With every release we’ve redefined collaboration and document management and with SharePoint 2013 we’ve designed a product that represents a new way to work together. We’ve continued to invest in our core capabilities but we wanted to put people at the center of the SharePoint experience. This manifests itself not only the way we’ve designed the product but also in the way we talk about “what you can do with SharePoint?” (Transition) This was a question that helped us to define SharePoint 2013 and can it be summarized in 5 key principles.
SharePoint is the place to share ideas, content and the vision of your company. It’s scalable enough to organize and manage all your information assets but it’s also designed to organize and store documents to enable personal productivity, keep teams’ in sync, and projects on track. It’s where you go to discover experts, share knowledge and uncover connections to information and people. It’s a hub for developers to build and deploy modern apps and for designers to build eye-catching websites. And because it’s built in the cloud in mind, IT Pros can manage cost, and meet the demands of compliance to manage risk. Finally, SharePoint 2013 has been built to handle almost anything our customers can throw at it so IT Pros can spend more time managing information, delivering innovation and manage their time effectively.
SharePoint Server 2013 provides the most flexible and robust version of SharePoint to date. It provides IT Professionals more control over the infrastructure, and provides an enterprise-class foundation for efficiently handling multiple workloads and when combined with the powerful virtualization technologies in Windows Server 2012 enables you to increase your server consolidation ratios while reducing the amount of administrative effort required for managing the infrastructure. Through increased automation and improved remote administration, SharePoint Server 2013 helps organizations save money and time by automating repetitive IT tasks.
The investments in the SharePoint Server 2013 platform can be categorized into three (3) pillars:
Manage Risk
Compliance with regulatory standards and the need to prevent business critical and personal data from being viewed by unauthorized users will continue to be a priority for businesses and corporate IT. One of the key pillars for compliance and preventing unauthorized access is the ability to exercise fine control over who has access to information and being able to monitor and report who actually accessed and modified critical information. SharePoint Server 2013 provides a broad range of features and capabilities designed to automate the assignment of compliance policies.
Manage Cost
SharePoint Server 2013 provides scalability, reliability, and security while allowing customers to take advantage of the latest hardware innovations and computing technologies – making it capable of handling enormous amounts of data faster, more efficiently, and at a lower cost.
Pressure to optimize your IT infrastructure for ever changing business conditions requires you to be agile, and that means investing in solutions that provide reliability and choice. SharePoint Server 2013 provides the flexibility to tailor your deployment based on your businesses’ unique needs.
Manage Your Time
IT is facing exponential growth in managing user requests, users need to be enabled to do more with less dependency on their IT departments. In many cases IT is considered a bottleneck by users to productivity, and from an IT perspective, it’s increasingly difficult to keep up with emerging user demands while expected to maintain compliance and availability. Supporting users through intuitive tools and solutions enable them to choose how and when they’re upgraded, and programmatic access to centrally managed compliance policies ensures consistency, open collaboration, while allowing IT to focus on innovation.
ECM has played a central role in Microsoft’s Business Productivity infrastructure. The promise that SharePoint has delivered over the years has been about bringing ECM to the masses, or bringing organizational content to everyone. The traditional approach to content management was one where it lived in its own unique silo, and didn’t really connect or talk to anything else. Independent apps with different user experiences handled social networking and collaboration. And enterprise search would be a different experience as well. Our Approach has been fundamentally different. In SharePoint 2010, we really brought these things together into a unified user experience that gives you the social networking and collaboration in the context of the content that is being managed. As a result, SharePoint 2010 provided the core capabilities required by most businesses with a standard platform at a reasonable cost.
In SharePoint 2013, we take these core capabilities even further.
Create: The content lifecycle begins with its creation, and it is rarely created in a silo. With SharePoint 2013, content creation is easier because you have the tools to find other relevant information or people to help. You can collaborate with colleagues to build content together, search for related content, and share your own work to facilitate collaborative work. In short, SharePoint 2013 delivers capabilities to make it even easier for individuals, teams and organizations to ideate, create, collaborate on, share and discover content.
Control: We also continue to deliver rich content organization capabilities (e.g. , leaving organizations in control of the policies and processes that govern content management.
Protect: Finally SharePoint 2013 delivers additional features that enable organizations to better meet compliance demands with eDiscovery capabilities that span the Office platform.
We’ve shown you how users EXPECT that social should follow them where they work with consistent Connected Experiences – but what does this mean for IT? It’s not a question of IF organizations will become more social, but a matter of WHEN. This means that IT has to figure out:
This means that IT has to figure out how to
-manage the environment, and all the users;
-how to ensure that information is being shared securely to the right people without jeopardizing propriety information;
-how to ensure that corporate governance – how to handle eDiscovery of information contained within social.
-how to extend and develop to bring new solutions that continue to add business value.
Office and SharePoint are the place where social across a company meets, and already offers many platform capabilities that IT departments will be looking for including:
-Securing information – not just securing ACCESS to downloading information, but having the ability to control that actual information itself and avoiding compliance issues before they arise.
-Managing identities
SharePoint’s user profile allows organizations to take many identities from Active Directory to HR systems and bring them together in one place. This means social applications can go to one place, and get the information they need.
-Integrating business applications
Most organizations have many different systems that offer(or will offer) social experiences, how do you make it so that users don’t have to check several newsfeeds to get the information they need? SharePoint offers the ability to make existing LOB applications more social and to bring the social capabilities of applications directly into the newsfeed.
Speaker Notes
Automatic Mobile Browser Redirection
To access a site using the optimized mobile browser experience, a new feature called Automatic Mobile Browser Redirection must be activated on the site. When activated and a mobile browser is accessing the site, this feature checks the mobile browser to determine if it is capable of handling HTML5 or not. If the mobile browser supports HTML5, the contemporary view is rendered, else the classic view is rendered.
This feature is activated by default when any of the following site templates are used:
Collaboration templates: Team Site, Blank Site, Document Workspace, Blog, Group Work Site, Visio Process Repository
Meetings templates: Basic Meeting Workspace, Blank Meeting Workspace, Decision Meeting Workspace, Social Meeting Workspace, Multipage Meeting Workspace
Enterprise templates: Document Center, Records Center, Business Intelligence Center, My Site Host, Basic Search Center, FAST Search Center
All other site templates require you to explicitly activate the feature.
Office Mobile Web Apps
In SharePoint Server 2010, Office Web Apps provides browser-based companions to Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. When Office Web Apps is installed on SharePoint Server 2010, Office Mobile Web Apps is also installed on the server. Office Mobile Web Apps enables users to open documents in the mobile web application using a mobile browser.
With SharePoint Server 15, Office Web Apps is no longer a companion product installed on a SharePoint Server. Instead, Office Web Apps Server is a new stand-alone server product that delivers Office Web Apps functionality on your private network. Although these are now separate products, Office Web Apps Server continues to enable Office Mobile Web Apps, making them available to mobile users who access SharePoint sites.
Together, SharePoint Server 15 and Office Mobile Web Apps offer a better user experience when interacting with documents on a mobile device. For instance, when both products are used together, a user opens a server-based version of the document in the mobile browser. Without Office Mobile Web Apps, the end user would first have to download the file and then open it in Office Mobile or an office document viewer.
Push Notifications
SharePoint Server 15 supports applications on mobile devices (such as smartphones, tablets, and so on) that should receive notifications from a SharePoint site.
Notifications can include events that happen in the site, such as when a user adds an item to a list or updates an item. For mobile devices to receive such notifications, device applications must register with a SharePoint site. Once the device is registered, you can write event handler code to interact with Microsoft Push Notification Service or notification services of other mobile device platforms. Notifications are sent from the server where the application is hosted to the registered mobile device application.
Microsoft has invested heavily in search in the past several years….In this release we brought together SharePoint Search and FAST Search into a next generation search engine that we consider the best of both worlds. The scale and power of FAST with the simplicity and manageability of SP Search. But this release is far
more then best of both worlds, it is step ahead for the entire search industry.
Search in SharePoint 2013 focuses not just on technology, but the core belief that search should help users find what they are looking for and get answers to the questions they ask. This means doing far more then searching a index, but requiring the development of a entire new experience dedicated to the users intent, that can analyze user interactions while having the flexibility to draw information from across the enterprise and even from out in the web.
The search experience in SharePoint 2013 is beyond just a great user experience, as it will allow anyone looking to leverage the extensible engine to
build their own experiences that can benefit much of the richness that SharePoint provides.
Over the course of this presentation we will show how SharePoint 2013 search has made it easier to find information, get answers to questions and
extend to beyond SP.
Speaker Notes
The heart of a search engine is its ability to get the results you are looking for. However this can be hard to do because the “right results” can differ based on who you are, your context and even your previous actions and history.
Out of the box SharePoint was designed to help you find the right result utilizing a combination of advanced relevancy algorithm’s from FAST combined with a entirely new analysis engine that can drive better results based on user interactions. With the analysis engine SharePoint 2013 search is far more tuned to what users are doing, and what others have found successful.
Today’s information workers produce huge volumes of increasingly different types of content. SharePoint provides OOB connectors to common enterprise repositories such as Lotus Notes, Documentum, etc and makes it easy to add new custom connectors to help bring the right content to the right user.
Search in SharePoint Server 15 includes many new capabilities and enhancements, from a re-designed architecture that is highly scalable to a customizable end-user experience that provides targeted results.
An all new Search Experience, from the engine to the UX designed to make it easier than ever to find what you’re looking by combining your personal history, highly relevant results, and rich graphical navigators in a single highly usable interface.
Personalized search results based on your search history: Make re-finding information easier than ever by promoting content that you’ve searched for in the past; making Search about more than finding documents, but as an aid to navigation.
Rich contextual previews with meaningful actions: Finding the right document is made simpler by providing a variety of previewing capabilities to ensure you’ve got the right document, combined with contextual actions to continue your journey and complete your task.
Intelligent and customized search results experience: SharePoint “15” enhances results relevance out-of-box with an ability to alter the layout and ranking based on what you’re looking for, and what you’ve found; taking relevance to a new level and giving administrators powerful tools for improving the Search Experience.
Microsoft offers a Business Intelligence platform that helps organizations capitalize on trends and opportunities—and discover answers to new questions that help drive business value—in a way that no other vendor does. We believe Business intelligence should empower all users with self-service capabilities through familiar tools and experiences. Microsoft enables immersive insights to all users through self-service, data exploration and collaboration delivered through Office and SharePoint, the tools users know and love. At the same time, Microsoft offers the IT department the tools and capabilities they need to ensure that Self-Service BI can be easily managed. This is the strategy we are on to help our customers maximize their business opportunities and we are confident there is no other vendor in the industry with the vision or the assets necessary to deliver on it.
Speaker Notes
Excel BI
Excel BI provides the capabilities to analyze and visually explore data of any size, and to integrate and show interactive solutions.
In SharePoint Server 15, Excel BI offers certain new features to support business intelligence applications. These include the following:
In Memory BI Engine (IMBI): The In Memory multidimensional data analysis engine (IMBI), also known as the Vertipaq engine, allows for almost instant analysis of millions of rows and is a fully integrated feature in the Excel client.
Power View Add-in for Excel: Power View (Crescent) is powered by the BI Semantic Model and the VertiPaq engine, and enables users to visualize and interact with modeled data by using highly interactive visualizations, animations and smart querying. Users will be able to present and share insights with others in the organization through rich storyboard presentation capabilities.
Decoupled PivotChart and PivotTable reports: Users can now create PivotChart reports without having to include a PivotTable report on the same page.
Trend analysis: Excel Services supports the ability to conduct trend analysis from cells in PivotTable reports that use OLAP data, such as Analysis Services cubes or PowerPivot data models.
Excel Services
Excel Services enables people to view and interact with Excel workbooks that have been published to SharePoint sites. Users are able to explore data and conduct analysis in a browser window just as they would by using the Excel client.
In SharePoint Server 15, Excel Services offers certain new features to support business intelligence applications. These include the following:
Data exploration improvements: People can more easily explore data and conduct analysis in Excel Services reports that use SQL Server Analysis Services data or PowerPivot data models. For example, users can point to a value in a PivotChart or PivotTable report and see suggested ways to view additional information. Users can also use commands such as Drill Down To to conduct analysis. Users can also apply the Drill Down command by using a single mouse click.
Field list and field well support: Excel Services enables people to easily view and change which items are displayed in rows, columns, values, and filters in PivotChart reports and PivotTable reports that have been published to Excel Services.
Calculated measures and members: Excel Services supports calculated measures and calculated members that are created in Excel.
Enhanced timeline controls: Excel Services supports timeline controls that render and behave as they do in the Excel client.
Application BI Servers: Administrators can specify SQL Server Analysis Services servers to support more advanced analytic capabilities in Excel Services.
Business Intelligence Center update: The Business Intelligence Center site template has been streamlined. It not only has a new look, it is easier to use.
Speaker Notes
PerformancePoint Services
PerformancePoint Services enables users to create interactive dashboards that display key performance indicators (KPIs) and data visualizations in the form of scorecards, reports, and filters. In SharePoint Server 15, PerformancePoint Services offers certain new features to support business intelligence applications. These include the following:
Dashboard Migration: Users will be able to copy entire dashboards and dependencies, including the .aspx file, to other users, servers, or site collections. This feature also allows the ability to migrate single items to other environments and migrate content by using Windows PowerShell commands.
Filter Enhancements & Filter Search: The UI has been enhanced to allow users to easily view and manage filters including giving users the ability to search for items within filters without having to navigate through the tree.
BI Center Update: The new BI Center is cleaner, and easier to use with folders and libraries configured for easy use.
Support for Analysis Services Effective User: This new feature eliminates the need for Kerberos delegation when per-user authentication is used for Analysis Services data sources. By supporting Analysis Services Effective User feature, authorization checks will be based on the user specified by the EffectiveUserName property instead of using the currently authenticated user.
PerformancePoint Support on iPad: PerformancePoint dashboards can now be viewed and interacted with on iPad devices using the Safari web browser.
Visio Services
Visio Services is a service application that lets users share and view Microsoft Visio® Drawing (*.vsdx) and Visio 2010 Web drawing (*.vdw) files. The service also enables data-connected Visio Drawing (*.vsdx) and Visio 2010 Web drawing (*.vdw) files.to be refreshed and updated from various data sources.
In SharePoint Server 15, new features in Visio Services include the following:
Maximum Cache Size: A new service parameter, it is located on the Central Admininstration Visio Graphics Service Application Global Settings page. The default value is 5120 MB.
Health Analyzer rules: New corresponding Health Analyzer rules have been added to reflect the new Maximum Cache Size parameter.
Updated PowerShell cmdlet “Set-SPVisioPerformance”: This cmdlet has been updated to include the new Maximum Cache Size parameter.
Commenting on drawings supported: Users can add meaningful comments to a Visio Drawing (*.vsdx) collaboratively on the web via Visio Services in full page rendering mode.
Within the last decade the internet has evolved tremendously. From simple pages to robust social sites that support loosely coupled yet highly integrated 3rd party apps. From the beginning of SharePoint to today, SharePoint has also made significant changes from being a portal site to our newest release. SharePoint 2013.
For the developer and ultimately benefiting the user, SharePoint 2013 has made a significant investments to provide a new way to bring custom solutions to users with the new web standards based cloud app model that are easily discoverable and yet will give IT and developers peace of mind knowing that they can scale, are safely isolated from SharePoint yet can leverage the full capabilities of SharePoint.
SharePoint 2013 also becomes web designer friendly. Now simple branding and theming can be handled by the SharePoint user, or richer branding experiences can be created by web designers and imported into SharePoint with a few simple clicks. Making the site design process easier for not only the web designer but the professional SharePoint developer as well.
The new cloud app model gives the developer the freedom of choice in how they implement apps for SharePoint. No longer are you tied to writing on top of the SharePoint platform, now you can write along-side it with the tools and web hosting platforms of your choice… Whether it is on premise or in the cloud… Whether the platform is IIS/ASP.NET, a part of the Windows Azure family of hosting options or a non-Microsoft web hosting platform. The final choice is up to you.
We have all of these products and platforms such as Office, SharePoint and even Windows 8, Windows Phone, Dynamics CRM and AX. They provide a lot of great features and functionality that keep us productive in not only our business life but our personal lives as well.
On the web, there is all of these services and data that are available to us. Financial data, WikiPedia, Zillow, SQL data, Bing Search and Maps. Even SharePoint, Dynamics CRM and Dynamics AX can providers data for us.
The challenge is how do we integrate all of these rich services and data providers so we can be even more productive. How do we integrate them so they are seamless within our productivity products and platforms.
I’ll tell you….Apps
Apps enable SharePoint 2013 users to extend the capabilities of SharePoint 2013 to address specific business needs by allowing users to connect to data and services both from within an organization as well as in the public cloud.
Now we have had WebParts and the like for SharePoint for some time and we can provide similar experiences creating full-trust and sandbox solutions. The issue is that these apps are tightly integrated with the platform and require some amount of touch to insure as technology advances that our customizations can advance with it. This is were apps differ, apps are loosely coupled and not dependent on the SharePoint as a platform, but dependent on SharePoint as a service. Apps execute “off-server”, hence they don’t actually run on the SharePoint box but instead are hosted in their own hosting environment which could be the browser, a Window Azure service, ASP.NET or even a non-Microsoft web hosting platform such as Linux or Amazon Web Services.
Now there is more, custom solutions have always been hard to discover and install. Since apps are loosely coupled upgrading apps can be done independently from SharePoint since they don’t depend on the SharePoint platform. But what about discovering apps. How do I find them? Well…Apps can be selected from the new SharePoint store or the app catalog making it a simple click and run experience for the user.
