SharePoint 2010/2013 Folders and document set

benjaminprins Office 365

Many companies are using folder and folders within folders. SharePoint 2010 and 2013 have two different kinds of folders, a document set and the ‘normal’ folder.

With SharePoint 2010 creating a folder in a document set using windows explorer is possible but not recommended. When a folder is present in the document set a number of features will break, for example the share column and record function.

The document set function of SharePoint 2013 Preview seems to be under construction.  It is possible to create document set but the GUID of de document set will be broken. The overview of the structure options for SharePoint 2013 is an indication of what might be, we will have to wait for the full version to verify the options.

In SharePoint 2010 it is possible to…

  • create a folder within a folder
  • create a document set within a folder
  • create a folder within a document set with the windows explorer (creating folders within document set is not advised )

In SharePoint 2010 it is not possible to…

  • create a folder within a document set through the GUID
  • create a document set within a document set

In SharePoint 2013 Preview it is possible to…

  • create a folder within a folder
  • create a document set within a folder
  • create a folder within a document set

In SharePoint 2013 Preview it is not possible to…

  • create a document set within a document set

SharePoint 2013 Visual Workflows

benjaminprins Office 365

A new feature of SharePoint 2010 was to visual design workflows in Visio. It was only possible to visual design the workflow, the configuration of the actions could only be done with SharePoint Designer. This is still possible in SharePoint 2013 but there is also something new. With SharePoint Designer 2013 it is possible to visual design the workflow and fully configure the actions!


Text-based Designer


Visual Designer

Changing the view

1. Create a new workflow in SharePoint Designer.
2. Change the default Text-based view to the new Visual designer view, by clicking on Views.

3. Add actions and logic to the workflow.
4. Configure the actions.

SharePoint 2013 community site

benjaminprins Office 365

A lot of new social features have been added in SharePoint 2013. A major social feature is the new community site. In this blog I will show the new features included in the community site.

Creating a discussion

When a new discussion is created a user can raise the discussion as a question. For as long as there is no answer the discussion will be show in the Unanswered question view.

Featured discussions

Discussion can be marked as featured to indicate there importance. Featured discussion will be shown in the Featured view.

Finding discussions

The content of the community is organized by categories. Users can interact with the rich interface to find the correct category. Hovering over a category shows the number of discussions, replies and the description.  The views “Recent” and “What’s hot” help the users to find new are popular categories.

After selecting the correct category with the help of the different views users can find the correct discussions. For example the Featured view displays all the posts that are set as featured (important) and the Unanswered question view shows all the post without an answer.

Members

Members of a community site are user who interacted with the site, not the user added to the community sites members group. The member list shows all the members with their statistics.

My membership
On the members page users can see their own reputation statistics and if they wish leave the community.

Reputation

Users activity on community sites will give the user reputation points, bases on the gained points users will be awarded achieved badges.  Points are gained per community and achieved badges can be shown as a bar or as text.

Users gain points by;

  • creating new posts,
  • replying to posts,
  • getting a liked or receives a rating of 4 or 5 on a reply or post,
  • getting a reply get marked as ‘Best Reply’.

It is not possible to extend the reputation model.

Besides the achieved badges there are also gifted badges. Gifted badges cannot be earned, but are manually awarded.

Rating

There are two rating systems available, rating with stars and rating with likes. Rating is an individual setting for lists and libraries.

SharePoint 2013 new search features

benjaminprins Office 365

A lot of new features have been added to the Search site of SharePoint 2013. In this blog I will show a few of these new features.

Try out the new Microsoft Office 365 Enterprise Preview for yourself!

Author refinement 

The refinement panel shows refinement options relative to the search results. For example it shows the authors. With SharePoint 2013 it possible to click on Show More and enter the name of the author you are looking for.

Modified date refinement 

Another example of a refinement options is the modified date. With SharePoint 2013 it possible to select a period on the timeline. A very easy and powerful way to refine the search results.

Document search results

When hovering over a document in the search result the fancy new preview panel is loaded. Not only can you open the document itself, with the view library button you can open the library where the document is stored! In the preview panel it is possible to fully scroll through the document, a very fast way to ensure you found the correct document.

Per user search preferences

User can configure search preferences to make the search experience more personal.

1. Users can activate or deactivate search suggestions in the search box and suggestions and favorites based on personal query history.
2. Users can clear there Clear personal query history, resetting Personal Query Suggestions and Results You Have Clicked.
3. Users can select if a document will open in the client application or in the browser.
4. Users can select a preferred search language.
5. Users can view and edit there existing search alerts.

SharePoint 2013 new document library features

benjaminprins Office 365

A lot of new features have been added to the document library of SharePoint 2013. In this blog I will show a few of these new features.

Try out the new Microsoft Office 365 Enterprise Preview for yourself!

Create new documents

The drop-down menu has been replaced by a good looking popup panel.

Preview of selected document

A fancy new preview panel is added. Click on the dots beside a document and view a fully scrollable preview of the document.

Follow a document

Not only whole sites can be followed. Click in the preview panel on follow to follow individual documents.

Search in document library

A search box has been added to the document library. Without a page reload or page redirect the search will be executed directly on the document library!

Uploading document

The process of uploading documents is changed and works a lot faster. Just drag the document(s) onto the document library!

Saving views
Small order and filter changes to active views can be saved very quickly. Just change the view and click on the save this view link.

1. Change the sort order of a view.


2. Click on the save this view link.
3. Click on Save to save the changes to the current view (all documents) or change the name of the view to create a new view.

Switching views

Changing views changed a little bit in a good way. The first three views will be displayed above the documents and by clicking on the name the view will be loaded. Clicking on the dots will collapse a menu which shows all the remaining views, nice and simple.

SharePoint 2013 has Nintex Workflow 2013 App

benjaminprins Office 365

Nintex Workflow is a powerful tool which lets you visual design workflow within SharePoint. Up until now Nintex Workflow needed to be installed on the SharePoint servers itself, it was not possible to use it with SharePoint Online. In the new SharePoint Online version (part of Office 365) Nintex Workflow is available in the SharePoint App Store!

In this post I will walk through an installation and give a demo using Nintex Workflow Platform Preview on a SharePoint Online site.The Nintex Workflow Platform Preview has less features  in comparison to the on premise version, but I expect that this will change over time.

Install the Nintex Workflow Platform Preview

1. Open the app store.
2. Search for Nintex Workflow Platform Preview.

3. Click on the app and add it.

4. Return to the site.

5. Click on Trust It.

Use Nintex Workflow Plathform Preview

In this demo we are going to build a Nintex Workflow to

1. Open a document library and create a new Single Line of text column named First Letters.
2. Click on Nintes Workflow in the ribbon.

2. Click on Design a workflow.

3. Click on Variable and add a text variable named FirstLettersOfName.

4. Add the Extract Substring from Start of String action to the flow.

5. Set the action as shown below

6. Add the Set Field in Current Item Action and set the action as shown below.

7. Set the workflow settings as shown below and publish the workflow.


8. Upload a document to the library and check out the result.

Result