Tagging resources with metadata can provide a range of advantages when it comes to sorting, grouping and searching. You might decide to create a custom view to group items outside of any folder structure. This would be particularly useful if you had a complex folder structure but wanted to group all the documents of a … Read more
There’s no denying that Office 365 now provides a fantastic integrated suite of products. Why should schools and colleges look at moving to Office 365? Can it save time, money and improve student engagement? Let’s take a look in more detail. Why is cloud storage important? Office Integration One of the big benefits of using … Read more
When using the SharePoint Framework (SPFx), we can use spHttpClient to manage our REST calls. Creating new fields (columns) in lists is like using jQuery ajax methods, first we feed in the body of our call in JSON format. [code lang=”js”] const spOpts: ISPHttpClientOptions = { body: "{‘Title’: ‘Group’, ‘FieldTypeKind’:2,’Required’:false, ‘EnforceUniqueValues’: ‘false’,’StaticName’: ‘Group’}" }; [/code] … Read more
This web part replicates the classic Promoted Links Web Part but with added features such as web part properties to change the background colour, size of background image and to select which promoted link list to use. You can download it here. For more information on the full Cloud Design Box learning platform for modern … Read more
Have you heard about the virtual Collab365 Global Conference 2017 that’s streaming online November 1st – 2nd? Join me and 120 other speakers from around the world who will be bringing you the very latest content around SharePoint, Office 365, Flow, PowerApps, Azure, OneDrive for Business and of course the increasingly popular Microsoft Teams. The event is produced by … Read more
Note: this is an updated blog post to include reference material and demos from the SUGUK meeting in Leeds on 5th September 2017. I’ve been a SharePoint designer now for over 10 years. By designer, I mean changing the look and feel of SharePoint. Not just adding simple themes, but making SharePoint, “not look like … Read more
I’ve been a SharePoint designer now for over 10 years. By designer, I mean changing the look and feel of SharePoint. Not just adding simple themes, but making SharePoint, “not look like SharePoint”. It’s a common request for companies and schools to have an intranet or communication portal which reflects their brand and identity. Although … Read more
Class teams are now available inside Microsoft Teams. These are created automatically using School Data Sync (SDS) or can be created manually in the Teams interface. Teams is a great collaboration interface that pulls together instant messaging, videos calls, SharePoint, OneNote and assignments into one place. It can also be extended with custom tabs. I’ve … Read more
The 2017 SharePoint virtual summit took place last week. The previous year had seen a brave new bold redesign of SharePoint into a modern experience. This year we had exciting new announcements building on last year’s vision. New OneDrive and SharePoint Sync Client The new version of OneDrive sync client will map out the entire … Read more
Over the last few months, we have received lots of positive feedback about the new Microsoft Classroom Preview product. Today Microsoft announced in the Office 365 message centre that this would be replaced at the end of July 2017 with Microsoft Teams for Education. No need to panic, MS Classroom functionality will still exist but … Read more
I would like to thank everyone who took part in today’s webinar on Microsoft Classroom by Cloud Design Box. In the session, we covered: How to get Microsoft Classroom How to create a new class Using OneNote Class Notebook to enhance teaching and learning Setting assignments Marking and returning student work Using the mobile apps … Read more
Your users may have noticed that the default reply button in Outlook Web Access is “Reply all”. This can result in emails accidentally being sent to the wrong person (as many users assume this is the reply button without reading it). Luckily you can change this default behaviour. Change for an individual user The user … Read more
Microsoft Flow is the new tool integrated with Office 365 which allows different services to interact. Such as social media providers like Twitter and Facebook or file sharing platforms like Dropbox, OneDrive and Google Drive, and many more services. I wrote a blog post earlier this year about integrating machine learning tools and another post … Read more
School Data Sync has now moved to general availability. Currently this allows users to get data into Microsoft Classroom but does have limitations and can create a considerable overhead when providing the import data. I’ve produced a quick video below looking at School Data Sync and what is means for UK schools. Hope you find … Read more
I recently attended a fascinating talk on machine learning by Martin Kearn and an implementation of this in Microsoft Flow by Mark Stokes. Did you know that there are APIs to access machine learning functionality via Microsoft’s Cognitive Services API? Did you also know that you can easily connect to these services in Office 365? … Read more
The new list and library experience is here in SharePoint Online. It is great news for the SharePoint community (better integration with OneDrive, responsive, platform independent). For users with customisations or for companies who are not ready for the change yet, you can delay the new experience from the administration panel. There are certainly things … Read more
I’m often asked how to give the Microsoft Office 365 login page a branded and customised look and feel. It’s really easy so if you are using cloud only or AD synced users, you can apply branding to the login page. This method does not apply to ADFS as the login page is hosted on … Read more
Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) allows your school/organisation to use your own Active Directory to authenticate users. While Azure AD Connect (formerly DirSync) seems to give this functionality, it is actually a copy of the usernames and passwords in Azure AD which authenticates the user onto the site rather than your own AD server. The … Read more
It can be time consuming to update multiple calendars. You can now setup custom flows using Microsoft Flow to copy and edit data between the two calendars. In the example below, I create a Microsoft Flow to detect when a new Google Calendar item is added and then create a new item in a SharePoint … Read more
For anyone using the new style SharePoint lists, there is now a new action for Microsoft Flow integration. It’s a really cool product that integrates all the Office 365 products (and more) into your workflow. SharePoint Designer workflows still have their place but the Microsoft Flow interface offers rich functionality and is easy to view … Read more
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