​I recently created a Microsoft Office 365 development environment via https://aka.ms/offdp

I was creating an environment to do some SharePoint Modern theming (I created a new Communication Site via the modern Admin interface on my new tenant), but noticed the classic (rather the older) Change the Look interface:

When you create a new Office 365 group, there will be an associated SharePoint Team site is created automatically. In this case, we need a new Group with an existing team site. To start with, make sure connect to Office Group is enabled at tenant level.

Login to SharePoint Online Admin Center >> Click on Settings from left navigation. In settings page, under "Connections from sites to Office 365 groups", Set "Allow site collection administrators to connect sites to new Office 365 groups".

Now, you can connect your SharePoint Online sites to Office 365 groups. To connect an existing SharePoint Online site to new a Office 365 group, follow these steps: 

Login to SharePoint Online site collection with Site collection administrator rights >> Click on the Settings gear icon >> Select "Connect to new Office 365 group". You are now presented with overview page about a quick explanation of what will be created by Office 365 for your site collection what's going to happen by connecting your site to an O365 group. Click on "Let's get started"

We all know that Get-SpoSite cmdlet contains more than one parameter set and you may only use parameters from one parameter set and you may not combine parameters from different parameter sets. Moreover, it retrieves and returns properties of all site collections that match the given criteria.

But sometimes you run into weird issues when you are doing the most common things. In this case, one of my friend was cleaning up his demo Office 365 tenant.  To make an overview of all site collections, he ran the following cmdlet:

​This would make a list of all site collections that are available in  Office 365 tenant and export it to a CSV file. When going through it, he noticed that none of the site collections were flagged as a hubsite. This couldn’t possibly be true as  he created many hub sites for testing purposes.

I decided to check this in my own tenant to see if it was a local problem. So let’s see what happens.

​Running the following PowerShell returns all site collections that contain the word intranet.

I have come across this issue of Date and Time  in SharePoint that i feel like writing an email to Microsoft for making this the most confusing thing ever . 

When you create a Date column you have the choice of Date and Date & Time.

Note the keyword “Format” in that option. Even if you select “Date Only”, your users can still type, or copy and paste, a date and a time and it will be stored as a date and time. But… only the date will be displayed.

After considerable amount of wasting my effort and countless guess work, i came to understand that Times are represented as parts of a day.

Plenty of people have written on this topic and  i'll try to clear out some misconceptions about how you should go about it. Moreover one needs to draw a very clear line about Migration and Upgrading since they are both different which a lot of people seem to mix up. On a lot of forums i see people asking questions like how do we migrate from SP 2007 to SP 2013 and then to 2016?  Another question which is quiet frequent relates to SharePoint 2010 license and if its possible to do a direct migration from SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 2013.

The issues can be resolved easily and it is not that difficult as it looks like. You only need to go through the post with full attention. So, let us get started.

Oftentimes, it happens with the users that they are currently using SharePoint 2007. But, as the advent of new features and technology, they think of SharePoint to SharePoint migration. Although, it is believed by many users that it mandatory to switch from 2007 to SharePoint 2010 and then, further proceed towards SharePoint 2013 migration. However, it is not true. This post deals with the best possible solution for moving from SharePoint 2007 to 2013 and also gives a chart to show the benefits of SharePoint 2016 and why you should consider it.

I have written very extensively on the topic of Migration to SharePoint Online, in case you are looking for it. 

Migrating to a new version of SharePoint is like moving to a new home.

Before you make that move, there are critical issues to consider. Will the furniture, appliances, and decorative pieces from your previous home fit and work in your new home? What about the custom furniture in your current home that you may not be able to move? For example, it is difficult to move built- in closets that you had a contractor build for you. On a similar note, when was the last time you looked through all your drawers and found just how much useless junk you’ve got hiding in there?

Similarly, a SharePoint migration requires careful planning to identify the critical issues and mitigate the risks of the migration. Whether you’re moving your environment to SharePoint 2013, SharePoint 2016, or SharePoint Online (SPO), it is essential to understand the limits of your new environment, and whether all your content meets these limits. It is also important to consider whether content that is outdated, no longer in use, or forgotten, is worth moving.

It is also important to understand that SharePoint customizations such as custom web parts, custom features and solutions, and custom Master Pages and Page Layouts, do not work in newer versions of SharePoint. Some custom work will be required to move those customizations, especially when the destination is an SPO server, which supports SharePoint Apps and sandboxed solutions.
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Which is why an analysis of your current environment and careful migration planning can save you time and money, and aid in the optimization of your new SharePoint environment.

​Custom Master Pages, and their associated page layouts, cannot simply be migrated over from SharePoint 2007 or 2010 to SharePoint 2013. While the formatting of Master Pages is similar between these versions, it is not the same, and Master Pages written for one version do not work in any of the other versions.

It is vital to know how many custom master pages you have and what they are, before migration, so that you know which of these you either have to discard, or rebuild to work with Office 365. Once these pages have been rebuilt, you can easily migrate the content directly from the old version of the page to the new version using both the OOTB Upgrade and 3rd party migration tools.

Its best to work with SharePoint UI implementation experts to implement new versions of Master Pages and Page Layouts, and not assigning this task to SharePoint developers, who specialize in a completely different skill set (Visual Studio development vs. HTML and XML) and tool sets (Visual Studio and SharePoint Designer respectively).
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In addition, i would recommend working with graphic designers to create the look and feel of the Master Pages (usually using Adobe Photoshop® or similar tools), and have the content generated by those tools given to the SharePoint UI implementation experts. Most SharePoint UI experts are not graphic designers, and won’t necessarily create good designs even if they know how to implement designs created by others. Similarly, most graphic designers know how to design beautiful web pages, but are not familiar with UI implementation in SharePoint.

​Last night was a long one and i was up and about till 2 AM in the morning looking at my laptop screen with amazement and some skeptical approach to the new features been presented at SharePoint Conference 2018 at Las Vegas.

​So here is my post on what was shared and whats coming in future when it comes to Digital Workplace through Microsoft SharePoint and Office 365.

​Yes the heading says it all and i literally mean it. I am actually getting more and more concerned where we are blindly heading with SharePoint Framework without any strategy and common sense. Since its availability it has been released with a number of new versions and i am not sure for how long the developers can keep up with new features and new scenarios. Can we really always use the latest version of SharePoint Framework and keep on changing stuff we have developed? Well this post is all about what needs to be considered, analyzed and thoroughly digested before jumping to new releases.

​Both versions, SharePoint On Premise and Online can be used with SharePoint Framework but with on premise the story is very different. SharePoint On Premise currently has only one version of framework which makes it easy to control through patch updates at farm level. I am not sure if Microsoft will release more versions for On Premise also - i hope they release them with some intervals rather then frequent monthly updates. On the other side SharePoint Online continously recieves updates and though they are compatable with older versions still you do get some nasty surprises. 

Since the framework uses a toolchain with dependency tree and also third party inherent using Node based development stack - if you update one package then it could trigger updates on other packages. This can be a pain if it turns out uncompatible with other packages in your solution. I haven't come across much people who have given me a valid reason for updating the solution to latest framework and in most cases i have seen people try to fix messed projects.

​SharePoint Framework solution only contains JavaScript code which runs on the browser and they are deployed through the app catalog just like SharePoint Add-ins but we must always remember that they run unrestricted. This means, SharePoint framework solutions have unrestricted access to the information and APIs in your tenant - wherever the user has access so does the solution. Make sure all the documentation and details you have received with the solution are up to date and take the liberty of verifying it as i am sure you will find some stuff missing from it. Depending on the nature of your solution and organizational requirements you might have to adjust or change the deployment of the solution on certain sites. There are so many JavaScripts libraries available on the internet, that developers can use in their solutions. While using an existing library enhances developer productivity, it comes with issues and risks for the organization using the solution. Another aspect is to know if anyone else in your company is familiar with the specific Java Script library and if so then how long do you think this library will exists? 

​Some of us have already worked with PowerShell and love it, while others seem to be confused and wonder how can one remember so many commands to get things done. Maybe its time we break it down for the guys who find it difficult to work with and show them how powerful it is when dealing with every day tasks related to SharePoint - for both Admins and Developers.

It contains logic loops, variable, methods and other entities from the programming world. 

The scripts can be written using any text editor and i usually write my PowerShell scripts using Notepad++ and then save it as a plain-text file having a .ps1 extension. To run the scripts you can initiate PowerShell console session and its basically the command-line console with blue as background color and text in white.  You can always change the background color  to suit your needs.

The following line will  print a line of red text on a yellow background:

Write-Host "See how cool this is?" -Backgroundcolor
orange -Foregroundcolor black

The console keeps the various variable declarations in memory for the entire duration of the PowerShell session. The image below shows you a fairly simple PowerShell session in which variables have been declared and are remembered throughout the execution of the various commands. It starts by declaring two variables, variableA and variableB, whose values will later be reused to perform mathematical operations. The script continues by changing the value of one of the two variables already declared and rerunning the same addition operation to get a different result based on the new value entered.

As usual I am late, I think I am getting used to it with updates and news flowing in from all directions – it’s hard to keep a track of stuff and post about it. Just came back after a week of learning from Sitecore Symposium in Las Vegas and thought about writing something on it, opened the To Do App and found that I need to first finish this piece before I jump on Sitecore.

Microsoft Ignite happened last month with a lot of WOW factor and I can also see some IT Pros even questioning the Wow now, particularly the guys still using SharePoint on Premise. It’s common to have two sides, the first is always about how cool it is and this will be a game changer but sadly the second is more of complains and the learning curve about how to get it right under the current circumstances. (It’s a pain to adjust business processes with updates if not properly planned and thought)
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Let’s jump in to what was shared with us during the SharePoint Ignite 2017 sessions and try to constructively look at each one of them.