“Out with the old, in with the new.”
We’ve all used the idiom during different times and situations. The overarching idea of accepting and anticipating change while staying optimistic can apply to wide range of things – whether it’s your career, your relationships, or your personal goals. And we’ve all faced the challenge of moving forward.
In this particular case, we’re talking about moving from your legacy version of SharePoint to the latest and greatest.
SharePoint has been an incredibly powerful collaboration platform for many organizations, enabling teams to effectively connect and communicate across an innovative interface. However, SharePoint isn’t exactly clear of out-of-the-box challenges. I’ve seen organizations and users struggle with basic issues, like the inability to surface the right content and control sprawl.
Designed on the same core platform as SharePoint Online, SharePoint 2019 provides end users with a modern, user-friendly collaboration platform for the modern workplace. It resolves a lot of the native challenges end users and administrators faced with previous SharePoint versions, and introduces a wide range of new and exciting features.
Here are three of my favorite new features that are available at release.
Communication sites
Although SharePoint was great for document storage and management, it wasn’t the ideal option for intranet. Many end users complained about how difficult it was to build and design a site they wanted, as functionality and navigation required a team of developers to create master pages, cascading style sheets (CSS), JavaScript code, web parts and more. In addition, more time and resources had to be sacrificed in order to build and test publishing sites that worked for mobile users, since sites designed for a browser were not automatically optimized for mobile devices.
SharePoint 2019’s communication sites resolve these issues, thereby providing end users with a simple and effective way to share visually compelling news, stories and messages – all without exceeding internal resources. Because communication sites don’t rely on the publishing site infrastructure, end users can also create the sites they want in seconds.
All you’ll need to do is click “Create site” on the SharePoint homepage and navigate the intuitive interface to adjust page layouts, add web parts and pull in content from other services, like Yammer, Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Stream. It’s really that easy!
What’s more, SharePoint 2019 introduces the modern experience, meaning sites are automatically optimized for both desktop and mobile devices.
Modern user experience
Having a consistent look and functionality across the Microsoft platform is vital to ensure user productivity and satisfaction. With previous versions of SharePoint, end users often faced an uphill battle when searching for the content they need. SharePoint 2019 addresses these challenges and delivers an intuitive and consistent user experience across both OneDrive and SharePoint.
Modern lists and libraries
Modern lists and libraries, which have been available within Office 365, are now available on-premises with SharePoint 2019. The default list and library experience is optimized for common tasks, and users can easily copy and move the files they want, pin documents add files as links, filter and sort and apply formatting to columns.
SharePoint 2019 greatly simplifies the way individual users and teams access, share and interact with structured data. The new lists are faster and more responsive than before, and they provide a rich set of capabilities that work across devices and browsers. Users can create new folders and upload files into their browser, and building workflows is easier than ever because of how lists and libraries are integrated with Microsoft Flow and PowerApps.
There’s more for you to discover
It’s safe to say that SharePoint 2019 is an incredible collaboration platform. By maximizing on some key features that administrators and end users have requested over the years, SharePoint 2019 provides an invaluable upgrade to the platform’s utility and user efficiency.
Download this white paper and dive deeper into the complete list of new and modern features within SharePoint 2019.
It’s time to throw out the old and bring in the new. SharePoint 2019 is here!