SharePoint Online, one of the most widely used platforms for collaboration, document management, and file sharing, has received a major boost with the integration of Office 365. Microsoft's decision to bundle these two services has made SharePoint Online accessible to small businesses with subscription-based pricing and has prompted many organizations to integrate SharePoint into their enterprise-wide application portfolios.
As a result, SharePoint Online has undergone significant enhancements with the introduction of several new features that offer improved functionality and user experience. In this article, we'll explore the top 6 new features of SharePoint Online that you need to know about.
A Detailed Intro to SharePoint 365
The latest enhancements to SharePoint Online have brought significant upgrades that greatly benefit users, especially in terms of the seamless integration of cloud-based Office 365 capabilities onto the SharePoint platform. With these upgrades, users can now access their favourite Office 365 applications, such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Teams, directly within SharePoint Online. This not only makes it easier to collaborate on documents but also streamlines workflows and improves productivity.
Benefits and Features of SharePoint Integration
SharePoint has provided a ton of benefits, especially after its integration with Microsoft 365. Some of its benefits include:
1. Leverage Office 365 Groups
It is a significant enhancement to SharePoint Online that provides users with a powerful means of group communication. With Office 365 Groups, teams can collaborate more effectively by creating a shared workspace where they can communicate, share files, and collaborate on projects. This feature is a great alternative to popular team collaboration applications, such as Slack, because it allows for better communication among team members, and provides a more integrated and streamlined user experience.
Office 365 Groups enable users to create a centralized hub for all their team's communications, including email conversations, shared calendars, and files. This makes it easier for team members to stay on the same page and work together more efficiently. Additionally, the ability to customize these groups according to specific needs and preferences is an added advantage. For instance, users can create different groups for different projects, departments, or even social events.
Another significant advantage of leveraging Office 365 Groups is the seamless integration with other Office 365 applications, such as OneNote, Planner, and Teams. Users can easily access these applications from within the group workspace, making it easier to collaborate on projects and share files.
2. The Use of PowerApps
PowerApps is an important enhancement to SharePoint Online that provides users with a powerful means of creating mobile apps with a user-friendly interface. PowerApps is a capable and worthy replacement for InfoPath, which was previously used to create forms and workflows within SharePoint.
One of the biggest advantages of PowerApps is its ability to deliver mobile app-like interfaces to SharePoint lists and business data. This allows users to create custom apps that look and feel like native mobile apps, which can significantly improve the user experience.
Another advantage of PowerApps is its ability to connect to multiple data sources, including Excel, SharePoint, SQL Server, and many others. This means that users can easily access and integrate data from different sources to create custom apps that meet their specific needs.
PowerApps also offers a range of pre-built templates and connectors, which makes it easier for users to create custom apps quickly and easily. This includes templates for common business scenarios, such as inventory tracking, customer surveys, and time and expense tracking.
3. Microsoft Flow
The new workflow capabilities of Microsoft Flow are a valuable enhancement to SharePoint Online that provide users with a powerful means of creating custom workflows without the need for coding skills. With Microsoft Flow, users can automate tasks and streamline workflows by connecting to third-party services such as Salesforce, Twitter, and Microsoft Dynamics. This interoperability allows for seamless data flow among applications, making it easier for users to access and integrate data from different sources.
Microsoft Flow also offers a range of pre-built connectors for popular third-party services, making it easy to connect to services like Salesforce, Twitter, and Microsoft Dynamics.
Another advantage of Microsoft Flow is its ability to automate tasks and streamline workflows. For example, users can create custom workflows that automatically send notifications to team members when a new file is added to a SharePoint library or when a new record is created in Salesforce. This automation can significantly improve productivity and reduce errors by eliminating the need for manual processes.
4. New Layout
The new layout of SharePoint Online is a significant enhancement that provides users with a more mobile-friendly content display. The responsive design ensures that the content is displayed optimally on any device, whether it's a desktop computer, tablet, or mobile phone. This makes it easier for team members to access and engage with the content, no matter where they are or what device they're using.
The new layout can also incorporate rich media, such as images and videos. This can help make the content more engaging and visually appealing, which can improve the user experience. Users can also create news articles and announcements that can be displayed prominently on the home page, making it easier for team members to stay informed and up-to-date.
A key feature in the new layout is the Yammer integration, which allows for real-time collaboration and communication among team members. This can help to streamline workflows and improve productivity by making it easier for team members to share information and ideas. It also includes highlighted content and dashboard features, which enable users to display important information and data prominently. This can help team members to focus on what's most important and stay on top of key metrics and trends.
5. Microsoft Delve
Microsoft Delve is a powerful enhancement to SharePoint Online that provides users with a more personalized and intelligent content discovery experience. With Delve, users can discover and access relevant content based on their interests, activities, and connections, without the need for popularity or tagging. Delve uses artificial intelligence capabilities to automatically prompt for time- and context-sensitive content, which can significantly improve productivity and reduce the time spent searching for relevant information.
Microsoft Delve also enables users to discover content in a variety of ways. Users can search for content using keywords or browse through relevant documents, people, and topics. Delve also offers a "trending" feature that displays content that is currently popular among the user's colleagues or in the organization.
One of the biggest limitations of traditional content discovery tools is the reliance on popularity or tagging to surface relevant content. With Microsoft Delve, this limitation is eliminated, as the tool uses artificial intelligence capabilities to automatically prompt for time- and context-sensitive content. This means that users can discover relevant content without the need for manual tagging or popularity-based algorithms.
6. Power BI
The ability to provide prompts upfront is a valuable enhancement to SharePoint Online that can significantly improve the quality and completeness of work produced. With prompts upfront, users are prompted for the necessary information and context needed to complete a task or project, which can result in more comprehensive work from the outset. This, in turn, can reduce the need for revisions down the line, saving time and effort for both the user and any reviewers or approvers.
Another valuable enhancement to SharePoint Online is Power BI, which provides users with a powerful means of creating charts, dashboards, KPIs, self-service analytics and other business intelligence solutions. With Power BI, users can easily create visualizations and reports from a wide range of data sources, including Excel, SQL Server, and cloud-based sources like Azure and Salesforce. Power BI also offers a range of pre-built connectors and templates, making it easy for users to get started with creating visualizations and reports quickly and easily.
7. Easy Data Importing
One of the most significant enhancements to SharePoint integration is the availability of analysis and metrics tools within the program itself. With these tools, users can easily analyze and visualize data without the need to import it from another source. This can significantly save time and effort, enabling users to make data-driven decisions more quickly and efficiently.
The analysis and metrics tools within SharePoint Online are powerful and flexible, offering a range of features and capabilities to meet the needs of different users and scenarios. For example, users can create charts and graphs that can be customized with different colours, styles, and data series. They can also create pivot tables and pivot charts that enable them to slice and dice data in different ways, making it easier to identify trends and patterns.
Final Thoughts
SharePoint provides a flexible and scalable platform that can be customized to meet the unique needs of your organization. With the help of Office 365 Consulting Services, you can create, maintain, and modify any type of SharePoint solution required to meet your business needs. Whether you need to build a document management system, a project management solution, or a custom business application, SharePoint provides the tools and resources you need to succeed.
Your organization can leverage the power of SharePoint to align your people and processes with a comprehensive framework that unifies access to all your enterprise information and applications. SharePoint acts as a gateway that enables your organization to collaborate, communicate, and share information more effectively while reducing complexity and cost.
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