Microsoft SharePoint is a document management and collaboration platform that helps companies manage and archive contents, documents, and reports that are vital to the business process. Industries in all sectors use SharePoint, but the platform focuses on enterprise content management. SharePoint use cases can be found in any department within an organization.
Most businesses today have a global workforce, which makes sharing, tracking and organizing documents even more difficult. An outdated version of a document, or the wrong document altogether, can lead to unexpected and unanticipated losses. Sharing, organizing and keeping track of documents is a major area of concern for most businesses. SharePoint makes it easy to accomplish these tasks and streamline business processes.
It’s easy to assume that most businesses have moved to the cloud. But, in truth, many organizations are still running on-premises environments in some capacity. In fact, according to a survey by Uptime Institute, 65 percent of enterprise workloads are still running in company-owned data centers. With the release of SharePoint 2019, Microsoft intends to prove that it’s still committed to customers who operate within on-premises and hybrid scenarios.
SharePoint 2019 offers a new, modern design that’s optimized to work across any screen, whether you’re working on a tablet, phone, laptop or desktop. The new iteration aims to help users spend less time searching for content and configuring settings and more time working on productive tasks. After being used by millions of users in Office 365, the most significant evolution to SharePoint in recent years has finally made it on-premises. Modern SharePoint Experiences include Modern SharePoint Team Sites and Communication sites, as well as the new experience in both lists and document libraries. Let’s take a more in-depth look at each one of those experiences.
Microsoft’s latest iteration, SharePoint 2019, aims to improve the SharePoint experience for on-premises and hybrid users.
SharePoint 2019 has new improved features like,
- New UX features
- Team site updates
- Communication site improvements
- Hybrid OneDrive environments
- IT administration & infrastructure updates
- Integration with hybrid environments
- SharePoint training course
Let’s take a deep dive into the most exciting features that made it in SharePoint 2019.
SharePoint In 2019
1. Improved SharePoint Team Sites
The first pillar of modern SharePoint experiences is the modern team sites. Modern Team sites are responsive by default, include an out of the box news publishing engine, allowing users to share the news with the rest of the team. The main advantage of this new improved feature is that, unlike Office 365 where most modern team sites are connected to an Office 365 Group, on-premises modern team sites do not need any integration with Exchange to function correctly.
You can connect an existing SharePoint team site to a new group in Office 365, giving you access to a group calendar, shared document library, and planner to manage tasks. You also have the option to add a team in Microsoft Teams as a hub for collaboration.
2. The SharePoint Home
Next new significant feature in SharePoint On-Premises is the SharePoint Home. The SharePoint Home,brings all the news from Team Sites and Communication sites together in a single location.
The advantage of this new feature is that, all the sites you follow are also brought together, including activity from each site, and quick access to your favorite sites.
3. Improved SharePoint Communication Sites
The pillar of modern SharePoint experiences is modern communication sites. SharePoint Server 2019 includes three different templates of communication sites: Blank, Topic, and Showcase. These Communication sites dynamically pull content from Office 365 using SharePoint web parts.
The advantage of the new modernized communication sites is that It features new web parts that simplify the process of creating and sharing important updates and announcements. These web parts include Planner, Microsoft Forms, Group Calendar, File Viewer and Twitter
4. Improved Lists & Libraries
SharePoint Server 2019 also brings support for modern SharePoint lists and libraries. Modern SharePoint Libraries allows users to quickly view information about their documents, including permissions and metadata. Modern SharePoint lists in SharePoint 2019 also include the conditional formatting feature.Conditional Formatting allows Power Users to configure different display rules for specific columns, to quickly view the status of that item. SharePoint 2019 also has very useful features like “Move To” and “Copy To” actions.
5. Better Search Experience
Another piece of modern SharePoint to make it On-Premises in SharePoint Server 2019 is Modern Search. It uses the insights of the Microsoft Graph to show results that are relevant to you.
The advantage of this new feature is that routine tasks such as finding the right version of a document, getting back to a presentation you were editing, or learning about a topic you are not familiar with by locating experts and content, are simpler and faster with the modern search.
6. OneDrive Sync Client
Organizations with large on-premises libraries will be pleased to know that SharePoint 2019 brings a significantly improved OneDrive Sync Client.The new iteration features OneDrive Sync Client support for personal and team sites, including files on demand.
The new push notifications help to create a fast, reliable synchronization experience.Previously, these features were only available in the cloud. Now on-premises users can access them in hybrid environments.
7. SharePoint Framework Support
The goal of the SharePoint Framework is to allow both Microsoft and customers to build rich, engaging, and consistent user experiences on top of SharePoint. In the new version of SharePoint is that SharePoint Server 2019 now supports SharePoint Framework 1.4.1 to allow developers to create modern web parts that work for both SharePoint Online, as well as SharePoint On-Premises.
The advantage of this new feature is that, with SharePoint Server 2019, developers can use Webhooks for list items, SharePoint Framework Client-Side web parts and extensions in modern experiences, as well as Asset packaging and automatic JavaScript file hosting from app catalog.
8. Power BI Server Integration
With the release of SharePoint 2019, quite a few Business Intelligence features that we’re used to got deprecated or removed from the product. However, we can now use Power BI Report Server, which is the version of Power BI for On-Premises.
This new feature will help the businesses to create stunning reports, and easily display them in SharePoint Server 2019.
9. Improved Hybrid App Launcher
SharePoint 2019 advances upon many previous features to make SharePoint easier to configure and manage in hybrid environments.
Here are some examples:
New Hybrid Status Bar: Monitor the status of your hybrid configuration in one view with this new feature.
Holistic Search: SharePoint 2019 includes a modern search feature for hybrid environments.
This new feature in SharePoint 2019 helps the businesses to have two Platforms for the workloads, Save Money, Add Features to their On-Premises Content such as Integrated Hybrid Sites, Taxonomy and Content Types, Auditing and hybrid search.
10. Powerapps and Flow Integration
With InfoPath and SharePoint Designer both being deprecated in SharePoint, users might want to look elsewhere for new projects requiring custom workflows and forms. While, InfoPath and SharePoint Designer are still supported on-premises until 2026 and are the only available option for organizations that are 100% on-premises, there is a better option for organizations in a hybrid environment.
- Direct links to SharePoint documentation: You’ll no longer need to search far and wide for documents. You can now use direct go-to links in Central Administration.
- SMTP authentication for sending emails: You’ll be able to use actual authenticated SMTP (including Office 365) to send your emails.
- Workflow Manager 2019: Workflows are not going away any time soon. This new version replaces Workflow Manager 1.0 with new and improved features.
- Integration with PowerApps and Flow: With SharePoint 2019, you can expect some deeper integrations with Flow and PowerApps. The new features have improved performance and fewer restrictions than before.
Why Should You Get SharePoint 2019?
The modern version of SharePoint is helpful for the organizations that want to develop their digital transformation but intends to keep some portions of their technical portion on-premises.SharePoint Server 2019 brings on-premises users closer to cloud and makes hybrid implementation a breeze.
SharePoint 2019 provides almost all the modern functionalities available in SharePoint Online, so businesses who are currently using an older version of SharePoint on-premises must switch to the new 2019 version of SharePoint to make the most of the service and keep the digital transformation of the business moving properly.
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