Extra, extra, read all about it! Lots of news on team news. Improve the reach of your internal communications – to individuals, the team and throughout the company. SharePoint Online promotes efficient and effective collaboration and communication throughout your intranet. When you have news to share, it should be easy to author with powerful methods of distribution and consumption for the greatest impact. Today, we’re pleased to highlight several new SharePoint capabilities in Office 365 that help you inform and stay on task in a very personal way:
- News on SharePoint home in Office 365 | personalized team news rollup from across sites you are active in, sites you are following, and other news suggested by Microsoft Graph, right on the main entry point for all your sites and portals.
- News in SharePoint mobile app for Android | personalized team news rollup on your Android device. [Already on iOS, coming soon to Universal Windows Platform (UWP) app]
- Create news with the SharePoint mobile app for iOS | author news and publish to your team members while you’re on the go. [Coming next to Android]
- Create impactful news and pages | new web parts and page capabilities to help strengthen your internal communications and add interactivity.
Let’s dive into the details.
News on SharePoint home in Office 365
Improve the consumption of your news. Microsoft enables a personalized view of all team news published to users right on their SharePoint home in Office 365 (click the SharePoint tile within the Office 365 app launcher). News is easy to read from across the sites they are active in, sites they follow, as well as other news suggested by the intelligence of Microsoft Graph.
At the top of SharePoint home, you will now see News from sites. It’s easy to see what the news is, where it’s coming from, how it’s trending – and you’re one-click away from reading the article in it full fidelity, no matter what operating system or browser you are using. And to see all your news, simply click See all to go to the dedicated, personalized news rollup page.
News from sites now appears at the top of SharePoint home in Office 365
With the addition of team news, SharePoint home evolves into an intuitive, single location to see what's happening in all your sites and portals, perform enterprise-wide search, create new sites -- and now read all the news around you.
Learn more about how to find news, sites and portals in Office 365.
News in SharePoint mobile app for Android
A rollup of news on the Web is great. Now what about news in your pocket while you’re on the go? If you use the SharePoint mobile app for Android, you will now have the mobile experience of team news. When you tap the News tab, you will see a list of news tailored to you using the intelligence of Microsoft Graph. Viewing news on the SharePoint mobile app for iOS has been available for a few months now to great reviews and ratings. Now, SharePoint mobile on Android will give you one place to catch up on the news from across your intranet. That’s your news in your pocket!
Within the SharePoint mobile app for Android | the News tab (left), viewing a news article (center), and news on a team site (right).
Install the SharePoint mobile app for Android today, and learn how it helps you keep connected to all things collaboration and communication. [The news tab will come soon to the SharePoint app for Windows 10 Mobile]
Create news with the SharePoint mobile app for iOS
The next level of the news service within the SharePoint app is to enable the creation of news on the go. Now you can add your own news stories right from your iOS 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.
With the SharePoint mobile app for iOS | create news (left), add text and documents (center), and add images and format text (right).
Install the SharePoint mobile app for iOS today, and learn more about team news in the SharePoint mobile app for iOS (view and create news on the go).
Create impactful news and pages
Your messages need a canvas with which to author--one that is as flexible, powerful and interactive as the information you need to get out to the company. Where you author pages and news adjusts to the needs of your message, provides a great experience across Web and mobile by default, so you can create rich, dynamic communications that inform with impact. We have added new capabilities to this authoring canvas with both new web parts and improved usability.
New modern web parts
Web parts are the building blocks of pages and team news. They allow you to do things as simple as placing text on a page, to embedding a document or video, to displaying a roll-up of documents or data insights.
Here is a list of recently released web parts that can be used on a modern team site home page, in a page and in team news:
- Power BI (preview) | include dynamic, visual data in your page or news article. Simply paste a URL to an existing Power BI report and the interactive data flows in context for your reader.
- Link | share links to external and internal pages and documents. The Link web part shows a preview -- with image, title and text snippet; no more blue links.
- Image Gallery | share collections of pictures on a page using a tile or carousel layout.
- Bing Maps | add a map to your page. Simply enter an address or a well-known location name, and your map dynamically appears.
- Quick Chart | create a simple chart to present data. Enter your data points with labels, pick your chart type, and publish.
The authoring toolbox showing all in-production web parts (accessible in Edit mode when you hover between web parts; newest additions highlighted in red boxes).
Review the up-to-date list of all available web parts, and how to use them in your internal communications. And if you are a developer, review how you can get started with the SharePoint Framework to build your own custom web parts.
Paste tables from Word, intact
Often, we have information in one location, and we want to simply copy and paste it as-is into a new place. Text is historically easy and straight forward. But a table within Microsoft Word – challenging to maintain the original fidelity into other applications. A recent update now enables you to copy and paste tables from Word into a page – intact. That’s time not spent fidgeting and reformatting – plus fewer expletives ;).
Paste images
You or someone else has already put in effort to embed images within the logical flow of their story or article, be it in a Web page or Office document. Like how you want to maintain tables from Word, you also want to copy and paste text and images at the same time, and avoid having to upload and re-place each image. Copy. Paste. Publish!
Performance improvements
In addition to evolving team news viewing and authoring, we have improved the overall page load performance, which also applies to how fast a news article or page will load in the SharePoint mobile apps. You’ve piqued their interest, and they won’t have to wait long to appreciate your genius.
Your voice, heard!
Good news is good news. We hope you like all the news on news we’re sharing today. We look forward to your feedback. Please share your thoughts and questions in comments below, submit your ideas to the SharePoint UserVoice page, and we always have an eye on your tweets to @SharePoint. Let us know. Who knows, today’s (feedback on) news could be tomorrow’s headlines!
Thanks,
Mark (@mkashman) - senior product manager | SharePoint
Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
Q: When will team news appear on SharePoint home?
A: News on SharePoint home begins rolling out to First Release customers in the coming days. We expect to begin worldwide rollout to all Office 365 customers in the coming months.
Q: When can users expect to see these updates to SharePoint apps on their devices?
A: If you install the SharePoint mobile app, you will see all the new features. And if you’ve already installed the SharePoint app, you will soon see an app update in your app store. Update early, update often, you’ll love what an update brings. :smiling_face_with_smiling_eyes: