Microsoft users now know what they can expect in the upcoming 2019 edition of SharePoint Server thanks to a recent announcement on the company’s website. SharePoint senior technical product manager Bill Baer wrote that the company’s popular enterprise social network collaboration platform will receive a number of new features while several others will be deprecated.
After broadly outlining its vision at the SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas in May, the company has pinned down what it hopes to achieve in the upcoming version. Specifically, Microsoft hopes to leverage the investments it has made in the SharePoint Online user experience, as well as ensure a more seamless transition between devices and meet growing demands for scalability, security and compliance.
Microsoft makes no bones that those with experience in SharePoint Online will not find many revelatory changes should they also need to work with SharePoint Server 2019. However, anyone who works for an organisation which does not use much in the way of cloud facilities will find modern experiences that are ‘both new and familiar’ according to Baer.
New home page features will allow more flexibility for users with the correct permissions to share information, including Office 365 documents, video content, images and more. The pages should look the same on a tablet or smartphone as they do on a desktop browser.
Lists have been enhanced to simplify how structured data can be sourced, shared and interacted with, while the performance of file libraries has been made faster and more responsive. Microsoft’s OneDrive has gained a reputation for having a rock-solid sync and upgrading to SharePoint Server 2019 will mean users can reap the benefits of its updated cloud infrastructure.
Team sites and Communication sites give both groups and organisations new and modern ways to share and collaborate. These sites offer a simple, yet high level of control over who has access and what kind of settings they can adjust, all with a seamless workflow across devices.
Small tweaks, such as the ability to upload files as large as 15GB with a broad array of naming conventions, including those with % and # in them, should relieve some of the workload for IT departments. URL path length restrictions have been increased from 260 Unicode units to 400. Again, these prior restrictions will be lifted for any user on any device.
Baer stressed that the SharePoint Server 2019 Preview edition Microsoft has now made available is only a first look at what to expect. He noted more capabilities should be added as the company’s software developers continue to work on the product ahead of its official launch some time in the second half of 2018. As always, Microsoft has an open forum and encourages people trying out the preview to leave their feedback and ideas for improvements.
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