intranet. In this blog series, I will be discussing about some of my experiences for the last years in implementing Modern Intranet and best practices for the same.

In this specific blog, we will look at the strategies about the first block of building a great Intranet – Strategize the Intranet approach.… [Keep reading] “How to make cool modern SharePoint Intranets Part 1 – Strategize (scope & plan)”

Office 365 Lessons Learned – Advice on how to approach your deployment

11th of February, 2019 / / No Comments

Hindsight sometimes gets the better of us. That poor storm trooper.  If only he had the advice before Obi-Wan Kenobi showed up.  Clearly the Galactic Empire don’t learn lessons.  Perhaps consultants use the Jedi mind trick to persuade their customers?

I’ve recently completed an 18 month project that rolled out Office 365 to an ASX Top 30 company. This project successfully rolled out Office 365 to each division & team across the company, migrating content from SharePoint 2007 and File Shares.… [Keep reading] “Office 365 Lessons Learned – Advice on how to approach your deployment”

Office365-AzureHybrid: Building an automated solution to pull Office 365 Audit logs

6th of February, 2019 / / No Comments

Custom reporting for Office 365 Audit logs is possible using data fetched from the Security and Compliance center. In the previous blogs here, we have seen how to use PowerShell and Office 365 Management API to fetch the data. In this blog, we will look at planning, prerequisites and rationale to help decide between the approaches.

The Office 365 Audit logs are available from the Security and Compliance center when enabled. At present, audit logging is not enabled by default and needs to be enabled from the Security and Compliance center.… [Keep reading] “Office365-AzureHybrid: Building an automated solution to pull Office 365 Audit logs”

Create Office365 business value through the power of limitation

22nd of January, 2019 / / No Comments

Recent consulting engagements have found me helping customers define what Office365 means to them & what value they see in its use. They are lucky to have licenses and are seeking help to understand how they drive value from the investment.

You’ve heard the sales pitches: Office365 – The platform to solve ALL your needs! From meetings, to document management, working with people outside your organisation, social networking, custom applications, business process automation, forms & workflow, analytics, security & compliance, device management…the list goes on and is only getting bigger!… [Keep reading] “Create Office365 business value through the power of limitation”

The struggle for meaning – Is the Intranet dead?

17th of December, 2018 / / No Comments

People struggle to find meaning in life. Our place in the world. The value we provide. Our political persuasions allow us to either rethink definitions or preserve our traditions & institutions. Funnily enough, this philosophical divide plays out in technology all the time.

The morbid question – Is the intranet dead? – seems to be popping its head up recently. I get it, the world is evolving, our expectations of ‘digital’ has changed and technology is at a point where it’s no longer a barrier to seizing opportunity.… [Keep reading] “The struggle for meaning – Is the Intranet dead?”

PnP Provisioning PowerShell, Site Scripts or CSOM scripts – which one to use and when?

23rd of November, 2018 / / No Comments

There are various approaches to plan and automate the process for Site creation and management of SharePoint Online Sites. In this blog we will look at these options and how to use with a best possible approach.

Pnp Provisioning PowerShell is a great way to automate creation of SharePoint assets through an xml or pnp template file using PowerShell. Similarly, Site scripts and site design allows us to create Site using JSON templates and also allows call to any Provisioning automation scripts or use a Template for custom implementation.… [Keep reading] “PnP Provisioning PowerShell, Site Scripts or CSOM scripts – which one to use and when?”

Walkthrough of Site Provisioning process using PnP PowerShell

12th of November, 2018 / / No Comments

In the previous blogs here, we have looked at the Provisioning process for a complex Team site. Much of complexity was easily handled by the PnP Provisioning process.

In this blog, we will look at the similar Provisioning process but from an Admin point of view and use PnPPowerShell for create and provision the site.

Steps:
The steps are actually quite simple and could be done quickly.

1. Build a Template Site to be used for creating the Provisioning Template

2.… [Keep reading] “Walkthrough of Site Provisioning process using PnP PowerShell”

Deploy SPFx web parts to a Site Collection only – Site Collection App catalog

2nd of November, 2018 / / No Comments

One of the few hidden gems of SharePoint Online hosting model is Site Collection App Catalog. Yes, you read it right, Site Collection App catalog !!!, not Tenant App catalog. Don’t confuse this with delegating app catalog rights to Site Collection Administrators. This is different and the requirement is to have the app deployed and scoped to a Site Collection only.  For more details about deployment options, please check here

So what does it mean by Site Collection App catalog ?… [Keep reading] “Deploy SPFx web parts to a Site Collection only – Site Collection App catalog”

Pump up your investments in Modern Intranet and Team Sites with latest cool advancements (Ignite 2018)

25th of October, 2018 / / No Comments

At Ignite 2018, Microsoft provided a great perspective about how Modern Intranets (using SharePoint Communication Sites) and Collaboration features are becoming a major collaboration platform for many companies and investments Microsoft is doing to make them better. Some of these cool features were mentioned during the event. We will take a look at many of them in this blog and how we could use it to make Modern Intranets, Modern Team Sites and Microsoft Teams work even better and seamlessly together.… [Keep reading] “Pump up your investments in Modern Intranet and Team Sites with latest cool advancements (Ignite 2018)”

Bring in Strategy for building Next-gen Modern Intranet using Communication Sites

23rd of October, 2018 / / No Comments

With the modern responsive design and full-page layouts, Communication sites are an ideal candidate for Intranet sites. During last few projects, we have implemented Modern Intranet portals using Communication Sites and found that user adoption was exceptionally high. We also gained a lot of experience from these implementations, which I will be sharing here.

Note: Most of the below features and advancements are of during Oct 2018, there are few major releases from Ignite 2018 which be released later.
… [Keep reading] “Bring in Strategy for building Next-gen Modern Intranet using Communication Sites”