SharePoint mobile notifications keep you up-to-date
Published Nov 16 2017 12:23 PM 39.8K Views
Microsoft

Take your intranet with you to stay connected and informed about content, news, sites and people while on the go – for those in-between moments. Neither you or your business stands still, thus the SharePoint mobile journey continues – all to keep you informed and to promote work moving forward.

 

Today we’re pleased to announce a new, important update for the SharePoint mobile apps (iOS & Android:( notifications – available now in their respective app stores. SharePoint is tightly integrated across the overall productivity experience – a pervasive content service – especially while you’re on the go. And it is important be alerted to timely, relevant information when you’re away from your desk.

 

Many of the announcements and demos we shared at Microsoft Ignite 2017, specific to SharePoint mobile capabilities, were released during Ignite. Let’s dive into the details of what’s new and recently released for the SharePoint mobile apps …

Receive notifications when news articles are published

When an important, relevant news article is posted by someone in your close sphere of work – derived from the intelligence of the Microsoft Graph – or posted to a site you are active in, you will receive a notification on your mobile device ‘from SharePoint’ within your device’s notification tray. When you click on a notification, you are taken directly into the SharePoint mobile app to view the news article and all its data-rich, interactive content.

News article notifications appear in your device notification tray (Android on the left, iOS on the right)News article notifications appear in your device notification tray (Android on the left, iOS on the right)

Don’t go hunting for the good news, good news will find you.

Me tab

The new SharePoint Me tab is all about you! The Me tab within the SharePoint mobile apps delivers a single place to catch up on important things going on around you – one place to find recent files, lists, pages, and news posts. You can easily pick up where you left off, and using the Save for later gesture - save news, pages, and files for later.

The Me tab shows recent and saved content, plus access to your own profile (iOS on the left, Android on the right)The Me tab shows recent and saved content, plus access to your own profile (iOS on the left, Android on the right)

Save for later

Save for later gets you back to the SharePoint content you care about!  Throughout the app, save news, pages and files to easily get back to them through the Me tab – within the Saved list. And when you’re finished, simply Remove from saved and get on with your day.

From the ellipses of each item, choose Save for later, and then see all within the Saved list within your Me tab.From the ellipses of each item, choose Save for later, and then see all within the Saved list within your Me tab.

News and page commenting

It’s often best to leave a comment or feedback right within the context of the article you’re reading. Now, you can comment on news and other modern pages. You can leave a new comment, or reply to another person’s comment to continue the dialog and keep the engagement going.

Provide feedback and ask questions in context using comments on news articles and pages.Provide feedback and ask questions in context using comments on news articles and pages.

Create news and edit (Android)

Add your own news stories right from your Android device. Simply click + Add from the News section on a team site, type a title, add body text and format it. You can also add image(s) and embed documents. And then click Publish. You and your peers will see the story appear across the news service as a recent story – on SharePoint home in Office 365, within the personalized News tab of the SharePoint apps, and on the team site itself. That’s news reach – ensuring you have an effective, automated megaphone to amplify your news.

Create, edit and publish news, now from your Android device.Create, edit and publish news, now from your Android device.

SharePoint Server 2013 and 2016 on-premises support (Android)

You will be able to log into your on-premises SharePoint Server environment from within the SharePoint mobile app for Android - giving you access to all your sites within your firewall, and if you are leveraging SharePoint Online, the app will provide access to all your sites from both on-premises and online in Office 365. Access SharePoint Server 2013 and 2016 with support for FBA and NTLM.

The SharePoint app supports logging in to SharePoint Online, SharePoint Server on-premises, and hybrid configurations.The SharePoint app supports logging in to SharePoint Online, SharePoint Server on-premises, and hybrid configurations.

WEBINAR NOW ON-DEMAND

SharePoint mobile apps end-to-end scenario demo’fest+ associated PowerPoint presentation.

(Presented by Mark Kashman, on Tuesday, Nov.21)

 

Install the SharePoint mobile app for iOS, the SharePoint mobile app for Android and the SharePoint app for Windows 10 Mobile today. Note: it may take up to a week for the updated apps to fully propagate within each app store now that we've pushed the updated version to the live production environments.

 

We’re committed to keeping you productive while you’re on the go, to give you the best access and interaction with important, critical people from the power of your intranet in your pocket. And we are always open to feedback via UserVoice and continued dialog in the SharePoint community within the Microsoft Tech Community —plus we always an eye on tweets to @SharePoint if you want to social’ize with us. Let us know.

 

—Mark Kashman, senior product manager for the SharePoint team

 

42 Comments
Iron Contributor

Awesome news @Mark Kashman! Also really like the live webinar! :)

Silver Contributor
@Mark Kashman, great stuff! Create news and edit on Android is exciting news —pun intended:-) When may we expect this on iOS? As an aside, really getting to grips with Communication Sites now and thinking where those Hub Sites slot in next year... 2017 has been the best year for SharePoint and I was there at Tahoe! Thanks!
Silver Contributor
The iOS update already there #boom and iPhone X compat a nice extra #onfire...
Bronze Contributor

I've been waiting for this eagerly! Love it. The update was already available in the Austrian store so I plunged right in. 

 

@Mark Kashman: what I've been wondering though is if you could go more in depth about the "relevant news" part of this announcements. I know you're going to say the Microsoft Graph figures this out, but I know my users (especially the communications teams) is going to ask me questions like "who got a notification and who didn't and why" "how do I ensure that everyone gets a notification?" and so on :) And I expect your answer will be "the graph will figure out the relevant people" and "wait for the new (enterprise/corporate) sites that will be announced next year, those will allow corporate wide communications from the very top" (of course you won't confirm this here ;p ) and so, but I would like to get more insights into the "relevant" part as were a just a small organization of about 70 users, where say for example my IT communication that I publish on my IT-Hub (communication site) is very likely to very relevant to all of our users, while in huge organizations this does not apply and the graph will really shine as that approach very likely better.

Steel Contributor

Excellent! These are some very exciting updates for mobile users and to encourage mobile usage. Looking forward to trying these out.

Copper Contributor

Cool, but it's realy time to replace my Windows Phone :(

Bronze Contributor

@Mark Kashman, if our CEO posts a news update, would all employees get the push notification if they have the SharePoint app installed, since our CEO is at the top of the org chart?  

Copper Contributor

This is a game changer and just in the nick of time. We were about to build an app for a client because this was their top requirement and the SharePoint app was not able to do it. Woohoo - I'm super excited!!

 

Is the commenting using Yammer? This was another problem - the inability to comment on stories on mobile using Yammer.

Copper Contributor

I now have the option in my Sharepoint app for android to enable push notifications, it was greyed out before. But no notifications are delivered. Any other configuration needed? Have enabled push in Sharepoint settings in Admin center.

 

 

BR

 

Pretty awesome

Brass Contributor

As for @Patrik Lindell, now notifications on my Android App. Push is enabled on device, and on Central Administration of my tenant too, but nothing happens.

What can be?

Device setup for background actions? APP version is 2.1.0

thanks

Michele

Copper Contributor

Still not working for me. Have tried iOS app also, but no push notice. App version on Android is 2.1.0. Are there anyone out there that has this up and running? 

Bronze Contributor

This is kind of what I expected when the provided information "derived from the intelligence of the Microsoft Graph" isn't sufficient to fully understand an important feature like this.

Copper Contributor

1. Does the "news" function work at team site only? Not at other site templates?

2. Is there any way to test notification if there is only one user at SharePoint?

Steel Contributor

If you haven't watched @Mark Kashman demo fest video, you are missing out! Check it out at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oydqwAZMvrA&feature=youtu.be&t=18s 

Unluckily push notification seems not working on Android

Bronze Contributor
fyi: had our first push notification on iOS last week. The first item on my wish list immediately popped into my head: Admin Report: Number of Push Notifications per News Article.
Deleted
Not applicable

The SharePoint Mobile App has really come a long ways toward bringing the mobile experience closer to the desktop. I am hoping that the new customized PowerApps forms (integrated with SharePoint Lists) will soon be working with the SharePoint Mobile App. This was reported by several bloggers, but so far I am not seeing it on my tenant. Hoping it's just a matter of time. 

 

Microsoft

Hi All (and explicitly @Ivan Unger, @Deleted, & @Eric Davis)

 

I'd like to loop in @Nate Clinton@Alina Skarbovsky who can collectively review all of the above comments quickly, to not only derive some important feedback, but to shine light on how the notification feature works today in the SharePoint mobile app specific to news, and some of the thoughts we have on the item we disclosed as Top of Mind, aka 'company news' which will uplevel the news service in a several ways to be able to better reach readers more tactically top-down, where today's in-production service is more personalized from the bottoms-up. Nate/Alina, thanks for adding any clarifying insights for the news service > notifications of today, and some guiding principles about how we'll mature the service in the coming year...

 

Cheers,

Mark

Bronze Contributor
Thanks Mark, can't wait to get more insights.
Bronze Contributor

Thank you Mark Kashman.  Looking forward to learning more.  We've been testing the SharePoint news push notifications with our team and so far, the results are exciting.  Thank you for bringing push notifications to SharePoint for news!

Brass Contributor

Android notifications Still not working on my tenant (first release).. any news? Am I the only one (so it can depends on my settings?)

Bronze Contributor

Push notifications work for our tenant when posting news to a modern team site (Office 365 group).  I'm using Android.  

Brass Contributor

Hi @Eric Davis , this morning i found out why i was not receiving notifications (and I feel dummy): basically the creator of a news will not receive them.

Sorry for my previous post.

Thank,

Michele

Bronze Contributor
Yeah, this kind of falls in the great void of uncertainty with this feature (push notifications), until we get more insights on how the work in the background. The special sauce being the Office Graph here :)
Steel Contributor

The demofest slideshare PDF download is amazing. Shared it with customers, and they were impressed, too. Thanks for sharing, @Mark Kashman

Copper Contributor

Obviously some of you out there are getting notifications, but still no notifications on our site or any of our customers sites. Are there someone who can provide a roadmap for when this will be implemented on all tenants? It's frustrating not knowing if it's supposed to work and doesn't because of some settings that are wrong, or if it's not working because of non availability of the feature. 

Steel Contributor

So @Patrik Lindell are you now getting this on your tenant now? I certainly am, as are my customers. 

Copper Contributor

Haven't received a notification yet. But sharepoint app has not been active on my device lately, not sure if that would be needed? Will start up the sharepoint app and have it running in the background, have someone update my followed sites and check if there is any difference. Thanks for providing some feedback @David Leveille 

Copper Contributor

Still not working for me. If I go into the Sharepoint App on my phone and update I get a red dot on the news icon showing me there are som new news, but still no notifications. 

Steel Contributor

Hmmm. I'll experiment when I get some free time and report back. Sounds like you're saying the tenant is working but the mobile app is not or vice versa?

Copper Contributor

Receiving a red dot in the mobile app when news are available has been working for a long time, that has not changed. So no change in behaviour. Push notifications just not working in this tenant yet. Also tried with an iOS client and doesn't work on those devices either. Feels like this is enabled slowly per region?

Steel Contributor

I will comment that there is/was a slight delay before receiving my news notifications on the mobile app. I expected it to be instantaneous, but it may have been an hour or even days later. 

 

I was with a client demoing the mobile app; added some news; expected it to appear. I didn't during my meeting (timer job? weekly? unsure), but it is there now. @Patrik Lindell has it showed up for you yet?

Copper Contributor

Nope, still no notifications. It would be ok if it wasn't instantaneous, hours would also be ok, but weekly would not cut it.

 

Received an update of the android client, and that enabled notifications for comments. Funny, since I have no notifications at all... :)

 

David, are the tenants in targeted release or standard?

Silver Contributor
Notifications have started for me but only for the last week. Rollout must be slow and I’m in TR!
Iron Contributor

Has anyone figured out how this works yet? I received one notification this week when my manager posted a news article on a site but I tried to post news on three other sites with my test account and never got a notification. I get that I won't get notifications on my own news but it is very inconsistent for who and where I get notifications. I need to train others on how to use it but I don't know how to do that.

Brass Contributor

Hi all, notifications aren't working anymore on my tenant. Or at least i think, today i tried pushing a news and no alerts on Mobile.

Brass Contributor

Same issue here. Notifications of news articles don't seem to work on both iPhone and Android. 
Note that when making comments to news articles it does.... at least I receive push notifications on comments to the news articles.

No notifications for me. 

- settings on device, admin settings and sp mobile app is turned on

- news post created by a user other than me (notification reciepient)

- I've tested MS Flow notification (on Flow mobile app) which works based on SP list item created/modified trigger.

 

Any guidance appreciated.

Microsoft

Do we/could we have SharePoint push notifications for Windows desktop clients as well?

Copper Contributor

Any updates on this? I am using the SharePoint App (iOS) and its not notifying me when new news article are added. I don't get them when others create a new news article (I know I won't get them when I create one). Notification turned on in Me Settings. Notifications do work for Likes and Comments. 

Brass Contributor

Is there docs somewhere about the mechanism ?

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‎Nov 22 2017 01:16 PM
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