Goodnight Subsites - a holiday story for IT
In the great server room, propped up in the cloud, is an IT Pro with solutions so proud. "Goodnight subsites, goodnight single bloated site collection." And to all the modernized things in the humming datacenter—to the picture of weary site owners not sleeping nights, to frustrated users suffering frights, to broken links and broken permissions, to everything one by one—the brave information architect says goodnight. One of the most beloved tech PDFs of 2021, Goodnight Subsites is a must read for every IT bookshelf and a holiday gift for Microsoft 365 migrators and each and every hub site creation event.Announcing SharePoint eSignature for Microsoft Word
We are excited to announce that SharePoint’s native eSignature service is now integrated with Microsoft Word. This new capability allows you to request electronic signatures directly from Word documents, without the need to manually create PDFs. By bringing eSignatures into the flow of Word, you can create eSignature templates, accelerate document approvals, eliminate physical signing steps, and maintain compliance and security within the Microsoft 365 environment. Figure: Invoking SharePoint eSignature in Word Key features: Seamless Word integration: You can insert signature fields into Word documents and request signatures without leaving the familiar Word interface. The eSignature functionality is accessed from the Word Insert ribbon and eliminates toggling between applications or converting files to PDFs before sending for signature. Automatic PDF creation & storage: When you send a signature request from Word, recipients will sign an automatically generated PDF copy of the Word document. The signed PDF is saved in the same SharePoint location as the original Word file. Your document never leaves the Microsoft 365 trust boundary during this process, ensuring end-to-end security and compliance. Word documents as eSignature templates: You can reuse your Word files as eSignature templates, streamlining repetitive signing processes. Integrated audit trail and notifications: SharePoint eSignature provides built-in tracking. Both senders and signers get email notifications throughout the signing process, and you can view the activity history (audit trail) in the signed PDF to verify when and by whom it was signed. Security and compliance controls: Administrators have control over how eSignature for Word is used in the organization – it can be enabled for specific users via an Office group policy and even limited to certain SharePoint sites. And SharePoint eSignature enables logging of eSignature activities in the Purview Audit log. “SharePoint eSignature for Word gives us a seamless, compliant, and secure way to complete documents directly within Microsoft 365. It streamlines our workflows and increases security by keeping sensitive content inside our trusted environment—eliminating the cost and complexity of third-party tools.” Cloudwell, SharePoint eSignature for Word early adopter How to request a signature in Word Figure: Requesting eSignatures from Word Open a document in Word Desktop: Make sure your Word document is saved in a SharePoint site that has SharePoint eSignature enabled. Insert a signature field: Go to the Insert tab on the ribbon. You will see an option ‘eSignature fields’ (if enabled by your admin). Insert signature fields at the appropriate location in your document where a signature is required. Add recipients and a note: Add the internal or external signers email addresses and optionally include a note for the signers. The note will be included in the mail sent to the signers. Send for signature: Once you’ve filled in the request details, send the request. SharePoint eSignature will automatically create a PDF version of your document and send a secure signing link to the designated signers. The signer will receive an email invitation to review and sign the PDF document. Automatic saving and notification: The signed PDF is saved into the SharePoint library, right next to your original Word document. You can now open the signed PDF to review the document. Once the request is sent, you can immediately send a new request or use the document (with the eSignature fields already inserted) as a template for future agreements. “I can see the integration of SharePoint eSignature, in Microsoft Word, being a game changer for our users. With native eSignature capabilities, our users can initiate and complete the signing process without ever leaving Word. This eliminates friction points allowing our users to stay in the flow of their work.” SharePoint eSignature for Word early adopter, Europe. Benefits of SharePoint eSignature for Word SharePoint eSignature for Word simplifies and accelerates the signing process, offering several key benefits: Faster turnaround: By enabling direct signature requests from Word, you remove manual steps (like printing, scanning, or converting Word documents to a PDF). Enhanced productivity: Users stay in the flow of work. There’s no need to switch focus to send documents for signature. Reusing Word documents as eSignature templates means you don’t have to start from scratch for each new request. Compliance and security: Documents are kept within your Microsoft 365 trust boundary during the signing process. "The feature itself is very user-friendly. One aspect that we particularly appreciated was the automation of the PDF conversion step. Being able to initiate the e-signature directly from Word eliminates the need for manual PDF conversion, making the entire process much more efficient.” SharePoint eSignature for Word early adopter, North America Availability and rollout SharePoint eSignature for Microsoft Word is now rolling out to devices on the M365 Beta and Current Channels and will complete by early July for the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Europe, and the Australia-Pacific region. It will be available globally by the end of 2025. Getting started: How to enable this feature To use eSignature in Word, a few steps are required by administrators: Enable SharePoint eSignature: First, your tenant needs to have SharePoint eSignature configured in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center and the Word checkbox enabled. Apply a policy to allow Word integration: Once the service is enabled, apply the policy “Allow the use of SharePoint eSignature for Microsoft Word.” Once this policy is enabled (via Intune, Group Policy manager, or the Cloud Policy service for Microsoft 365) it will activate the Word ribbon capabilities for your users. Client requirements: Users will need to be on Word Desktop using the Microsoft 365 Current Channel (or Beta Channel). To learn more about SharePoint eSignature configuration and usage, check out Overview of SharePoint eSignature - Microsoft Syntex | Microsoft Learn Feel free to add any comments or questions below. Thanks!8 Components of SharePoint Information Architecture
What is Information Architecture (IA)? IA is the practice of organizing, structuring, and labelling content in an effective and sustainable way. It ensures that information is easy to find, manage, and use. In the context of SharePoint, IA involves defining site structures, navigation, content types, metadata, and governance policies. As a business decision maker, investing in robust information architecture can be transformative. The greatest benefit is the enhanced efficiency and productivity it brings to our organization. The goal is to reduce time spent searching while minimizing duplication. Establishing good information architecture early on is crucial. It lays the foundation for growth and scalability. We hope you can avoid the pitfalls of a cluttered and chaotic environment that can hinder productivity. Make your SharePoint intuitive and manageable, and one that can adapt seamlessly to evolving business needs. While designing, or redesigning, your own IA, consider establishing, optimizing, and utilizing the following eight key SharePoint components: Root Site Hub sites Home sites SharePoint start page Organization Assets Application Catalog Learning Hub and Viva Learning SharePoint Premium: Content Center We will spend the rest of this article explaining each component, including screenshots, links, plus tips and tricks along the way. Root Site The root site in SharePoint Online is a special site that is provisioned automatically when you set up your Microsoft 365 subscription. This site serves as the top-level site for your organization's SharePoint environment. The URL of the root site typically follows the format https://yourorganization.sharepoint.com, where "yourorganization" is the name of your organization – i.e., for Contoso, its https://contoso.sharepoint.com. This site is THE base element in information architecture in the cloud. If your environment was set up before April of 2019, then your root site is a Classic Teams Site. To best utilize the Root as your Intranet, we need to replace the Classic Teams Site with a modern communication Site. So, the Root Site has a special functionality which is available to SharePoint admins, and it is called replace site. 💡 Learn how to modernize your root site and then review the Home site information below. Hub sites A second key element is Hub Sites – the connective tissue between sites. Hub sites help organize sites based on any classification like departments/business units, Locations, Projects, etc. As part of Modern Architecture, it is not recommended to use Sub Sites, so if we have all independent site collections, Hub is the component which will establish relationships between sites. Below are some key benefits of using hub sites: Shared navigation and brand Roll-up of content and scoped, connected search A home (page) destination for the hub 💡 Learn more about SharePoint hub sites, and guidance for planning your hub sites. Home site The third key element of information architecture is Home Site. A SharePoint home site provides a customized landing experience that reflects the organization’s brand, voice, and priorities. A SharePoint home site also serves as the gateway to other portals in your organization’s intranet. Additionally, it provides 2 Major Capabilities – Global Navigation – The Navigation you have on your App Bar. So independent of where you are on SharePoint you always have access to Global Navigation. Viva Connections – Using Viva Connections you can design your Dashboard, and which can be directly rendered on teams, even we have capability to render your Intranet on Teams using Viva Connections. showcase how you can design your home site. 💡 Learn more about planning, building, and launching a SharePoint home site for your organization. SharePoint start page This is a page which is built on top of user context and is personalized based on user activity. Users can see the sites they are following, sites they frequently visit, and the latest news published on the site’s user has access to and featured links. This is a key element as it breaks the boundary of working on a specific device. Additionally, the SharePoint start page provides a start’ing point for people to create their own sites and pages. utilize the platform. Organization Assets The next key element in IA is Organization Assets, if your company is looking to save and manage files for the entire organization to use, you have the capability to define one or more libraries as an Organization Assets Library. Examples Images and Office Templates. When a user designs a Modern SharePoint Page by edit it and adding web parts, especially the ones which use file picker, when you have Organization Assets Library configured, users see an additional vertical called “Your Organization” which can store images and logos which can be used across organization. modern SharePoint page with an Image web part in Edit mode, helping people access and use organization images and graphic assets. Another capability is Office Templates, which enables users to select the tab for their organization where they see Office templates when they create a new Office document. an org-approved, published template which can be reused across the company to provide consistency and common branding. 💡 Learn more about Organization Assets Library. Application Catalog It is a special site collection that holds all custom built or third-party applications. The Application Catalog allows Tenant Administrators and Global Administrators to deploy custom code. For the very first time when a tenant is provisioned an Administrator needs to provision the application catalog. There can be 2 types of application catalogs - Tenant App Catalog Site Collection App Catalog Based on governance and information architecture it is a good idea to have a defined approach on which applications should be deployed at tenant level, and which one should be deployed at site collection level. If a custom application is meant to be used by multiple sites on the tenant, it is a good idea to deploy it on Tenant App Catalog. third-party components deployed. 💡 Learn more about Managing Apps on Application Catalog Additionally, for custom code locally scoped for a specific site collection, it is a good idea to use site collection app catalog. These are not created by default; they can be provisioned by running PowerShell cmdlets for any specific site collection. The Above Architecture Diagram explains how Application Catalogs are provisioned in Microsoft 365. 💡 Learn more about Provisioning and using site collection application catalog. Learning Hub Learning hub can be a distinct SharePoint site collection, created as a home for Learning and Trainings in your tenant. As a site collection administrator, one can use this site to host custom training content. t with a Hero Webpart. ument Library displaying multiple folders which are security trimmed based on Mail-Enabled Security Groups for that specific Department. Viva Learning can showcase your custom training modules alongside other paid training services you subscribe to, making learning part of daily work as Viva Learning right within Microsoft Teams. This is a great component while thinking about your IA. This can help in having consistent training methodology and better consumption and adoption of training content to increase knowledge and skill building. Viva Learning home page within Teams showing a blend of training from the SharePoint Learning Hub and LinkedIn Learning. 💡 Learn More about Viva Learning here Content Center Syntex Content Center is a site template which is another modern template apart from communication sites and modern team sites. This site template has a very specific function and is used to build and manage document processing models, applying models to document libraries to automatically classify files and extract information. This capability is part of SharePoint Premium and provides capability for processing a lot of documents as you consider planning and implementation across all content types and scale use cases. – Used to host document processing models. 💡 This comprises of 2 key elements Syntex in general and then specific details to learn about content center. Bringing it all together... Overall, these are the eight key elements which define your core information architecture for SharePoint in Microsoft 365. When we connect them together it would define an organized IA, and an expanded use of your SharePoint investment in Microsoft 365. A well-designed Information Architecture is crucial for any organization as it ensures that information is organized, structured, and labeled in an effective and sustainable way. This makes it easy for users to find, manage, and use the information they need, which in turn enhances efficiency and productivity. A well-designed IA involves defining site structures, navigation, content types, metadata, and governance policies. This reduces the time spent searching for information and minimizes duplication, ultimately leading to a more intuitive and manageable environment that can adapt seamlessly to evolving business needs. -Prakul
New updates to the SharePoint admin center in Microsoft 365
the SharePoint admin center in Microsoft 365 offers new insights for admins, aligning with admin center designs across the suite. These updates highlight activities and connections for your sites and content, with actionable controls for managing your intelligent intranet. Everything we build is inspired from community feedback and is designed to make day-to-day administration easier.Migrate your content into Microsoft 365
The latest productivity experiences await you and your content. Once in Microsoft 365 – you will see improved collaboration, increased security, and compliance. Our goal is to help all customers to easily migrate their content to Microsoft 365. Learn about the numerous content migration tools and services from Microsoft and our 3 rd -party migration partners. This is collectively the broadest set of offerings to assist your migration into Microsoft 365 – from assessment, to planning and onboarding.3 SharePoint admin, migration, and security on-demand session videos
During Microsoft Ignite 2020, we announced several innovations for SharePoint administration and migration and security. In addition to this news, we produced three on-demand videos to provide a clear first look at these announcements plus showcase how to better manage and secure your productivity cloud investment. SharePoint and OneDrive in Microsoft 365 enables enterprise-grade content security in compliance with privacy and legal requirements. Beyond innovation, take a moment to learn more about the SharePoint admin role in Microsoft 365 to best manage sites, secure content, control external sharing, move content into Microsoft 365, manage metadata, and more.Migrate content from Box, Dropbox, and Google Workspace into Microsoft 365 - release update
Microsoft focuses on providing a seamless move to Microsoft 365 with as much expertise and tooling we and our ecosystem can offer – across the globe. Our goal is to help move to the cloud with confidence. At times, you need to move content cloud-to-cloud. We’re pleased to highlight Mover integration progress, to bring more of their technology directly inside the SharePoint admin center in Microsoft 365. Now, the Migration Manager admin tab is the home to manage all content migrations into Microsoft 365 (primarily into OneDrive, SharePoint, and Microsoft Teams) – without leaving the service.What’s new in Security and Compliance in SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams – Ignite 2021 Announcements
Today, at Microsoft Ignite 2021 we are excited to announce a set of new capabilities in Security and Compliance in SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams. If you are already using Sensitivity Labels-based Policies or new to Information Barriers or have been using our SharePoint Admin Center, we have a news for you. Check out the blog for details.
