How can I create a custom redirect page in SharePoint Online for broken links or access issues?
Hi everyone, I want to improve the user experience in SharePoint Online when users encounter link access issues, broken links, or caching problems. Ideally, users should be automatically redirected to a custom page that: Explains why the link might not work (e.g., permissions, broken link, cache issues) Provides instructions for resolving the issue (like clearing browser cache) Includes navigation back to the home page or IT support Can this be configured directly within the Microsoft 365/SharePoint Online environment, or would it require custom scripting, Power Automate, or other solutions? Any guidance or best practices would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!Download and Access Issues for External Users with SharePoint “Anyone” link sharing option.
Hi All, We are looking for help resolving a recurring issue with file sharing in SharePoint. All files and folders we share with external customers use the “Anyone” sharing link option (Anyone with the link can access). Despite this, we regularly face these problems: Customers can view files but cannot always download them from the browser (for example, using the "Create a Copy”, “Download a Copy" or "Save as" option in the PowerPoint files). Sometimes, sharing the parent folder (containing the file) link allows the external user to download, even though the file link itself does not. The problem is intermittent and not linked to settings or policies—sometimes everything works, sometimes it does not, even when we generate new links. No restrictive site, library, or organizational policies are applied; “Block download” is not set and full link access is confirmed. Using a private/incognito tab sometimes enables the link to work when it otherwise fails in a normal browser session, but not always. We want to understand why this happens and whether there is an underlying issue, known bug, or additional configuration we should review that could make “Anyone” links unpredictable for downloads with external users. Has anyone else experienced similar issues? If so, how did you resolve it, or are you still searching for answers? We’d really appreciate hearing your experiences and suggestions! Thank you for your advice and support!
Disable presence in SharePoint Online file viewer - anyone got Roadmap ID419814 working?
Hi All - Happy September! We publish sensitive internal content (e.g., salary scales) in SharePoint Online for easy, up-to-date access. The issue: when hundreds of colleagues open the read-only Word/Excel files, they can see each other’s presence and live cursors. This also happens on externally shared links, exposing colleague names. Naturally our HR SLT are concerned about this behaviour. Workarounds tried We created read-only variants of the Word/Excel files, which initially suppressed presence indicators. However, we’re now seeing the unwanted presence behaviour again on those read-only files. This seems to have changed in the past few days. We saw Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 419814 (“Disable presence in the file viewer”) referenced last year, which sounded like exactly what we need. Unfortunately, we’ve not been able to make this work in testing, and our configuration options seem limited. The SPO code we used was: Set-SPOSite -Identity https://tenant.com/sites/sitename -HidePeoplePreviewingFiles $true Ask to the community Has anyone actually received this feature and confirmed it works at tenant/site level? If yes, how are you enabling it (SharePoint Admin Centre setting, PowerShell, PNP, policy, or feature flag)? Does it reliably suppress both presence rings and live cursors for: internal viewers with view-only permissions; and externally shared links (including cases where the viewer is authenticated as a guest vs. anonymous)? Are there any link type or site sharing policy dependencies (e.g., “People in your organisation” vs. “Anyone with the link”) that change the behaviour? Any browser/client caveats you’ve seen (Word/Excel for the web vs. desktop, mobile, or embedded viewers)? If roadmap ID419814 isn’t viable, what sustainable alternatives have you used that don’t force us into static, less accessible PDFs? We’d really like to avoid pushing users to download static PDFs for accessibility, versioning and user experience reasons. Ideally, we want: If anyone has got this working, I’d really appreciate a short call or DM to compare notes and replicate your setup. Many thanks tony
Best practices to work on files between Teams
Hi, I am working on the migration of my on-premises data to SharePoint online. My teams are set up, each team corresponds to a M365 group: HR, Accounting, Management, Employment Service, etc. Each employee will be part of one or more teams. Each team has a document library, and only team members will have access to the document library. The question is as follows: what is the best practice for working on files betwwen Teams? Example: the HR team has a folder in its document library named Recruitment. The assistant managers are not part of the HR team but need access to a subfolder of this Recruitment folder. I see 3 options: i break the inheritance in the document library and set specific rights for the assistant managers. I share the subfolder using a direct link, SharePoint sharing function. I create a second document library for the human resources team where all the files that will be shared with the other teams will be located For options 1 and 2, the "business logic" for the HR team is respected, meaning that all files in the Recruitment folder are located in the same place. However, I have no visibility on shared folders. At a minimum, we can play with folder colors to quickly identify shared folders, but at the scale of the organization, this seems risky to me. For option 3, the visibility of shared folders with the other Teams is quick and easy, but the files in the Recruitment folder are then found in 2 document libraries, which is not intuitive for the HR team. Could you please tell me what the good practices are? Are there any other options?AI- based Post Sorting
I have developed a Post and Comment module inside SPFx. where i have 3 sharepoint list:- Posts Comments Reaction here is the SPFX, with 2 posts and the first post has 2 comments:- Currently the Posts and their Comments will be shown sorted by the created date , here is the method to show the posts:- async getPostsPage(pageSize: number = 10, afterId?: number) { let url = `${this.siteUrl}/_api/web/lists/getByTitle('SocialPosts')/items` + `?$select=Id,Title,Body,Created,Author/Id,Author/Title,LikeCount,CommentCount` + `&$expand=Author&$orderby=Id desc&$top=${pageSize}`; if (afterId) url += `&$filter=Id lt ${afterId}`; const data = await this.getJson<{ value: any[] }>(url); return data.value.map(v => ({ Id: v.Id, Title: v.Title, Body: v.Body, Created: v.Created, AuthorId: v.Author?.Id, AuthorTitle: v.Author?.Title, LikeCount: v.LikeCount || 0, CommentCount: v.CommentCount || 0 })) as import('../Models/Models').Post[]; } and the comments:- // ---------- Comments ---------- async getComments(postId: number): Promise<Comment[]> { const url = this.commentsUrl() + `?$select=Id,Body,Created,Author/Id,Author/Title,LikeCount,Post/Id,PostId` + `&$expand=Author,Post&$filter=PostId eq ${postId}&$orderby=Created asc`; const data = await this.getJson<{ value: any[] }>(url); return data.value.map((v) => ({ Id: v.Id, Body: v.Body, Created: v.Created, AuthorId: v.Author?.Id, AuthorTitle: v.Author?.Title, LikeCount: v.LikeCount || 0, PostId: v.PostId ?? v.Post?.Id, })); } but the client is asking us if there is a way to order the items using AI algorithm so it show the most relevant posts and comments first? which approach i can follow? to allow order items inside SPFx using AI algorithm instead of Created date?? any advice?
Change Shared file's permission from Edit to Read only
Hello, good afternoon. We have a Site for the Finance team, one of my colleagues who is a Member of the site, shared a few documents with a few users outside the finance team (but withing the company) to start with they were given Edit permission, but now that the files were revised accordingly, the permission should be changed from Edit to Read only so that they cannot keep changing the files. My colleague R created the file, and shared it, but now, when he is trying to "manage access" they gets the following message (saying they are not the owner of the file - thought they created it) - and the same is happening with several other documents There is nothing on the site, preventing members from changing permissions. Why is this happening and is there a way to work around this issue? thank you for your help. Kind regards,SharePoint Threshold Limit Mitigation via Indexing Strategy
To address the SharePoint list/library threshold limit issue, we implemented a structured indexing approach: The document library contains 5000 items distributed across multiple libraries. We created indexes on relevant columns to optimize query performance and enable filtering/sorting without triggering the threshold limit. This indexing strategy allowed us to successfully access and manage the SharePoint site without performance degradation or errors due to the threshold limit. This approach ensures scalability and maintains usability for end users, especially when working with large datasets in SharePoint Online. Anyone has face the similar kind of situation and tried in a different way to fix that, then please share.Modernizing Legacy Intranets with SharePoint Online
Modernizing Legacy Intranets with SharePoint Online: A Strategic Guide In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, legacy intranets often become bottlenecks rather than enablers of productivity.Outdated interfaces, limited mobile access, poor search capabilities, and siloed content can hinder collaboration and employee engagement. Enter SharePoint Online—Microsoft’s cloud-based platform that offers a modern, scalable, and secure solution to revamp your intranet experience. Why Modernize? Legacy intranets, typically built on older versions of SharePoint or custom platforms, struggle to meet the evolving needs of hybrid workplaces. Modernizing with SharePoint Online brings: Cloud-first agility: Seamless updates, scalability, and integration with Microsoft 365. Enhanced UX: Responsive design, intuitive navigation, and personalized content. Improved collaboration: Deep integration with Teams, OneDrive, and Viva. Security & compliance: Enterprise-grade governance and data protection. Key Benefits of SharePoint Online Modern Sites & Pages SharePoint Online introduces communication sites and team sites with rich, responsive layouts. These are easy to build and maintain, even for non-technical users. Powerful Search & AI Microsoft Search, powered by AI, delivers personalized and contextual results, making content discovery faster and smarter. Integration with Microsoft Viva Viva Connections brings your intranet into Microsoft Teams, creating a unified employee experience hub. Automation & Workflows With Power Automate and Power Apps, you can digitize forms, approvals, and business processes without writing code. Migration Strategy: From Legacy to Modern Modernization isn’t just a lift-and-shift. It requires a thoughtful approach: 1. Assessment & Planning Audit existing intranet content and usage. Identify what to migrate, archive, or redesign. Define goals aligned with business needs. 2. Information Architecture Redesign Reorganize content using modern taxonomy and metadata. Leverage hub sites for better navigation and governance. 3. Content Modernization Convert classic pages to modern pages. Use modern web parts for dynamic content delivery. 4. User Adoption & Training Engage stakeholders early. Provide training and support to ensure smooth transition. 5. Governance & Security Implement policies for content lifecycle, permissions, and compliance. Use Microsoft Purview for data governance. Real-World Impact Organizations that have modernized their intranets with SharePoint Online report: 30–50% increase in employee engagement Significant reduction in IT overhead Faster onboarding and knowledge sharing Final Thoughts Modernizing your legacy intranet with SharePoint Online is not just a tech upgrade, it’s a strategic move toward a more connected, agile, and empowered organization. With the right planning and execution, your intranet can become a central pillar of digital transformation.
SharePoint site logo display issue
Hi all, We have built an extranet on our SharePoint Online however the logo is not being displayed for both internal and guest users. We have other extranet sites up and running which does display the logo. I cannot figure out what i can be. Some ideas or suggestions on what to check would be really helpful 🙂 Thank you.
Restrict Document Library so that only specific folders shared with a user are visible to them
We are migrating from Slack to Teams and need a historical archive of our Slack channel conversations. I have an export of my Slack channels (roughly 4000 public channels and 4000 private channels). Each channel is a separate folder with an .html copy of the conversation history of that channel. I want to create two document libraries on a communication site. One for public channels that will be shared with an org-wide group. I plan to move the 4000 public channel folders into there. This is not ideal because scrolling through the list will be very slow but it is the best solution we can think of for this. We plan to educate on how to search efficiently, or use a CoPilot agent to search. The other document library for private channels we want to also share org-wide. However I want to remove inheritance on each folder. And then assign permissions to the folder based on if you were a member of the equivalent channel in Slack. So for instance, I am a member of 40 Slack channels, so I would be granted access to just those 40 channels in the document library. My goal is that a user can access the main sharepoint page, and access the private channels document library, and only see the specific allotment of folders, rather than all 4000. Is this plan feasible? I know there are issues with list view thresholds and potentially drops in performance. How bad might they be? Am I missing anything that could derail this? And permissions management at the folder level after the fact would normally be a nightmare, however in this instance we plan to make this a locked-in-place historical archive. Users would have read-only permissions, and we will never alter the permissions on the site or libraries or folders ever.
