This morning at SharePoint Conference 2019, Microsoft introduced new features and capabilities for teamwork and business process.  SharePoint powers teamwork at scale with a rich range of content services and tools for building business applications.

 

PowerApps custom forms for document libraries

Starting in summer 2019, you’ll be able to use PowerApps to build custom forms for document libraries, building metadata-enriched experiences through SharePoint and Microsoft Teams.

 

Compliance workspaces

Compliance workspaces allow you to review content grouped by label, regardless of type or container – meaning, across files, conversations, emails and more.  Libraries have long provided version management for collaborative content.  For compliant and regulated industries, sometimes particular versions of a file have distinctive needs for retention, records management and the like.   

 

Compliance workspaces will allow you to drill into single versions of files and manage renditions, movement/curation, or retention policies.   Many files go through dozens or hundreds of versions with only a handful subject to retention.  Workspaces will let you label these versions and even transfer them to centralized stores, allowing you to groom information architecture and containers over time.

Compliance workspaces will enter private preview in summer 2019.

 

Organization templates

Last year, we announced support for easy to use document templates in libraries, and committed to delivering a more complete solution for managing templates across an organization.  Document templates are based on the existing content type infrastructure.

 

Today, we’re announcing support for organization templates.  Organization templates are stored in a central store and shared to multiple containers and endpoints.  Many organizations have standard patterns for presentations, contracts, trip reports and more.  Our next step will allow publication of organization-controlled templates to the Office “backstage” view (a/k/a the File tab).  This will help shift new content creation to use preferred templates instead of the Office defaults.

 

Organization templates for the Office backstage will being rollout to Targeted Release in summer 2019.   We’ll continue to work on better ways to share templates and content types across your information architecture, and we’ll share that news first here on TechCommunity.

 

New document management actions for SharePoint in Flow

Managing documents at scale means more than adding your workload.  Automating content management is essential.  That’s why we’re pleased to announce new automated document management capabilities in Flow.

 

Inside the SharePoint connector, you’ll find new actions to check-in/check-out documents,  get version information, grant access, and create folders. These new capabilities will begin targeted release in August 2019.

 

Bulk approvals

Many documents may be part of an approval workflow.  Starting soon, you can select multiple items and decide to either approve or reject them together.

 

To use this new feature, you can select multiple items and select “Approve/reject”

You can decide to approve or reject the content and add optional comments.

We’ll begin rolling bulk approval to Targeted Release in mid-to-late June.

 

Learning more

As new features and improvements are added, you can learn more here on the TechCommunity or at the SharePoint Conference. You can also share your feedback with us on UserVoice.

 

We’re also releasing new resources to help you learn more about our commitment to delivering business value, including:

Content Services

• Updated version of our content services white paper, summarizing all our investments and innovations in the platform
• Our May 2019 guidelines for GxP compliance, providing the blueprint for organizations that comply with regulatory regimes like FDA 21 CFR Part 11.

Demo videos

• Demo: Managing content at scale with SharePoint Libraries
• Demo: Streamline business processes with Microsoft Flow
• Demo: Improve back office processes with Office 365
• Demo: Increase your team's productivity with Office 365
• Demo: Enforcing your records management policies with Office 365
• Demo: Explore how Office 365 is driving dynamic intelligence

Business Apps

White papers – Building data visualizations in Microsoft 365

• White Paper - Using Power BI with complex SharePoint field types
• White Paper - Using SharePoint as a data source for modern reporting
• White Paper - Using SharePoint Online as a modern dashboarding Platform

Self Service Demo - Transform Work with Flow and Cognitive Services

As shown on stage at Ignite 2018! Bring AI and teamwork together with PowerApps, Flow, SharePoint and Microsoft Teams.

Customer story – Marks & Spencer

Global retail giant, Marks & Spencer (M&S) needed a modern application that would allow employees to stay engaged with customers and stay connected and informed about upcoming sales activities.  Using SharePoint lists, Microsoft Flow and PowerApps, the organization created an application that enables teams to track and distribute sales promotions and activities to store managers across their varying locations around the world.  Today, more than 800 store managers can open the application from Microsoft Teams, mobile devices or desktops to view all in-store activity within the year from anywhere.