We’ve come a long way since 2001 with Microsoft’s SharePoint platform. Despite those primitive looking little icons and its nauseatingly blocky window design, it was still an impressive platform. But what is truly impressive is that Microsoft has quickly evolved that outdated technology into a masterpiece that demands worldwide attention with their immense subscriber base of millions of companies.
The best part is, Microsoft isn’t sitting around twiddling their thumbs while sleeping in beds of cash; they’re working hard to develop the best software this world has seen. Along with all the new innovations Microsoft has been rolling out in the past few months like Power BI and Windows 10, we finally got to see a quick preview of SharePoint 2016 as downloadable from Microsoft. The useable beta for SharePoint 2016 is planned to be available before the end of this year.
The idea of SharePoint 2016
Microsoft approached building SharePoint with several different core objectives, one of which was to remove the hundred pound weight that IT teams have been carrying around by making administrative tasks infinitely more simple to execute and plan.
It does this and much more by adding tons of features. Below, we’ll highlight a list of the most notable changes. Prepare for some bullet point action! SharePoint 2016 now has:
- A new App launcher that places followed items into a “sites” tab
- Automatic indexed column creation, thus removing the need to worry about 5,000 doc threshold
- A new Unified Search Experience that gives local and deep search results
- Customizable individual server roles with automatic compliance
- Workflow downtime removed with instant patching
- Unloadable file size increased up to 10GB
- Site creation time reduced from around a minute to a single second
- Completely revamped Compliance Center with fully customizable policies
- Editing and moving links around should no longer break them with new “durable links”
Hopefully, several of the above bullet points allowed you to audibly breathe a sigh of relief. It’s looks a lot like Microsoft is actually listening the blood curdling screams of the frustrated office worker from behind their computer screens yelling to the ceiling, “Why oh why do I have to deal with this 5,000 document threshold, Microsoft??”
Besides simple quality of life fixes, we’re also excited to see the new App launcher full in action when the beta comes around to being open later this year as well as the utilization of vNext.
SharePoint 2016 is definitely looking more than just promising as we’re thoroughly impressed thus far with how on-point the current changes have been.
Image credit: https://products.office.com/en-gb/sharepoint/collaboration