Permissions in Microsoft 365 can be complex, but a clear approach can help simplify management, protect data, and enhance collaboration. Below, we break down the highlights from our recent Ask Sympraxis session, The Many Faces of Permissions in Microsoft 365, which explores our philosophy on permissions, the many sharing settings, and best practices for permissions in Microsoft 365.
Ask Sympraxis Archive
The many faces of permissions in Microsoft 365
Recorded live on Wednesday, October 30, 2024 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Ask Sympraxis Anything: Offsite Edition
Recorded live on Wednesday, October 16, 2024 at 12:30:00 pm ET
At Sympraxis, we love hosting our Ask Sympraxis Anything sessions, where we answer questions directly from our audience. These episodes provide an opportunity to dive deep into the challenges, innovations, and nuances of Microsoft 365. Below are some highlights from our recent session!
Can you trigger multiple edit items from PnP Modern Search web parts?
Yes, you can! You can achieve this by using a custom list column. Start by creating a custom HTML anchor tag with a URL that directs users to the edit item view. When users click the link, it opens the item in a new tab for editing. Additionally, you can customize the anchor tag as a query.
Challenges with SharePoint lists and library experiences
Recorded live on Wednesday, October 2, 2024 at 12:30:00 pm ET
What Happened with SharePoint Lists?
The new Microsoft Lists user experience has rolled out for SharePoint. With this a lot of changes have happened. In the past, the lists and libraries experiences in SharePoint were owned by different teams at Microsoft. Meaning that the same features would be implemented by two different teams, which often resulted in two different user experiences. Additionally, the Microsoft Lists app, likely managed by yet another team, further complicates this issue. The Microsoft Lists experience was intended to bring about performance improvements and increase efficiency. However, some of these improvements have inadvertently created new challenges that we discuss below.
Changes to the SharePoint Editing Experience
Recorded live on Wednesday, September 18, 2024 at 12:30:00 pm ET
The SharePoint platform has been evolving rapidly, bringing new features and adjustments that can impact both user experience and governance. While many of these changes offer exciting opportunities, some also introduce challenges. In this session we take a closer look at key updates to SharePoint’s editing experience, offering insights on what works well, and where caution is needed.
Microsoft 365 Backup and Archive
Recorded live on Wednesday, September 4, 2024 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Backup and archive: understanding the differences
Backup and archive serve distinct purposes, although many confuse them for the same thing. Backup refers to warm storage, focusing on active content and ensuring easy access to recover data if a problem arises. On the other hand, archiving is akin to cold storage, dealing with inactive content that isn’t regularly used. Syncing data does not serve as a backup or archive; it merely keeps two copies of the same data synchronized, without providing the backup or archived version.
Using SharePoint Managed Metadata for Search
Recorded live on Wednesday, August 21, 2024 at 12:30:00 pm ET
In this Ask Sympraxis session, we expand on the foundational concepts discussed in the previous episode, focusing on the role of SharePoint Managed Metadata for Search. If you haven’t caught up on that episode yet, we recommend starting there to better understand the central role of the term store and managed metadata in building a robust information architecture.
Term store vs. managed metadata
The term store and managed metadata are often mentioned together, but it’s important to differentiate between the two. The term store is essentially the repository where terms are created, managed, and stored, while managed metadata refers to the method by which these terms are integrated into SharePoint. Though they work hand in hand, they serve different purposes within SharePoint’s ecosystem.
Microsoft 365 SharePoint Term Store and Metadata
Recorded live on Wednesday, August 7, 2024 at 12:30:00 pm ET
In this Ask Sympraxis session, we delve into the intricacies of the SharePoint Term Store, a critical component for maintaining consistency in how we categorize and tag content across an organization’s intranet.
What is the SharePoint Term Store?
The Term Store in SharePoint is essentially a repository for commonly used terms. It provides a tenant-wide or site-wide source of terms organized hierarchically, ensuring we use the same language when working in SharePoint. This consistency is crucial as it makes information easier to find. However, agreeing on the terms can sometimes be challenging since different groups might prefer different terms, such as “policy” versus “guideline.” To address this, the Term Store allows for alternate labels or synonyms. When users type an alternate label, SharePoint pulls up the actual term, making it easier to standardize language across the organization.
What’s new with Microsoft 365 Learning Pathways v5 and the Lookbook
Recorded live on Wednesday, July 24, 2024 at 12:30:00 pm ET
In this session, we explore the significant updates to Learning Pathways in version 5 and the changes to the Lookbook. Developed by Julie and Stefan Bauer, Learning Pathways has developed into a great tool for most organizations. With Derek’s help maintaining the code updates, this knowledgeable team has collaborated to bring you the latest improvements in the beta version of v5. If you’re looking for more in-depth assistance with Learning Pathways beyond this 30-minute session, we highly recommend our new 1-hour Jumpstart focused on this tool!
We're 100 episodes old! Ask Sympraxis Anything
Recorded live on Wednesday, July 10, 2024 at 12:30:00 pm ET
As we mark the milestone of our 100th episode of Ask Sympraxis, it’s incredible to reflect on the journey we’ve embarked on since our first episode on April 20, 2020. Back then, the world was quite different, and in many ways, so was the landscape of technology. Over the years, Ask Sympraxis has grown, evolved, and adapted, much like the tech ecosystem we seek to demystify.
What is SharePoint Premium?
Recorded live on Wednesday, June 26, 2024 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Microsoft has introduced SharePoint Premium, a comprehensive suite of tools designed to enhance content experiences, processes, governance, and backup/archive functionalities. SharePoint Premium aims to elevate content management to a higher maturity level, integrating various advanced tools and capabilities.
SharePoint Advanced Management (SAM)
Located in the SharePoint Admin Center, SharePoint Advanced Management (SAM) offers a range of capabilities, including sophisticated reporting tools and data governance reports. SAM features change history reports that allow administrators to track changes at both site and organizational levels. These reports are downloadable, providing insights into who made specific changes and when.
Form Options for SharePoint and Microsoft Lists
Recorded live on Wednesday, June 12, 2024 at 12:30:00 pm ET
When managing data in SharePoint and Microsoft Lists, understanding the various form customization options available and how they interact with these platforms is essential. Forms serve as the primary interface for collecting data, and while they might appear simple, the underlying complexity varies depending on the type of form and its intended use. This session explores the different form customization options available for SharePoint lists, libraries, and Microsoft Lists, including their capabilities and how they can be leveraged effectively.
Microsoft 365 SharePoint Brand Center
Recorded live on Wednesday, May 29, 2024 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Back in the day, SharePoint developers reveled in the ability to craft pixel-perfect intranets and websites, wielding full control over branding assets. However, this era of limitless customization came at a cost - considerable technical debt. If you built an intranet with custom branding, you had to account for every web part, how it was used, and how it was branded, often at the expense of performance. The good news is all that changes in the new modern brand center as it is slowly giving us back customization options.
Microsoft 365 Community Conference Recap - Spring 2024
Recorded live on Wednesday, May 15, 2024 at 12:30:00 pm ET
A couple of weeks ago, the Microsoft 365 Community Conference took place, offering a deep dive into the latest advancements and future directions for Microsoft 365. The central theme of the conference was the transformative influence of Copilot on the entire Microsoft 365 ecosystem.
Copilot Studio
One of the significant announcements was the full availability of Copilot Studio. Previously available on a limited basis, Copilot Studio is now accessible to more users, although not all functionalities are fully operational yet. This tool allows users to start building Copilot-driven solutions. However, it’s important to note that the licensing requirements can be costly. Each user involved in creating with Copilot Studio needs a license, priced at $200 per month, which can add up quickly for larger teams.
The Age of CoPilot and AI
Recorded live on Wednesday, May 1, 2024 at 12:30:00 pm ET
In today’s tech-driven world, AI is a hot topic of conversation. Whether you’re excited about its potential or have reservations, there’s no denying that AI offers numerous opportunities to streamline tasks and boost productivity. However, it’s essential to remember that while AI can be incredibly helpful, it’s not infallible. Join us as we delve into some of the ways we harness AI’s power and explore important considerations to keep in mind along the way.
Page Layouts: Building great home pages
Recorded live on Wednesday, April 17, 2024 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Crafting a compelling home page on SharePoint is an art and a science, requiring a delicate balance of strategic planning and creative execution. At the heart of it all lies the principle of consistency. Whether the page serves as an intranet hub or a team site, users should encounter a familiar layout and navigation that guides them to their desired content.
Rules of thumb
Beyond consistency, we recommend placing crucial content in the top left corner. This ensures visibility without requiring excessive scrolling, a nod to the traditional concept of the “fold” borrowed from newspaper design. However, the visual appeal is equally important; the use of color, imagery, and layout can provide powerful cues that guide users through the page and draw their attention to key information.
Microsoft 365 Site Lifecycle
Recorded live on Wednesday, April 3, 2024 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Within your organization, effective management of the Microsoft 365 site lifecycle is critical. First, you must recognize that not all sites hold equal significance in terms of their lifecycle. While certain sites, such as HR intranet sites, may exist indefinitely, other components, like document libraries or collaboration sites, need lifecycle oversight. With no lifecycle organization, companies often face the issue of sprawl.
Understanding site lifecycle
Regarding the Maturity Model and site lifecycle, organizations at the 100 level have a ton of sites, many are inactive, and they don’t know how to deal with them. At level 200 you see some manual management, but it’s irregular. Level 300 you might have a clear site request, provisioning, and retirement process. Level 400 brings automated rules and policies to manage the site portfolio. Level 500 likely has an AI or rules-based analysis that’s watching the site portfolio and providing suggestions.
Migration: The Sympraxis Approach
Recorded live on Wednesday, March 20, 2024 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Migrating to and within Microsoft 365 can sometimes be a daunting task fraught with challenges, from data integrity to user adoption. That’s where the Sympraxis Approach comes in. This session of Ask Sympraxis digs deeper into migrations, focusing specifically on a redesign approach. If you’d like a broader overview of migrations in general, please visit our prior session What does migration really mean?.
Redesign: Pros and Cons
The consensus is clear: lift and shift approaches are a thing of the past. The redesign methodology offers a chance to rectify past mistakes, leveraging lessons learned to implement better practices and improve platform performance. By splitting the intranet between communication and team sites, organizations can reduce technical debt and align more closely with business needs. However, with pros comes cons and the redesign method requires more effort, testing, and collaboration. Despite the added workload, we believe the benefits far outweigh the challenges.
What does migration really mean?
Recorded live on Wednesday, March 6, 2024 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of migration? Don’t worry, this session of Ask Sympraxis is here to assist you! Our discussion covered various aspects, ranging from the definition of migration all the way to potential speed bumps. Here’s a comprehensive breakdown of the key takeaways:
Understanding migration
Migration, simply put, involves moving content from one place to another. This process takes different forms, such as organizational mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, reorganizations, and transitioning to the cloud. However, keep in mind migration is not merely about relocating files; it gives you an opportunity to enhance and improve existing structures.
Teams Templates
Recorded live on Wednesday, February 21, 2024 at 12:30:00 pm ET
In the latest Ask Sympraxis session, we delved into the world of templates for Microsoft Teams, unraveling the nuances that play a crucial role in ensuring consistency and efficiency. The session began with an overview of templates in general. If you’d like to dive deeper into the various types of templates available in Microsoft 365, please check out the other posts in this series.
Site and List Templates
Recorded live on Wednesday, February 7, 2024 at 12:30:00 pm ET
At its core, a template serves as a blueprint, allowing repeatability, consistency, and encapsulating institutional knowledge. For more detailed information and an overview of templates in general, please visit our prior Ask Sympraxis session.
Maturity Model approach
As we love to often reference, templates can also be viewed in relation to the Maturity Model. Starting at level 100, templates are completely absent, and everything is configured manually on the fly. The Microsoft provided templates occupy the 200 level. Templates can go all the way to the 500 level, where an automated custom approach to template management is applied.
Page Templates
Recorded live on Wednesday, January 24, 2024 at 12:30:00 pm ET
In this Ask Sympraxis session, we explore the intricacies of page templates in SharePoint and Microsoft 365. For a broader understanding of templates, check out our templates overview session. In short, templates play a crucial role in ensuring consistency, repeatability, and encapsulating institutional knowledge.
Creating Page Templates
To create a page template, we suggest starting off with building a page using your desired content. Once the content is ready, select the ‘Save as Template’ option, located in the upper left corner while editing the page, this clones the page and places a copy in the templates folder of your site.
Content Types and Document Templates
Recorded live on Wednesday, January 10, 2024 at 12:30:00 pm ET
This session the team focuses specifically on content types and document templates. Within the Microsoft ecosystem, we must emphasize their role in ensuring repeatability, maintaining consistency, and encapsulating institutional knowledge.
Content types as templates
Content types are defined as collections of structured or unstructured data representing business objects, for example: benefits, contracts, and vacation requests. Content types play a crucial role in defining these entities and the associated data, enabling the creation of intricate hierarchies of content.
Template Overview
Recorded live on Wednesday, December 13, 2023 at 12:30:00 pm ET
In this Ask Sympraxis session we explore the vast landscape of templates within the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. Discover how templates serve as essential building blocks for evolving sites over time. A template in the conventional sense may be thought of as a guide. In Microsoft 365, we consider a template something aimed to deliver repeatability, consistency, and encapsulating institutional knowledge.
Content types as templates
Content types serve as templates for business objects like invoices, contracts, orders, etc. Although Microsoft provides base content types, you can create your own to suit your organizational needs. Building those in the Content Type Hub or SharePoint admin center allows you to reuse them across your tenant.
Microsoft Ignite Recap 2023
Recorded live on Wednesday, November 29, 2023 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Microsoft Ignite was held this year November 15-17th. In this recap, we’ll delve into key highlights, updates, and renames discussed. However, there is one overarching theme we must emphasize, which is the significance of grounding security, governance, and structure of your Microsoft 365 content in preparation for the much-anticipated arrival of Copilot.
Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365
The spotlight was undoubtedly on Microsoft Copilot, which claimed its place in the Book of News a staggering 289 times. Although labeled as generally available, the catch lies in the necessity for organizations to commit to a substantial subscription fee. For those aspiring to develop with Copilot but do not possess the means to subscribe, you can submit a specific solution for consideration.
We're thankful for community
Recorded live on Wednesday, November 15, 2023 at 12:30:00 pm ET
This Ask Sympraxis session focuses on what we are most thankful for, and that’s community-driven initiatives! These diverse and valuable resources within the Microsoft 365 community are aimed at improving user experiences and optimizing organizational workflows.
Microsoft 365 Community Content
The Microsoft 365 Community Content project is an open platform where anyone can contribute. It emphasizes practical content designed to help users comprehend and effectively utilize Microsoft 365 tools. Ranging from fundamental guides to advanced articles combining multiple products, the project is a collaborative effort that continues to evolve.
New Microsoft Teams Updates
Recorded live on Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Microsoft Teams is constantly evolving to meet the changing needs of its users. In this session of Ask Sympraxis, we dive into several exciting new features and enhancements to boost your Teams experience. While we’ve provided a brief overview of what was covered, for in-depth information on these updates, we encourage you to watch the entire episode.
Multi-Account Management
The new Microsoft Teams allows you to seamlessly integrate multiple Microsoft accounts into your Teams workspace and quickly switch tenants.
Ask Sympraxis Anything - October 2023
Recorded live on Wednesday, October 4, 2023 at 12:30:00 pm ET
We had another highly productive “Ask Sympraxis Anything” session! Our heartfelt thanks to everyone who submitted questions and actively participated. Here are the key insights and takeaways from the session!
What are the ramifications of breaking permission inheritance in SharePoint online?
We highly emphasize the importance of avoiding haphazardly breaking permissions. In the past this resulted in performance issues. This isn’t as much of an issue now as the landscape of SharePoint has evolved, especially in SharePoint Online. Despite this, we still believe that breaking inheritance should be done sparingly and thoughtfully. It’s crucial to weigh the benefits against the potential management complexity it may introduce. The key takeaway is that permissions should be organized methodically, and breaking inheritance should be the exception rather than the rule. If you find yourself breaking inheritance regularly, you might want to redesign your information architecture.
Community Resources for Intranet Owners
Recorded live on Wednesday, September 20, 2023 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Intranet owners have a wealth of resources at their disposal, catering to their needs across various aspects of intranet management. Whether you’re looking to configure your intranet, enhance your knowledge through self-guided learning, explore powerful user configurations, or seek inspiration from configuration examples, there are numerous community-driven assets available to you.
Basic Configuration
Intelligent Intranet by Microsoft
Intelligent Intranet is a Microsoft site that offers insights into their vision for intranets, providing a comprehensive understanding of what an intranet entails. It’s particularly helpful for those new to the concept and serves as a persuasive resource when advocating for intranet solutions.
Managing permissions in modern SharePoint
Recorded live on Wednesday, September 6, 2023 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Introduction to Microsoft 365 Groups
When discussing Microsoft 365 Groups, we like to tailor our explanations to suit the audience. For example, these groups resemble familiar concepts like Active Directory security groups for IT professionals. In contrast, when addressing end-users, we liken them to distribution lists in Exchange - a unified permission entity providing access across Microsoft 365 apps. In either description, creating a Group not only grants you a SharePoint site but also sets the stage for various integrated services, such as Teams and Planner. Groups gives you a one-stop management for all the integrated apps. Keep in mind however, if you make a permission change at the group level, or at the app level, it goes to all the other apps as well. Groups encompass two permission levels: ‘owner’ which grants full management capabilities including adjusting permissions, while ‘member’ bestows only content control, such as adding, deleting, creating, etc.
The Todd Show - Using CoPilot & ChatGPT to write PowerShell
Recorded live on Wednesday, August 23, 2023 at 12:30:00 pm ET
In this Ask Sympraxis session, we delve into the essence of AI, how to harness its potential, and the tools that stand at our disposal.
What is AI?
The term AI refers to an ever-expansive landscape, where the term is almost meaningless as it covers so many different things. It encompasses a vast expanse of technologies such as:
Tips & Tricks for customizing PnP Modern Search
Recorded live on Wednesday, August 9, 2023 at 12:30:00 pm ET
In the dynamic landscape of PnP Modern Search, fine-tuning your search experience is not just a possibility, but a powerful tool in your hands. Dive into these insightful tips and techniques to elevate your search experience.
Crafting an effective information architecture
To pull precise data subsets based on metadata, you first need to build a strong foundation. This is done by an efficient information architecture. The root of success lies in robust and well-defined content types. This makes searching easier. We always suggest including an interstitial content type which allows you to curate all the common site columns without editing the out of the box content types. The image below demonstrates a hierarchy that will help pave the way for the many of the functionalities of PnP Modern Search.
Changes to home and start experiences in Microsoft 365
Recorded live on Wednesday, July 26, 2023 at 12:30:00 pm ET
In this episode of Ask Sympraxis we begin by looking at the home and start page experiences in Microsoft 365 through the lens of the Maturity Model. The journey begins at level 100, where some users have isolated site collections. These site collections lack interconnectedness. At level 200, this could include the utilization of the Microsoft Viva Connections Home Experience, which consolidates news and conversations from various sites, along with surfacing the SharePoint app bar navigation. At level 300, we witness the adoption of hub sites. Level 400 sees the usage of Home Site capability, declaring a site as the home site and surfacing it in Viva Connections. At level 500, multiple home sites emerge, catering to diverse task-based requirements and accommodating audience targeting.
Managing Company News
Recorded live on Wednesday, July 12, 2023 at 12:30:00 pm ET
In today’s fast-paced world, effective internal and external communication is crucial for organizations. SharePoint News provides a centralized platform to streamline news delivery and enhance collaboration. Join as we delve into the various features and capabilities of SharePoint News.
The Maturity Model
In relation to an organization’s news and the Maturity Model, an organization at the 100 level solely relies on email for news distribution. Level 200 introduces newsletters and aggregated information from different departments. Level 300 involves posting news-like content on the internet, though not necessarily in a single location. Level 400 signifies the establishment of a dedicated landing page for current news and historical records. Finally, level 500 focuses on measuring and improving news delivery.
Ask Sympraxis Anything - June 2023
Recorded live on Wednesday, June 28, 2023 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Is having employees complete their Microsoft 365 profiles the most effective method to enable a searchable “area of expertise” property in our employee directory?
There are multiple approaches to achieve this, and your decision should depend on your long-term goals and platform extension capabilities. The simplest solution is to utilize the existing “skills” and/or “you can ask me” sections in SharePoint User Profiles. To enhance this solution, you can map the values from the skills section to a refinable string managed property, enabling the use of PnP Modern Search for a user interface with filtering capabilities. Another option is to leverage Azure Active Directory (AD) to store skills and expertise values, which can be displayed by any application consuming Azure AD. Alternatively, you can consider using a third-party solution like LiveTiles Directory or developing a custom solution tailored to your specific needs.
Microsoft 365 Conference Recap - Spring 2023
Recorded live on Wednesday, May 17, 2023 at 12:30:00 pm ET
The Microsoft 365 conference took place Spring of 2023 and introduced the community to a lot of updates road mapped for the platform. Continue for Sympraxis’ take on many of these changes!
Copilot
Microsoft Copilot is going to be rolling out slowly and is a new artificial intelligence software. Although there is a lot of excitement about this introduction, we need to mention that it’ll likely be a service you’ll have to pay for and the cost is yet to be announced.
Building a sustainable information architecture
Recorded live on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Business use case: Benefits documents
Join the Ask Sympraxis team for this session focusing on building sustainable information architecture (IA) through the use case of benefit documents management in your Microsoft 365 environment. From backend management of the content owners, to easy front-end consumption in your intranet, we walk through many of the challenges that are unique to benefits documents.
When Out of the Box isn't enough
Recorded live on Wednesday, April 19, 2023 at 12:30:00 pm ET
In this session of Ask Sympraxis Derek, Julie, and Todd are joined by Andrew Connell, developer and SPFx expert, and Stefan Bauer, developer and designer, to discuss when and why to build custom Microsoft 365 code that extends its functionality, particularly in SharePoint and Teams. However, we only suggest extending the platform when the out-of-the-box solutions fail to meet 80% of your business requirements. From there, try some of the tried-and-true technologies that exist such as PnP Modern Search web parts or list/column formatting, which give you more configuration options. If neither of those achieve your business outcomes, then it’s time to build a custom developed solution.
Empowering users while you implement Microsoft 365
Recorded live on Wednesday, April 5, 2023 at 12:30:00 pm ET
This session of Ask Sympraxis focuses on different methods and steps you can take to empower users while you build your intranet and how to set up Microsoft 365. Not every suggestion will be pertinent to your organization, which is why we suggest starting with the Maturity Model and determining your current and desired levels! This session is also a great reference to come back to as your organization levels up in maturity.
Customizing and extending search
Recorded live on Wednesday, March 22, 2023 at 12:30:00 pm ET
SharePoint Search has been available for quite some time and can be managed by a variety of flexible tools. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Microsoft Search tends to be more rigid as it’s not as mature. Although Microsoft is constantly adding capabilities to Microsoft Search, we are focusing primarily on SharePoint Search for this article.
Building columns
In SharePoint, a common use is to build a list or library with columns to organize information. Those columns are called list columns and they are local to that specific list or library. As you start advancing up the Maturity Model of your information architecture, we suggest you start making columns as site columns instead of list/library columns. The benefit of this adjustment is that the columns are not defined by the list or library but instead defined at the site level and therefore reusable across the site. For example, you might have a column titled “Country” with a managed metadata term set. If that column is defined at the site level, it can be used in multiple lists and libraries. Even better, if it’s defined in the content type hub, it can be used in multiple lists and libraries across multiple sites. We also suggest using an ambiguous enough name for these site columns so that they can be used in multiple places but are also specific enough, so users understand what they are. A name like “Country” isn’t particularly specific but still obvious what you are referring to. In short, you want everything to bubble up to the level at which you think it’s going to have value. A lot of individuals don’t use content types and instead just dump documents into lists and/or libraries. Instead, we like to look at site columns as building blocks for content types and highly suggest focusing on reusability.
Employee Directory
Recorded live on Wednesday, March 8, 2023 at 12:30:00 pm ET
We’ve come across many clients who express the need for an employee directory. We have learned this may mean something slightly different for each company. We always return to, what problem are they trying to solve? This week we are discussing how you’ll find people, their information, and different surfacing options.
User stories
Search Optimization
Recorded live on Wednesday, February 22, 2023 at 12:30:00 pm ET
In this episode of Ask Sympraxis we are focusing on search optimization. Search may seem initially as simple as typing into a box and having results show up, however you’ll soon learn that there are a tremendous number of options to customize search to truly be the most effective possible for your users.
Maturity Model approach
How individuals think about and/or use search in their organization can be broken down into different levels of maturity. Often, the starting point is a search box on every page. In shortened terms, type in a query and results show. However, this is a relatively low level of maturity as there hasn’t been any thought into how search works, how to drive targeted results, how to build search driven experiences, etc. At the 200 level, you start to think about how to promote certain results based on the common searches. At the 300 level, you start building search driven experiences that are similar to targeted solutions. You are providing a unified experience to the user while using a distributed content model on the back end and using search to bring it all together. The 400 level is where you begin monitoring. You’re now watching what people are searching for, which informs the way you think about your content plan. You can use this information to continuously improve your content based on what individuals are actually searching for. Organizations reaching the 500 level are surprisingly sparse. At this level you start thinking about using AI and natural language processing to build bots that provide information based on search results. To do this and have it work well, you need a tremendous amount of infrastructure in place.
Notifications and approvals in lists and libraries
Recorded live on Wednesday, February 8, 2023 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Notifications vs approvals
Before jumping headfirst into notifications and approvals in SharePoint lists and libraries, it’s important to note that there are crucial differences in their definitions and use cases. Notifications are often seen as routine and intuitive. They are a one-way form of communication. Approvals on the other hand, go both ways as they require a reply or action. The use cases for each differ as well. When it comes to thinking about the impact on your employees and/or on your projects, it’s important to note that notifications are deniable. It is possible for someone to miss a notification and therefore, you can’t necessarily hold someone accountable for it. An approval, however, requires an interaction and therefore there is no plausible deniability. With that said, that requirement of response can sometimes cause delays. Overall, we suggest you be very thoughtful before you pick a notification or approval given these different impacts.
Managing your organization's Quick Links in your intranet
Recorded live on Wednesday, January 25, 2023 at 12:30:00 pm ET
This week on Ask Sympraxis we are focusing on managing links to external resources or tools in your intranet. Join us as we dive into the current state and limitations, the Maturity Model approach, and a few customizable solutions.
Current state and limitations
New(s) Years Resolution: SharePoint News to improve your communication
Recorded live on Wednesday, January 11, 2023 at 12:30:00 pm ET
As with many people at the start of a new year, we decided to begin 2023 with a new year’s resolution. However, we tailored ours a bit. We like to call it a New(s) year’s resolution as our goal is to teach you about SharePoint News and how it can improve your communication this year!
Business Cases for Viva Connections
Recorded live on Wednesday, December 14, 2022 at 12:30:00 pm ET
As announced in September at Microsoft IGNITE, Microsoft Viva Connections will have new capabilities including Viva home. This new Viva home experience will surface all the Viva modules you’re licensed for, all the adaptive cards you’ve added to your dashboard, Yammer conversations, SharePoint news and navigation through the SharePoint app bar, frequent sites, and followed sites etc. One of the best parts is that all of this will be accessible through Microsoft Teams with minimal configuration. Viva home is an excellent place to begin your intranet journey, especially if you have had not had the time or skill set to make a SharePoint Communication Site to centralize your content across the tenant.
Migrating from Stream Classic
Recorded live on Wednesday, November 30, 2022 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Do you still have videos saved in Microsoft Stream Classic? It’s time to migrate your videos to SharePoint! Originally Stream Classic, and before that Office 365 Videos, was a separate destination than content saved in SharePoint. However, as videos are essentially just another object that people need to interact with, similar to a document, bringing videos into SharePoint allows you to manage all your content in one location regardless of the file type. Now that videos will be stored in SharePoint document libraries, you’ll have more options on how you’re able to work with them. In this session we talk about stream migration and how to navigate your Stream classic migration to SharePoint.
User Research
Recorded live on Wednesday, November 16, 2022 at 12:30:00 pm ET
User research places people in the center of your design process. It’s all about asking the right questions so that you learn the user’s behaviors, needs, and desires, leading you to build the right solutions. The type of research you will conduct depends on the type of project you’re working on, where you are in the process, your timeline, budget, etc. Follow along as we outline different research methods, risks involved with skipping research, and a brief case study.
Offboarding
Recorded live on Wednesday, November 2, 2022 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Life happens. People join an organization and folks leave organizations. It can be a personal decision, a termination, or maybe even just a temporary leave, but regardless of the reason we’ve compiled our suggestions of better practices to minimize the impact when offboarding an individual.
First off, clean onboarding leads to easier offboarding. This means that there are certain suggestions we have for when you set up your accounts that will better prepare your organization for if/when an individual leaves.
Microsoft Ignite Recap - Fall 2022
Recorded live on Wednesday, October 19, 2022 at 12:30:00 pm ET
It is impossible to condense all of Ignite into a 30-minute session so we have rounded up these highlights. For more robust details and further explanation on the announcements, please check our resources. In this session, we focus on the three main areas that correlate best with the common work we do at Sympraxis: Administration, Intranet & Employee Experience, and Customization, Integration, & Extension.
Create a Policy Center
Recorded live on Wednesday, October 5, 2022 at 12:30:00 pm ET
What is a policy center?
For the sake of this session, we are discussing building a policy center. However, what’s covered can really be applied to an infinite number of other types of content. The approaches discussed would work for any distributed content management scenario, which is the ultimate goal we are seeking to achieve. Ideally, we want every department or work group to manage the policies that they own rather than having one site or document library that everyone has to submit their content into. Instead, we can create the information architecture so each department can upload their policies to their department site and then the SharePoint site will show a unified view of all those policies regardless of where they sit. This creates a search driven experience that is customized based on the content that we are working with.
Intro to Microsoft Forms
Recorded live on Wednesday, September 21, 2022 at 12:30:00 pm ET
What is Microsoft Forms
Microsoft Forms is a powerful tool that can be used for various data collection situations. Some of the capabilities Forms possesses include creating a survey or quiz, creating a form and inviting both internal and external users to respond and the ability to set responses as anonymous, view real-time results as they’re submitted, and access to rudimentary built-in analytics to evaluate the responses. However, if you need something more robust, you can easily export the results to excel.
Learning about OneDrive Sync | Sympraxis Consulting
Recorded live on Wednesday, September 7, 2022 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Anyone that’s used OneDrive for a while is likely aware that the improvements and additional capabilities added in the past few years have been vast. That said, there are still some confusing features. For example, Microsoft tends to like to use the same name for multiple things. OneDrive is possibly one of the worst offenders of this. The various OneDrive manifestations that we see are: OneDrive for business, OneDrive personal, OneDrive mobile app, OneDrive as a sync client for SharePoint content, and OneDrive backup. Due to this, OneDrive can mean different things depending on who you are communicating with and not all features are available across the different options. Keep this in mind moving forward!
Making Your Intranet Multilingual
Recorded live on Wednesday, August 24, 2022 at 12:30:00 pm ET
There are a lot of ways and different components needed to make your intranet multilingual. In our experience, the two most common situations that we’ve encountered the need for multilingual intranets is for global business and, likely due to proximity, Canadian businesses as they are bi-lingual by statute.
MLP - Multilingual Publishing
Ask Sympraxis Anything - August 2022
Recorded live on Wednesday, August 10, 2022 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Can you provide recommendations for roles supporting SharePoint and/or Microsoft 365?
We are commonly asked this question and “it depends” on quite a few factors including your company size, culture, projected growth and complexity of your environment. There are a few resources in the community that can help you determine what roles make the most sense for your organization.
Forming an Intranet Steering Committee
Recorded live on Wednesday, July 27, 2022 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Do you need an intranet steering committee
As your company grows, so does the complexity of your intranet. Ultimately, the need for a steering committee will depend on your company’s size, the complexity, and your intended growth. A steering committee is essentially a group of stakeholders that can speak to the overarching company’s goals, can determine which projects are most important, and in what order each project should be tackled.
How to be a Good Content Owner
Recorded live on Wednesday, July 13, 2022 at 12:30:00 pm ET
As a continuation of our last Ask Sympraxis, focused on nudging along content owners, this week we’ve deep-dived into being a good content owner. Review our previous session Content! Content! Content! Nudging along reluctant content owners to learn more about why good content matters and the impact it will have on your intranet.
Why being a good content owner matters
Organizations are never static. Do you feel like your company is constantly reorganizing? Has your business focus changed? Content is a never-ending job as you need to adapt your content to fit these changes. As time progresses and focuses change, some content becomes obsolete. For example, a document that outlines this year’s health plan is no longer valid next year. This point leads to a common complaint about SharePoint regarding the search function. Often intranet users have difficulty finding the information they need via search. However, the issue isn’t in the functionality of the search, it’s in the management of the content available. If an employee is searching for their current health plan and pull up one from years ago because it is still available on your intranet, they’re either going to gain the incorrect information or lose trust in the ability to find the information they need. Obsolete and out-of-date content must be removed from your intranet.
Content! Content! Content! Nudging along reluctant content owners
Recorded live on Wednesday, June 29, 2022 at 12:30:00 pm ET
As consultants one of the biggest challenges we face on nearly every project is the encompassing idea of content: who is the owner of your content and who is responsible for the lifecycle management of that content. When building intranets, often for the first time, it’s incredibly difficult to design the information architecture and prioritize the information hierarchy if we don’t have all the content. Content is what drives both of these and that content is the primary reason employees are navigating to the intranet - to help get their jobs done.
The Intersection of Collaboration & Communication: Managing Your Content Lifecycle
Recorded live on Wednesday, June 15, 2022 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Managing your content lifecycle
We often focus on the planning stage of content creation but don’t pay much attention to what happens to that content as it evolves over time. How do you ensure that the content is still accurate after your initial launch?
Your approach will depend on your organization and where it falls within the Maturity Model for Microsoft 365. The Maturity Model for Microsoft 365 defines a set of business competencies, that resonate with Microsoft 365 yet underpin real business activities, and outlines expected impacts at each level of maturity. The Maturity Model is broken down into levels from 100-500. The level impacts support organizations in figuring out where they are (in any function or department) and what ‘better’ entails. Explore the Management of Content competency to learn more about using this model at your organization.
Microsoft Loop
Recorded live on Wednesday, June 1, 2022 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Another new and exciting update from Microsoft is the initial roll out of a solution called Loop. Currently the only place that Loop is provisioned is within Teams Chat. However, Microsoft has begun advertising Loop within Team Channels and additional Microsoft 365 apps, so expect this update in the near future, although there is no current timeline for when that will be available.
Working Across Tenant & Identities in Microsoft 365
Recorded live on Wednesday, May 18, 2022 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Microsoft account switcher announcement
Microsoft has recently announced a new account switcher feature for Microsoft 365 web apps. This new feature is a progressive rollout being implemented through the end of June and will allow users of specific applications to log into multiple tenants and seamlessly switch between them within the same browser session. Ideally this will limit the various workarounds so many of us have become accustomed to using. Although not every app will support this feature, overall, we expect this change to reflect in a positive user experience.
Microsoft 365 Conference Recap - April 2022
Recorded live on Wednesday, April 20, 2022 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Announcements at the conference
Feature | Status | Roadmap ID |
---|---|---|
Graph connectors for Confluence, Jira, ServiceNow | General availability | 86516 & 86517 |
SharePoint tenant rename | Public preview (with tenants under 5,000 sites) | 82162 |
New app catalog experience | General availability | 88844 |
Viva Topics integrated with Yammer topics | In preview | 72184 |
Lists Android App | General availability | 70704 |
Learning Pathways & Viva Learning integration | H2 2022 | N/A |
Adaptive Card Extension Design Gallery | General availability | N/A |
“memberOf” rule for dynamic groups | “Coming soon” | N/A |
Adaptive Card Extensions Design Gallery
Newly launched is an Adaptive Card Extensions Design Gallery that is available in the Microsoft Store to install to your tenant. It includes 12 design samples of adaptive card extensions that can all go on the new Microsoft Viva Connections dashboard. They are designed to showcase the art of the possible for demo purposes only with static or demo-based data. This enables users to visualize custom solutions to meet their business needs.
Modern Content Types: Streamline Data Management | Sympraxis
Recorded live on Wednesday, April 6, 2022 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Why do content types matter?
A content type is a business object, something that can be moved around in your organization, whether it’s document-based or not. Some examples are invoices, contracts, status update, etc. Everything created inherits from an existing content type that can be used as a starting point.
Ask Sympraxis Anything - March 2022
Recorded live on Wednesday, March 30, 2022 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Any recommendations/guidelines for what organizational roles are ideal for supporting SharePoint and/or Microsoft 365 (e.g., business analyst, developers, etc.)?
It “takes a village” to successfully support an intranet in any organization. One of the factors of your size of team is going to be related to how many people you’re supporting as well as the complexity of your environment. For all organizations, have a steering committee that is diverse across your organization.
The Value of APIs
Recorded live on Wednesday, March 9, 2022 at 12:30:00 pm ET
An API is an application programming interface, which means it lets two different pieces of code talk to each other. An API Specification is the contract for those programming interfaces. From the Microsoft 365 platform, there are supported APIs that are known and documented. There’s also First-Party APIs that exist for the platform to operate but the specification can change at any time and is not documented.
Help me to help you! How to engage with support
Recorded live on Wednesday, February 23, 2022 at 12:30:00 pm ET
This one was a bit of a free for all but the goal was to provide some concrete steps you can take before you try to engage support.
Before You Engage Support
Be respectful of the people whose help you’re asking for. This can be done by trying what you can on your own, for example, standard trouble shooting techniques. Anytime there is a problem, try to break it down first. If you have a developer tenant try to replicate the issue there. If you don’t have a dev tenant get one and try to replicate the issue.
Recent Microsoft 365 Changes We Love: What's New in 2022
Recorded live on Wednesday, February 9, 2022 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Site Scripts/Site Designs Templates
Site Templates are incredibly useful. They allow users to establish information architecture on new sites. These templates don’t have to be the whole site, rather simply componentry. It’s a very powerful engine and a lot can be done with it.
Content Hub Sync Site Script Action
This feature was added into Site Templates, and grants users the ability to work with the content type hub.
Building Accessible Solutions
Recorded live on Wednesday, January 26, 2022 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Accessibility is essential for organizations that want to create and provide high-quality tools that do not exclude people from using their products and services.
Web Accessibility
It’s important to ensure that your application is usable by all users, regardless of ability. Don’t assume users are using a keyboard, mouse, and monitor. Accessibility might be a temporary impairment, like recovering from hand surgery. Accessibility is not always about what you see, for example, a physical impairment, etc. Lastly, depending on location, it may be against the law to have an application, app, or website that is inaccessible.
Business Solutions Using SharePoint Lists
Recorded live on Wednesday, January 19, 2022 at 12:30:00 pm ET
The Premise: “Start small, think big, move fast.”
You may not need a robust line of business applications. SharePoint Lists allow you to iterate quickly, fail fast, and provide value with minimal effort.
The Power of Lists - some core capabilities
SharePoint is already a familiar technology to the organization. Building new capabilities where we are already working reduces the challenges with change management and tool abundance.
The Island of (Microsoft) Misfit Toys
Recorded live on Wednesday, December 15, 2021 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Overview
In this special holiday episode of Ask Sympraxis we will be exploring the Island of (Microsoft) Misfit toys. This can be products that never panned out, died too early, or weren’t that great of an idea to start with.
Content Type Gallery
This was essentially more of a “lipstick on a pig” change, with a different UI but fundamentally works the same way. The promise was initially the ability to syndicate content types from the enterprise to different sites. Simply put, a content type gallery that acts like a content type hub.
SharePoint & Teams: What To Use When Part 3
Recorded live on Wednesday, December 1, 2021 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Users need to stay informed about organizational news
This is one where a lot of people may not even be asking themselves yet, “SharePoint or Teams,” because they may be stuck sharing organizational news via email. We recommend starting to share news from SharePoint, that way all the content is in one place on the intranet versus needing to search the intranet and an email inbox to be fully up-to-date. You can make this news front and center in Teams by using the connector for SharePoint news. When a new article is published, it will appear in the channel feed. News can also be seen anywhere the SharePoint App Bar is present.
Microsoft Ignite Recap - Fall 2021
Recorded live on Wednesday, November 17, 2021 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Admin Updates
SharePoint Server Subscription Edition
First preview was announced summer 2021. It is now in General Availability. With the subscription edition you can migrate N-2. It is now licenses and more tightly tied to the Cloud.
Migrate Workflows
Added support for on-prem to the cloud. It is now possible to migrate workflows through the SharePoint migration tool.
SharePoint & Teams: What To Use When Part 2
Recorded live on Wednesday, November 3, 2021 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Use Case
Users need to complete a structured business process (e.g., time off request, travel plan, on-boarding, new asset request, check request, etc.)
Example scenarios of structured business processes:
Third-party solutions for process automation Ex: ServiceNow, GitHub, Nintex Workflows
Power Platform Integrations or other Microsoft 365 apps Ex: Planner, Dataverse
Solutions built using SharePoint artifacts Ex: Lists and libraries in combination with each other
SharePoint & Teams: What To Use When Part 1
Recorded live on Wednesday, October 20, 2021 at 12:30:00 pm ET
We asked you what you wanted to hear about and by an overwhelming margin folks wanted to know about using SharePoint and Teams and our thoughts on when to use each. Of course this elicits the universal consultant response “It Depends”. This topic was so large that we are splitting it up into a few different episodes.
Hosting multiple subsidiaries or business units in Microsoft 365
Recorded live on Wednesday, October 6, 2021 at 12:30:00 pm ET
In this session we talked about how organizational complexity and Microsoft 365. At some point, managing all the different subsidiaries or business units in Microsoft 365 becomes difficult. We talked about our approaches to make all this work.
Organizational Models
We mainly see two different models at play here. The first being, a parent company that has a pool of shared services that all the subsidiaries avail themselves like HR or Finance. These subsidiaries really operate like business units. The second model is where different subsidiaries operate independently and have their own M365 tenant but need to work with the parent company.
The Intranet is Dead. Long Live Microsoft Teams!
Recorded live on Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 12:30:00 pm ET
In this session we talked about the intersection to Teams, SharePoint, and other M365 tools and how we can leverage them all together to create an engaging user experience. To start things off we should define what we mean when we talk about an Intranet.
What is an Intranet?
Wikipedia defines an intranet as: A computer network for sharing information, collaboration tools, operational systems, and other computing services within an organization. Access to people outside of an organization is usually limited.
How to Protect Your Time, Your Attention, and Your Sanity
Recorded live on Wednesday, September 8, 2021 at 12:30:00 pm ET
The current situation with COVID-19 has made this a very acute problem but what we are talking about in this session is really timeless in this 24/7 world. These are some of the better practices that we use to keep our sanity.
Protecting Our Time
Setting boundaries and expectations: It is important to express where your boundaries are to folks that you work with and even live with. People like your partner, children, managers, and clients. Express what you need and where you draw your lines so there is no ambiguity.
Migration Scenarios for Mergers and Acquisitions
Recorded live on Wednesday, August 25, 2021 at 12:30:00 pm ET
M&A and Divestitures - The business context
For mergers and acquisitions, you are integrating one organization into an existing organization, or merging two organizations into a new organization and taking the best of both worlds. You need to In most scenarios the organization already has some of the infrastructure in place, HR, Finance, Facilities. On the negative side there is often some redundancy, and it is difficult to figure out what stays and what goes.
Ask Sympraxis Anything - August 2021
Recorded live on Wednesday, August 11, 2021 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Is there an existing resource that shows exactly which parts of a SharePoint site use which theme slots from the Fluent UI Theme Designer?
There isn’t an out-of-the-box way to know how SharePoint combines the different theme colors in the Theme Designer. Some members of the community have done some research to try and nail it down a little. Laura Kokkarinen did a good job of pulling out a few of these combinations as did Stefan Bauer. Derek also posted about the different theme colors used for headers. There’s also a webpart called Panathema created by Stefan Bauer which helps you identify which colors are identified with each theme slot.
Viva Topics: What We've Learned So Far
Recorded live on Wednesday, July 28, 2021 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Microsoft Viva Topics is an add-on component to Microsoft 365 and SharePoint that allows you to curate and publish topic pages. These topic pages can be surfaced via cards across SharePoint and coming soon across Yammer, then eventually Teams and Outlook.
Viva Topics Set Up
The main entry point to Viva Topics is the topic center. Users will see a personalized view of the content here. This contains topics that they have been listed with or interacted with, along with resources regarding the different topics.
Viva Desktop and your Intranet
Recorded live on Wednesday, July 14, 2021 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Viva Connections Overview/Update
Microsoft Viva Connections is a marketing term that is being used as a collection of functionality. It isn’t a SKU that you can purchase like some of the other Viva components like Topics. Viva Desktop is one of those pieces of functionality that is available for you to enable in your tenant.
Viva Desktop was formally called the Home Site app because it allows for personalization in your tenant. It is accessed as an icon in the left rail in Teams. It includes links to your Home Site, News, and your most recently used documents. You can also configure it to show global navigation based off of your Home Site.
Ask Sympraxis Anything - June 2021
Recorded live on Wednesday, June 16, 2021 at 12:30:00 pm ET
This week we opened things up to you and had a lively conversation running the gambit.
Q: Have you encountered any privacy-related issues with public or private content delivery networks (CDNs) in SharePoint? I’m concerned about content being accidentally shared outside of our tenant
A public CDN is exactly what it sounds like, a public endpoint to content. When you enable this you define origins for content to be hosted in the CDN. Those origins are the things that SharePoint then syncs to that CDN endpoint. If you turn the public CDN on, all of the origins that are shared and synced with the CDN are available anonymously. From a security perspective, you don’t want to put things in origins that you consider private.
External Sharing in Microsoft 365: The Rest
Recorded live on Wednesday, June 2, 2021 at 12:30:00 pm ET
While we were working on our other sessions on external sharing we realized that there were lots of other miscellaneous things to share about parts of Microsoft 365 that we hadn’t already talked about. So, in this session of Ask Sympraxis we are covering all the rest.
OneDrive
OneDrive Tenant Level Settings
Tenant administrators can set different external sharing policies for both OneDrive and SharePoint. Administrators have the ability to set external sharing policies individually for SharePoint and OneDrive however there is a failsafe. SharePoint can be more permissive than OneDrive, but OneDrive cannot be more permissive than SharePoint. Microsoft wanted to give administrators the ability to control the most permissive thing and to not let people sneak past it by using OneDrive. For example, if something is in SharePoint and it can be shared with anybody versus in OneDrive it can only be shared with existing guests. There are many layers of security which act like a filter or funnel. When it comes to things like guests or external sharing, it’s important to know that at the tenant level, the tenant admin or teams admin has to turn a couple of switches on or off. The most common factor is differentiating between external users and guest users.
External Sharing in Microsoft Teams
Recorded live on Wednesday, May 19, 2021 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Tenant-Level Settings
Teams Admin Center
There are many layers of security which acts like a filter or funnel. When it comes to things like guests or external sharing, it’s important to know that at the tenant level, the tenant admin or teams admin has to turn a couple of switches on or off. The most common factor is differentiating between external users and guest users.
External Sharing in SharePoint Online
Recorded live on Wednesday, May 5, 2021 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Team Site vs Communication Site External Sharing
For Team Sites, the external sharing is on by default when you set up your tenant. This is usually where people are doing most of their external sharing and collaboration on documents.
With Communication Sites you can share externally, however, you can’t do it from the site itself until you turn on the external sharing in the Admin Center. There are 3 different options for sharing: anyone, new and existing guests, and existing guests only.
External Sharing in Microsoft 365
Recorded live on Wednesday, April 21, 2021 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Use Cases/Scenarios
There are a few common scenarios we see across external collaboration needs:
One-Way Sharing of Content - A document needs to be reviewed by someone, for example, a contract, which will be attached to an email or a document workspace.
Temporary Collaboration Needs - A short term need which can be composed of internal and external people. These may be project-based transient needs.
SharePoint App Bar
Recorded live on Wednesday, April 7, 2021 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Intro to the SharePoint App Bar
What is it?
The SharePoint App Bar will appear along the left navigation on all SharePoint sites. There are 4 different components:
- Global Navigation
- Frequent and Followed Sites
- Recommended News
- Recent Files
Global Navigation is being talked about the most.
There are multiple types of navigation within Microsoft 365 for a Communications Site. These include the Global Nav, Hub Site Nav, Top (site-level) Nav and App Launcher. For a Team Site, the only difference here is a Quick Launch (site-level) that replaces the Top Nav.
Getting Started with the Power Platform
Recorded live on Wednesday, March 24, 2021 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Microsoft Power Platform: From then to now
In the old world, we had InfoPath and SharePoint Designer workflows which centered on SharePoint. There was also SQL Server Reporting Services to report on the data that is collected from InfoPath forms and stored in SharePoint lists or other sources.
InfoPath is dead and now we have a new model with the Power Platform. It is designed to be part workflow engine, part data visualization, part low-code no-code solution. It is meant to be independent of SharePoint where InfoPath relied on the SharePoint data stores. With the Power Platform, you can connect to many sources inside or outside the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. This was a larger shift for Microsoft as they began to work more closely with external systems.
Microsoft Ignite Recap - Spring 2021
Recorded live on Wednesday, March 10, 2021 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Viva Connections
Microsoft Viva Connections is an extension of the SharePoint Home Site concept, which will also integrate with Microsoft Teams. It includes the SharePoint app bar and the home site app in Teams. This extension is one of the four offerings of the Viva employee experience platform, and it’s free with existing Microsoft 365 licenses.
In Viva Connections, there will be a centralized location for a user to see actionable tasks and have those actions visible to them in SharePoint, Teams, or a mobile app. This will provide a seamless experience for the user across all the places where they are doing their work.
Microsoft Viva Overview
Recorded live on Wednesday, February 24, 2021 at 12:30:00 pm ET
What is Viva?
Microsoft Viva is an employee experience platform with 4 components: Viva Connections, Viva Insights, Viva Topics, and Viva Learning.
What is employee experience?
“Employee experience is the sum of all interactions an employee has with their employer. It is the structure and culture of the organization and how the employee perceives the company overall” (Source: https://www.inc.com/elizabeth-dukes/the-employee-experience-what-it-is-and-why-it-matt.html). This may be things like the physical environment where an employee works, tools and technology the employer provides, and how the employer demonstrates commitment to health and success of the employees.
What's new in PowerShell?
Recorded live on Wednesday, February 10, 2021 at 12:30:00 pm ET
When should I use PowerShell?
All the time! Early! Often! Seriously, PowerShell really shines for automating everyday tasks. It’s rreliable, so users can trust that the interface is going to be the same, and so will the job on the other side. It offers repeatability and consistency, and you get built-in documentation for free.
When Microsoft introduces new functionality or settings to Microsoft 365, the interface is always PowerShell first. If you’re comfortable with PowerShell you get to play with the newest, coolest functionality first, long before it shows up in the UI. Even if your first question is: “How do I turn this blasted thing off???” The answer is PowerShell.
Templates and Automation for Collaboration
Recorded live on Wednesday, January 27, 2021 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Who is using templates?
We posted a poll on Twitter to hear more from the community around usage of templates in Microsoft 365. The majority of people are using templates only a little bit or are interested in starting to implement them at their organizations. For those using templates at their organization, most are using third-party template tools or PnP site provisioning.
Our Favorite Releases From 2020
Recorded live on Wednesday, January 13, 2021 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Hub Site Improvements
In 2020, Hub Sites gained the ability to sync permissions to the associated sites. The first step is to enable syncing permissions on the hub-site (located in Site Permissions under a Hub tab) which will add the Hub Site Site Visitors group to all associated sites. Next, in the associated site, under Site Permissions toggle Sync hub permissions to “On.”
'SharePoint is Slow' - What Can We Do About It?
Recorded live on Wednesday, December 16, 2020 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Migrating Your File Shares to SharePoint Online
Recorded live on Wednesday, December 2, 2020 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Modern PnP Search Web Parts
Recorded live on Wednesday, November 18, 2020 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Putting the Unity in Community - A Guide to Community Resources
Recorded live on Wednesday, November 4, 2020 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Branding & User Interface Customizations
Recorded live on Wednesday, October 21, 2020 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Today we will talk about what it takes to make a visually appealing and accessible SharePoint intranet. We will look at some of the new functionality coming this year and what you can do today.
Resources and Takeaways
- Theme Designer
- Panthema
- Flicon
- SharePoint Look Book
- Web Accessibility Guidelines
- Top Application Design Mistakes
- Visual Design Cheat Sheet
Do you have any questions for us? Continue the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag #AskSympraxis and mention @SympraxisC.
Microsoft Ignite Recap - Fall 2020
Recorded live on Wednesday, October 7, 2020 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Microsoft 365 Maturity Model
Recorded live on Wednesday, September 9, 2020 at 12:30:00 pm ET
We often hear from people in the community that they know they aren’t using Microsoft 365 capabilities as fully or as efficiently as they would like. Taking a holistic view of the technology and gaining an understanding of current state vs. desired state can help organizations:
- Understand and compare options for solving business problems
- Focus time, energy and resources on the right priorities
- Identify the budget and resources to move ahead
- Establish a baseline to show improvement over time
Resources and Takeaways
- Microsoft 365 Community Docs
- GitHub Repo to Submit Issues
- The Microsoft 365 Maturity Model - Introduction
- Community Docs GitHub Training
Social media:
Microsoft 365 Learning Pathways
Recorded live on Wednesday, August 26, 2020 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Task Management in M365: What to Use When
Recorded live on Wednesday, August 12, 2020 at 12:30:00 pm ET
SharePoint 2010 Workflow Retirement - Part 2
Recorded live on Wednesday, July 29, 2020 at 12:30:00 pm ET
We had such a great discussion about this topic the last time, we’re going to cover it again! Several of us are getting deep into this topic for client projects, and we have more learnings and suggestions.
Resources and Takeaways
- Todd’s Blog Series on Workflows (now with updates!)
- Microsoft Workflows to Power Automate
- John Liu’s “Ninja List” of Resources (including Power Studio for care/feeding of your flows)
- Ask Sympraxis Workflow Infographic
- Todd’s Podcast with Joel Oleson
How are you planning to use the App Bar? Continue the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag #AskSympraxis and mention @SympraxisC.
SharePoint 2010 Workflow Retirement
Recorded live on Wednesday, July 15, 2020 at 12:30:00 pm ET
We bring you a special one-hour episode of AskSympraxis due to Microsoft’s recent blog post from Chris McNulty and support article about ending support for SharePoint 2010 workflows in SharePoint Online.
SharePoint 2010 workflows could be created in SharePoint Designer, as could SharePoint 2013 workflows. SharePoint 2010 workflows also underlie the out-of-the-box classic workflows. The Microsoft announcement is about both SharePoint 2010 and 2013 workflows, but the schedule for each is different.
Classic to Modern: Web Part Mapping
Recorded live on Wednesday, July 1, 2020 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Classic to Modern: Modernization Starts & Stops
Recorded live on Wednesday, June 17, 2020 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Microsoft is continuously evolving and improving SharePoint Online to be more engaging, flexible, responsive, and easier to use. One of the biggest shifts has been from SharePoint’s classic to modern and Microsoft’s investments are all in modern now. At some point, you will need to move from classic to modern, and you should want to because of the much-improved capabilities.
Microsoft 365 Community Content
Recorded live on Wednesday, June 3, 2020 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Managing Your Work Across Multiple Tenants
Recorded live on Wednesday, May 20, 2020 at 12:30:00 pm ET
The Sympraxis Team talks about how we try to tame the craziness that is working with multiple tenants.
Resources and Takeaways
Todd’s blog posts
Do you have any questions for us? Continue the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag #AskSympraxis and mention @SympraxisC.
Documentation Best Practices
Recorded live on Wednesday, May 6, 2020 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Managing Guest Access in Your Tenant
Recorded live on Wednesday, April 22, 2020 at 12:30:00 pm ET
In this session of Ask Sympraxis we talked about managing guest access in your Microsoft 365 tenant. We talked about the different options for enabling guest access and reasons why you should and shouldn’t enable it. We also talked about some of the pitfalls or things to look out for.
Do you have any questions for us? Continue the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag #AskSympraxis and mention @SympraxisC.