Forum Discussion
Modern - all or nothing?
We are really struggling with how to use the new Modern features. It seems like you have to be all or nothing -- to have a mix of both would be jarring to the users. Is that what people are finding?
We have a very basic intranet, but the Modern Team sites are very limiting and the Communication Site might not be right for an Intranet Home page.
The Modern Document Libraries are missing key functions, like being able to Check In multiple documents at once.
Feeling very stuck with how to take advantage of Modern.
Any broad advice on how to approach the migration to Modern for a small business?
Rob.
RobOK, you are correct that the default search in a Communication site is only within the site. You can then switch to everything. The Hub site that will come next year will solve this issue. From a Hub site you the search default will be through all connected sites.
The Hub site will also solve part of your Navigation issue. It will provide a shared top navigation for all connected sites. Default position of the current navigation of a modern teamsite will stay on the left.
Structural navigation will not be available though. The key word here is: performance. So you will have to manually create your Navigational nodes.
Search from a modern site is Microsoft Graph-driven. That simply is very different from classic SharePoint search. If you have highly structured content with lots of content types and heavily used meta deta, than Modern Search will not be very helpful.
15 Replies
Admittedly having not read any of the responses here, one observation I'd like to make is that check in/out is a baaaaaaaaaad practice in SharePoint Online/2016 IMHO.
Unless you have an absolute need (the only qualifying ones I can allow in my head are legal or compliance requirements, which is very uncommon), drop the check in/out step in all your [non-automated] business processes. It may have been nice in the past, and it may help keep configuration control a bit more in check, but its value really isn't there when SharePoint offers so many other features that make up for check in/out's disadvantages. The biggest issue is the fact that check in/out is a mutually exclusive concept to co-authoring, which is now the norm.
I'd be curious to know what exactly your org's check in/out requirement is and whether it's worth reconsidering for the sake of making sure there are as few bumps in the road as possible. This would also relieve the major complaint you have with the modern UI. (Not all, of course, but that's the one you called out.)
I've published an article detailing why I despise check in/out if you're curious to understand in more detail where I'm coming from. http://icsh.pt/SPCheckOut
Great note, thanks. I think at this point it is just a cultural norm that admittedly has a learning curve when people start.
Some related points (that I don't think will strongly make our case):
- a perception that a "checked out" document is being worked on, or at least you can see that someone is working on it
- versions - I'm not sure how versions work without Check In
- We use Check In comments extensively for statusing
Co-authoring is not something we use currently but maybe in the future.
EDIT: also, for some of our highly formatted documents, we have had document corruption with DOCX files vs. DOC. So for certain documents we use DOC only which I think cannot be Co-Authored.
Also, is co-authoring available in Word, Excel, and Powerpoint client software, or just the Web versions fo the programs?
I will look at your article too, appreciate your thoughts.
Rob.Co-authoring works both in the clients and in the Online versions of Word, PowerPoint and Excel.
The great thing is that as soon as you open a document you can see who else is looking at or working in the document. Read this article to see how: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Collaborate-on-Word-documents-with-real-time-co-authoring-7dd3040c-3f30-4fdd-bab0-8586492a1f1d.
Regarding versioning: by default all SharePoint Online libraries keep 500 major versions of all documents. In the library settings you can change this setting to also include minor version. In that case you have to publish a document to make it a major version. When you do that you get a window were you can leave comments about the version.
About the issues you have had with highly formatted documents: I wonder how long ago those issues have been. DOCX is around for over 10 years already. I would recommend to modernize your formatted documents in this case. You are right that co-authoring does not work in .doc files.
Deleted Hear Hear!
Agreed! The "modern" features are half baked, at best. Likely due to the forcing function of the O365 groups.
I have started to use sub-site architecture to allow leveraging the pretty responsive site pages (modern). I will create a top level communication site and use it as splash page. Host the basic display content and other modern features like News. Then drop into a sub-site for content channels.
It's not a perfect solution but we've had some success.
The future looks bright, but the transition is tough. News feature, responsive pages, views by reference, design upgrades are all great advances, but there are core functions still missing. Hasn't made MVP for general use, IMHO.
Eric Adler wrote:
I have started to use sub-site architecture to allow leveraging the pretty responsive site pages (modern). I will create a top level communication site and use it as splash page. Host the basic display content and other modern features like News. Then drop into a sub-site for content channels.
.
Could you explain more about this approach... mainly, what do you use for Navigation and how does search work? I think a Comm site only searches within the site, not more broadly?
Our stumbling blocks are: Navigation (we like Structured Navigation on Top and nothing on the left), Search (there are no action links on the search results), and Document Library (although faster, are missing key bits).
Thanks,
Rob.RobOK, you are correct that the default search in a Communication site is only within the site. You can then switch to everything. The Hub site that will come next year will solve this issue. From a Hub site you the search default will be through all connected sites.
The Hub site will also solve part of your Navigation issue. It will provide a shared top navigation for all connected sites. Default position of the current navigation of a modern teamsite will stay on the left.
Structural navigation will not be available though. The key word here is: performance. So you will have to manually create your Navigational nodes.
Search from a modern site is Microsoft Graph-driven. That simply is very different from classic SharePoint search. If you have highly structured content with lots of content types and heavily used meta deta, than Modern Search will not be very helpful.
My organization has done pretty much what you did--it's a bummer to not be able to use the modern group-based sites' integrated Plans/Teams and such, but there's just no way to organize those sites (yet) to make them usable. If Hub sites give me the same kind of architecture a site collection with subsites can, I'll be all for it, but until then, it doesn't exist if I can't see it.
You're right. From the other hand - I would use modern for multiple docs downloading (missing in classic) and if I want to check-in/out multiple docs I would just switch to classic mode and back. But the problem is that there is something missing in modern design that has much more impact. That is no SharePoint Search webparts - since we strongly utilize search we will stay with classic as long as this feature won't be covered in modern design.
Anyway from my point of view - modern design is still a preview but going in very good direction. I could even say we are preparing for migration in some way because every new webpart we've made is developed in SPFx that works on modern AND classic design.
I hope that in 6-12 months we could migrate to modern from classic design.
- Its somewhat frustrating that there are so many great things in front of us, but it just doesn't all work yet!
I would say: it totally depends on how savvy your users are and what kind of functionality you use in SharePoint.
For new customers I recommend going for Modern all the way (except if there are very specific requirements that need classic functionality).
The questions you need to ask yourself are:
- What are the most used features and in what mode are they available?
- What is the most user friendly method for my users?
The answers to these question should help you make a good decision. Since Modern UI is constantly evolving re-evaluate your decision periodically makes sense.
