Office 365 Rocks

Review Sharegate: Move documents to SharePoint Online #Office365

Product: Sharegate

URL: www.share-gate.com

Pricing: $ 300 per user per year

Verdict: Great for individual users, lacks functionality for techies

Short description:

Sharegate is a solution which allows users to copy documents from a SharePoint Site or fileshare to a SharePoint site either in Office 365 or ON Premise. Next to this Sharegate allows you to copy documents from one SharePoint List, Site or Folder to another SharePoint List, Site or Folder.

The Verdict

Because of the limitation in scripting, preparing migration and very limited configuration options, I would not recommend the solution for larger corporate or enterprise migrations. This said I do think the solution is great for Small Businesses or organizations which need to do a small migration.

Plus

• Simple and stupid, could easily be used by all users
• Cheap for one user, could become costly for larger deployments
• Custom metadata can be supplied
• Create Data, Modified Date, Created and Modified By dates are captured correctly

Minus

• Very little configuration options
• Staging or scripting is not supported
• Copying process slow

Description of the product

When starting up the App it shows you three options:

• Copy files to SharePoint
• Copy SharePoint documents
• Copy SharePoint items

The process of the application is really simple. Select the type of copy action you want to do, select the source, select the target and start the copying process. If needed you are able to set some additional settings in which you can map metadata to SharePoint specific fields.

After this the copying process can actually begin by selecting documents, dragging them over to the target site and clicking copy. There are several copy methods which actually allow you to select which versions will be copied.

The solution doesn't offer scripting of copy processes or copying source data to multiple locations at the same time.

Licensing is done per user per year. With a couple of hundred dollars it's a great solution to offer to a couple of employees who need to perform a migration. I wouldn't however hand over the solution to end-users.

Copy process

Copying data is not a background process. The computer from which the user initiates the process needs to be logged on during the copying process. Next to this there are many backgroup processes going on. This causes the copying process itself is rather slow.

Create Dates

One of the key areas to look for with migration tooling like Sharegate is the creation date and modified dates. Although a SharePoint to SharePoint (Online) migration actually populates the right dates, this is not the case for a Fileshare to SharePoint migration.

When copying a document from another SharePoint Site, both the create date and modified date will be set to the dates the document was actually created and/or modified on the source SharePoint environment.

When copying a document from the file system, the create date however is set to the date the document was created on SharePoint.

User names

Sharegate tries to resolve the correct user name. So even in situation where documents are copied from an On Premise installation to the cloud a username is captured. I.e. username danny.burlage@wortell.nl On Premise becomes danny.burlage@wortell.onmicrosoft.com online.

This is an option not many products out there currently offer.

UPDATE 10-25-2011

The ShareGate guys reacted to the post, great info so I updated the post:

1. Sharegate preserves the Created date when migrating from a file share to SharePoint. If you are copying an Office file, it takes the Create date from inside the Office file metadata. If you are copying a non-Office file, it takes the Created date from the file system metadata. You need to be owner of the site (where the list is located) because system properties are critical information that required privileges to change it. The option 'Keep created/modified properties' must also be checked in the 'Property template' before copying.

2. Even with our volume licensing, you still think it becomes costly for larger deployments? We offer 10 users at 1000$ and 50 users at 3000$. Unlimited copy. Did you know we had volume licensing?

Office 365 SharePoint Online Service Update: New Features

Microsoft just sent out an email explaining all new features in the upcoming Service Update:

New features coming to SharePoint Online with this service update:

Feature	Description
Business Connectivity Services (BCS) <WCF Connector> *Enterprise plans only	Enables connecting to external systems via web service based endpoints
External Sharing: Windows LiveID support	Allows Office 365 tenant administrators to invite external users to a site collection. They sign in with a Windows Live ID-based user name and password.
Windows Phone 7 "Mango" (official support and http:// connectivity)	Windows Phone 7.5, codenamed "Mango," now enables both small business and enterprise Office 365 customers to access SharePoint Online lists and document libraries from their Windows Phone.
Recycle Bin: deleted site self-recovery	Self-service ability to recover sites from a site collection's recycle bin
Browser support: Internet Explorer 9	Adds official support for the Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) browser
Browser support: Chrome	Adds official support for the Chrome browser

 

White Paper: #Office365 SharePoint Online - Architectural considerations

Over the last couple of weeks Jeremy Thake (SharePoint MVP) and I have writen a whitepaper on the architectural considerations regarding SharePoint Online.

The goal of this white paper is to clarify strategies for incorporating Microsoft Office 365 in your enterprise IT portfolio and address the technical considerations for activating SharePoint Online as part of your SharePoint strategy including migrating to Office 365.

Download: Office 365 SharePoint Online - Architectural considerations

This white paper discusses technical strategies for leveraging this new service within your organization. The goal of this white paper is to clarify strategies for incorporating Office 365 in your enterprise IT portfolio and address the technical considerations for migrating to Office 365. When considering an activation of SharePoint Online as part of your SharePoint strategy, the main architectural decisions which need to be made should focus on the following areas:

• Capabilities
• Workloads
• Authentication
• Permissions
• Creation of a cohesive end user experience
• Information Architecture
• On-boarding and Off-boarding of data
• System Requirements
• Architectural Approaches

SharePlus, great tool for connecting #Office365 to an #iPad

My colleague Jasper Oosterveld just did a great review on SharePlus. SharePlus is an iPad App which allows you to connect to SharePoint Online and SharePoint On Prem. If you need your users to be able to work from an iPad be sure to read it.

http://www.jasperoosterveld.com/2011/10/shareplus-295-update-test-summary.html

Office 365 Master Classes by Talking Office 365

One of my friends, Marlon Marescia, from the blog www.talkingoffice365.com, has started a new method for showing people all the great stuff Office 365 can do. He now started giving online master classes. The first Master Class is about integrating SharePoint and Email in Office 365. Personally I like the Harmon.ie product better, but the concept of performing these master classes is great!

Enable External Users in SharePoint Online

Inviting External Users in SharePoint Online is real easy but takes a few steps:

In our site collection first enable the Feature which allows you to invite users:

Site Actions / Site Settings / Site Collection Features

After this external users can actually be added, chose Site Actions / Share Site:

Next, invite your users:

After actually inviting them a confirmation is shown:

Now your external user will get an email in which he/she is invited:

Users logging in will get a screen asking them to either use a Microsoft Online Services ID or Windows Live Hotmail account:

Office 365 apps: 360 paperless meetings

Software Innovation just released a new iPad app which connects to Office 365. The app, connected to a 360 environment on SharePoint On Premise / Online actually allows you to set up a board meeting within a governmental body and from there schedule meetings.

360° Paperless Meetings for iPads and Tablet PCs

Is it time to get rid of the stacks of paper and switch to paperless meetings?

Software Innovation has developed a unique application to help you and your organization reduce the volume of paper and work more efficiently with your meeting and case papers directly on your iPad or Tablet PC. We will also be releasing an application for smartphones in the near future.

360º Paperless Meetings can be used whether your organization uses 360º as a document and case management system or not. The only thing you need to get started is an iPad or a Tablet PC with access to the internet and an account on your organization's SharePoint server.

Developed to meet our customers' needs
The emergence of smartphones and electronic readers is about to change the way employees work. There are ever more possibilities for efficient working, whether you are in the office or on the move, and there is a growing need to be able to complete tasks wherever you are. More and more people are seeing the benefits of getting rid of paper documents and running meetings digitally. Software Innovation has had a huge amount of interest from clients wanting to use our applications on mobile units – so we are pleased to offer one of the market's most exciting and future-oriented applications for paperless meetings.

Easy to use – get started quickly
Software Innovation's application 360º Paperless Meetings for iPads and Tablet PCs – and soon for smartphones and Android e-readers – allows you to get rid of the stacks of paper and make the transition to digital meeting administration and case management.

The application is easy to use, offers cost and environmental savings for your organization and makes the workday more efficient for the team.

In addition to helping make the "paperless politician" goal a reality, 360º Paperless Meetings also supports anyone taking part in board, council and other types of meetings to take control of case papers, agendas and other relevant documents.

It makes the meeting secretary's work quicker and easier, because meeting administration is entirely digital, without the need to print, copy or distribute paper documents. There are genuine savings to be made.

Make your workday more efficient and flexible!

Whether you prefer PCs and OneNote functionality or the iPad's multi-touch, 360º Paperless Meeting allows you to:

• View meetings
• Gain an overview of agendas and cases
• Read meeting and case documents
• Register and share notes on cases
• Search for case and documents

360º eMeetings now Available:

 

How to create a blank page for a SharePoint Online Public Facing Website

Many customers who have bought an Office 365 account and are using the Simple Public Facing Website in SharePoint Online have asked me how they can actually add a page without the Template to their site. In order to do this you'll need SharePoint Designer 2010.

Open your website in SharePoint Designer:

Browse in the All Files folder on the left hand site to the Pages library:

From the File menu select ASPX:

A new Untitled_1.aspx page is created:

By hitting F2 you can change the Name and Title

Open the file by clicking it:

And selecting Edit File

A warning box is shown Alerting you that the page has no regions which can be edited (which is understandable because it's an empty page). Click Yes.

Your page is now opened, you can add your code or text:

The result:

 

SharePoint Online: What’s in and What’s out

Office 365 Beta is now Public! SharePoint Online in Office 365 has had a real makeover. Now SharePoint Online virtually supports all SharePoint 2010 On Premise capabilities. For those people architecting a SharePoint Solution the following list (borrowed from the SharePoint Online Service Descriptions) might be interesting:

COMMUNITIES
Feature	SharePoint 2010 Standard CAL	SharePoint 2010 Enterprise CAL	SharePoint Online
Ask Me About	Yes	Yes	Yes
Blogs	Yes	Yes	Yes
Colleague Suggestions	Yes	Yes	Yes
Colleagues Network	Yes	Yes	Yes
Discussions	Yes	Yes	Yes
Enterprise Wikis	Yes	Yes	Yes
Keyword Suggestions	Yes	Yes	Yes
Memberships	Yes	Yes	Yes
My Site: My Content	Yes	Yes	Yes
My Site: My Newsfeed	Yes	Yes	Yes
My Site: My Profile	Yes	Yes	Yes
Note Board	Yes	Yes	Yes
Organization Browser	Yes	Yes	Yes
Photos and Presence	Yes	Yes	Yes
Ratings	Yes	Yes	Yes
Recent Activities	Yes	Yes	Yes
Status Updates	Yes	Yes	Yes
Tag Clouds	Yes	Yes	Yes
Tag Profiles	Yes	Yes	Yes
Tags	Yes	Yes	Yes
Tags and Notes Tool	Yes	Yes	Yes
Wikis	Yes	Yes	Yes

            

COMPOSITES
Feature	SharePoint 2010 Standard CAL	SharePoint 2010 Enterprise CAL	SharePoint Online
Client Object Model (OM)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Developer Dashboard	Yes	Yes	Yes
Event Receivers	Yes	Yes	Yes
Language Integrated Query (LINQ) for SharePoint	Yes	Yes	Yes
Solution Packages	Yes	Yes	Yes
REST and ATOM Data Feeds	Yes	Yes	Yes
Ribbon and Dialog Framework	Yes	Yes	Yes
SharePoint Timer Jobs	Yes	Yes	No
Silverlight Web Part	Yes	Yes	Yes
Workflow Models	Yes	Yes	Yes
Access Services	No	Yes	Yes
Browser-Based Customizations	Yes	Yes	Yes
Business Data Connectivity Service	Yes	Yes	No
External Data Column	Yes	Yes	No
Business Data Web Parts	No	Yes	No
External Lists	Yes	Yes	No
Business Data Integration with the Office Client	No	Yes	No
Business Connectivity Services Profile Page	Yes	Yes	No
SharePoint Designer	Yes	Yes	Yes
Forms: Out-of-Box workflows and customization through SharePoint Designer	Yes	Yes	Yes
InfoPath Forms Services	No	Yes	Yes
Sandboxed Solutions	Yes	Yes	Yes
Workflow	Yes	Yes	Yes
Microsoft Visual Studio® 2010 SharePoint Developer Tools	Yes	Yes	Yes
Windows 7 Support	Yes	Yes	Yes
Workflow Templates	Yes	Yes	Yes
SharePoint Service Architecture	Yes	Yes	Yes

 

CONTENT
Feature	SharePoint 2010 Standard CAL	SharePoint 2010 Enterprise CAL	SharePoint Online
Records Center	Yes	Yes	No
In-Place Legal Holds	Yes	Yes	Yes
Document Sets	Yes	Yes	Yes
Metadata-driven Navigation	Yes	Yes	Yes
Multi-Stage Disposition	Yes	Yes	Yes
Rich Media Management	Yes	Yes	Yes
Shared Content Types	Yes	Yes	Yes
Support for Accessibility Standards	Yes	Yes	Yes
Content Organizer	Yes	Yes	Yes
Unique Document IDs	Yes	Yes	Yes
Word Automation Services	Yes	Yes	No
Managed Metadata Service	Yes	Yes	Yes

 

INSIGHTS
Feature	SharePoint 2010 Standard CAL	SharePoint 2010 Enterprise CAL	SharePoint Online
Business Intelligence Center	No	Yes	No
Chart Web Parts	No	Yes	No
Data Connection Library	No	Yes	No
Excel Services	No	Yes	Yes
Microsoft Office PerformancePoint™ Services	No	Yes	No
Visio Services	No	Yes	Yes
Calculated KPIs	No	Yes	No
Dashboards	No	Yes	No
Decomposition Tree	No	Yes	No
Excel Services and PowerPivot for SharePoint	No	Yes	No

 

SEARCH
Feature	SharePoint 2010 Standard CAL	SharePoint 2010 Enterprise CAL	SharePoint Online
Advanced Content Processing	No	Yes - FAST	No
Best Bets	Yes	Yes	Yes
Tunable Relevance with Multiple Rank Profiles	No	Yes - FAST	No
Extensible Search Scale	No	Yes - FAST	Yes
Business Intelligence Indexing Connector	No	Yes - FAST	No
SharePoint 2010 Search Connector Framework	Yes	Yes	No
Contextual Search	No	Yes - FAST	No
Deep Refinement	No	Yes - FAST	No
Duplicate Detection	Yes	Yes	Yes
Federated Search	Yes	Yes	No
Metadata-Driven Refinement	Yes	Yes	Yes
Mobile Search Experience	Yes	Yes	Yes
People and Expertise Search	Yes	Yes	Yes
Phonetics and Nickname Search	Yes	Yes	Yes
Query Suggestions, "Did You Mean?" and Related Queries	Yes	Yes	No
Recently Authored Content	Yes	Yes	Yes
Relevancy Tuning	Yes	Yes	No
Rich Web Indexing	No	Yes - FAST	No
Extreme Scale Search	No	Yes - FAST	No
Enterprise Scale Search	Yes	No	No
Windows 7 Search	Yes	Yes	No
Search Scopes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Similar Results	No	Yes - FAST	No
Single Site Collection Search	No	No	Yes
Site Search	Yes	Yes	Yes
Click Through Relevancy	Yes	Yes	Yes
Thumbnails and Previews	No	Yes - FAST	No
View in Browser	Yes	Yes	Yes
Visual Best Bets	No	Yes - FAST	No
Basic Sorting	Yes	Yes	Yes
Advanced Sorting	No	Yes	No

 

SEARCH
Feature	SharePoint 2010 Standard CAL	SharePoint 2010 Enterprise CAL	SharePoint Online
SharePoint Lists	Yes	Yes	Yes
Web Parts	Yes	Yes	Yes
Improved Governance	Yes	Yes	Yes
Large List Scalability and Management	Yes	Yes	Yes
Multi-Lingual User Interface	Yes	Yes	Yes
Permissions Management	Yes	Yes	Yes
Quota Templates	Yes	Yes	Yes
Secure Store Service	Yes	Yes	No
Connections to Microsoft Office Clients	Yes	Yes	Yes
Web Analytics	No	Yes	No
*Lightweight Public-Facing site	No	No	Yes
Audience Targeting	Yes	Yes	Yes
Cross-Browser Support	Yes	Yes	Yes
External sharing	No	No	Yes
SharePoint Ribbon	Yes	Yes	Yes
Mobile Connectivity	Yes	Yes	Yes
Office Web Apps	No	No	Yes
SharePoint Workspace	Yes	Yes	Yes
Out-of-the-Box Web Parts	Yes	Yes	Yes
Scalability	Yes	Yes	Yes
Support for Office Web Applications	Yes	Yes	n/a
Templates	Yes	Yes	Yes
Accessibility	Yes	Yes	Yes
Configuration Wizards	Yes	Yes	Yes

 

Note

Items in these appendices marked with an asterisk (*) will not be offered until the public beta timeframe.

External users in SharePoint Online 2010

SharePoint Online allows you to collaborate with users outside of your organization by giving them permission to access your internal organization resources. These users are called external users. If the site collection administrator or site owner wants to allow external users to access a site, the SharePoint Online Administrator must first enable the access in the SharePoint Administration Center this can be done when you set up a site collection or after it is set up. After the ability to invite external users is set up, the site collection administrator can invite authenticated external users to access the site via e-mail. The external user then accesses the site by using Windows Live ID user name and password.

Support partners are business and technical professionals, including Microsoft, who provide support services to Microsoft Online Services users. By default, the Microsoft Online Services administrator grants support partners access to the SharePoint Online Administrator Center from the Office 365 portal. However, if you want a partner to have access to a site collection or site, you must explicitly grant the partner access. You can do this at any time by changing the setting on the site collection in the SharePoint Online Administrator Center.

This new concept which will be launched in SharePoint Online 2010, part of Office 365, will enhance the capabilities for granular corporate governance to great extent. We are really happy with this feature because it will allow us to manage environments of our customers without them needing to worry about us getting access to all their data.

I expect customers to be really excited about this feature because it will allow them to give access to both partners and customers in a manner which is closely controllable.