Troubleshooting images in SharePoint news

In recent blogs I showed what can go wrong with images in SharePoint news. So, here’s the recap for everyone who is publishing and sharing SharePoint news and everyone who is supporting them. It will save you time trying to find the cause and solution!

These are the issues, their cause and solution:

1. No header image visible (News post, News web part and SharePoint landing page)
2. Header image shows a placeholder image (News post, News web part and SharePoint landing page)
3. No image visible on Yammer when promoted

1. No header image visible

Does your News post look like this?

This is an example of a news post template with no image

This is the same post, but then on the SharePoint landing page

You (or the publisher) may have selected the “plain” template, this does not have a header.

If this is by design, no action is needed.

If an image is desired, edit the post, click the pencil top right next to the title (1) and select a different template than “Plain” (2). You can now add a header image.

You can easily switch the template to add a header image

2. Header image shows a placeholder image

Does your News post look like this?

The news image is a generic grey image

A News post with a generic grey image on the left can have two causes:

1. Intended readers have no access to the image.
   The image lives in a place (OneDrive, Document library, Site Assets library) that is not accessible for the intended readers. See my earlier post.
   The issue will be reported by someone who does not have access. The image is visible for the publisher and anyone else who has access.
2. The image has been deleted or moved after publishing.
   It can take some time before this is noticed, especially by the publisher. The image sticks in the browser cache, so the post will look OK to them. But someone “new” to the post will notice immediately that there is no image.
   In my experiments, the post itself will quickly lose its image and show a grey header, on the News web part it will take some more time, and on the SharePoint landing page it may take even longer!
   In the screenshot below the image is still visible on the SharePoint landing page. (All screenshots have been taken at the same time)
   The SharePoint search index may also have a role in this.

While the image has been deleted, it stays visible for some time on the SharePoint landing page

This can be quite hard to troubleshoot if the publisher does not remember where this image came from. Due to the “stickiness” of the image the issue may only be noticed few days after deletion, which may be quite some time after publishing!

And before you say: “Why bother, the news is outdated after a few months anyway?” remember that this also goes for pages!

You can try the following:

1. If the publisher remembers the site where it lives, (whether it is the OneDrive or another site) you may want to check the Recycle Bin to see if a deleted image is the problem. Restoring it will solve the issue.
2. If the publisher remembers the site where it lives, check the permissions to validate the assumption. But rather than changing the permissions for one image, suggest the publisher to download and upload the image, and re-add it to the post.
   It means duplication, but now the image is within control of the publisher.
3. If the publisher does not remember, things are more difficult.
   It is very unlikely that the Site Assets library or folder of the News site itself will have different permissions from the rest of the site. Nonetheless, to exclude that option, check if there is a folder with the name of the news item in the Site Assets library, and then check permissions of the folder and the image. If yes, inherit the permissions of the site or library again, as unique permissions for a News image are not good practice.
4. Search for the image. “Images” is now a search vertical. It helps if you know the name!
5. If this is not the case, there is not much you can do. I tried the F12 “underwater screen” to see if I could find a URL that shows the location of the image (like …my.sharepoint.com/… or the name of the site) but until now I have been unsuccessful. If anyone knows, please let me know!
   You’d better suggest to use another image.

So, this would suggest that using Web Search or Upload is the best source of News images, since you are in control. On the other hand, it means duplication of files which may lead to a lot of clutter all over your tenant.
This may also be your trigger to finally create an Organizational Assets library :).
Agree with the owner that images are not deleted, but hidden in a dedicated view when they are no longer in use, and wait a year or so before deletion. This will keep the images visible on News and pages, but discourage further use.

3. No image visible on Yammer when promoted

While it is very easy to “promote” (share) a SharePoint news post to Yammer, not all news posts show their image when shared.

Does your Yammer post look like this? (I am using “new Yammer”, but not “native Yammer”)

Promoted News item with image, but image does not show on Yammer

That is because the post has been created in an older (not Group-enabled) SharePoint team site. (and not in a modern Group-enabled Team site or Communication site)
There is not much you can do about it except confirm, and inform the publisher that this is how things work. This post explains it in more detail.

Does your Yammer post look like this?

This post has an image placeholder

If the promoted News post only shows an image placeholder, it has been shared from a modern site (Communication or Team) but here the image source is the issue. In my earlier post I found that when you use certain image sources there will be no image on Yammer.
In that case, please suggest to your publisher to use an image from one of the following sources and repost to Yammer:

• Recent (but beware of copyright issues!)
• Web Search
• Upload
• Organizational Assets
• From a link to an image in an Assets library (not a regular Document Library!)

Hope this saves you time experimenting!

It is information I wrote before but now turned around into a guide for support folks to help their puzzled users! Hope it is helpful.

Teams meetings for non-business users – the meeting

Right now Teams is being used by many non-business people, and I have had a lot of questions about “how it works” for non-business or external users, as in: “what do they get and what do they have to do in order to participate?”

• We have looked at the email invitations and the variety of results you can get.
• We have also looked at getting into the meeting – which browsers work and which don’t, and what about the Teams app?

This time we will look at the meeting experience.

We started with a variety of email programmes, which all give different views and results. But all emails contain the link to the meeting, which is just a link, albeit a long and non-intuitive one. So in the end, everyone uses the same link in a browser or in the app. Let’s see what that brings.

I have the following people in my meeting:

• Myself, as the organiser and presenter, joining from my own tenant, initially via web (Edge), later through the app on my laptop
• Gerald Adams, an attendee joining from web (Chrome)
• Kim, an attendee joining from the Windows 10 app, not signed in
• Ellen iPhone, an attendee joining from iPhone
• My work’s account, joining as attendee from the Windows 10 app, signed in.

Prepare for an awesome (or awful if you do not like long posts) amount of screenshots!

1. Organiser/Presenter – web

So, this is what I see when I join the meeting on the web – the latest version of Edge.

You see that I do not have an option to blur or change background – I must be on the web!

Gerald is already waiting for me in the lobby:

It is very clear that people are waiting in the lobby.

And this is what I see when I start sharing my screen

What the presenter sees when they start to share screens.

When my presentation is shared I take a look at the options (click on … in the bar)

You see that in the browser I do not have the option to blur or change background – please compare that with the app version below.

When I look at the people in the meeting I see that most of my “external attendees” have entered as a Guest, except Ellen van Aken (outside of your organisation) who has joined from another Office365-account. I can also invite other people, and mute all of them.

This is what the organizer/presenter sees when opening the People pane.

The presenter can also manage people individually, this is independent of web or app. I can make either people from other organizations (business users, in this case) or Guests a presenter or an attendee again, or I can mute or remove a person from the meeting.
I can also pin a person, which means I will always see that person when they have their camera on and nobody is sharing a screen, regardless of who’s talking.

2. Organizer/Presenter – app

What do I see when I join via the desktop app and signed in? I have some more options: meeting notes, background effects, the option for Live Captions and End meeting. (I can also check my audio settings before I join)

I have a few more options when I join in the app.

 

Not shown here, because I am sharing a presentation and Kim, Gerald and myself were on the same PC: with the desktop app (and the mobile app) you can see 4 people if you have the camera on, with the web only 1 person. That is where the pinning comes in handy. I can not wait until we will see 9 people!

3. Attendee – web

Gerald is the one attending via Chrome. This is what he sees: a greyed-out Sharing screen, and fewer options in his meeting menu (or whatever that popup behind the … is called)

This is what an attendee sees when joining through Chrome (which shows the same as Edge, by the way)

An attendee can only see who is there, but not their role. Nor can they do something.

4. Attendee – app

Kim is using the app without sign-in, as she does not have an Office365 account. What does that look like? She can not share her screen and has one extra option compared to the web attendee. (However, she will see 4 people when there is no screen sharing and people have their webcam on)

Kim’s menu shows background effects options, but otherwise it looks just like the other attendee on the web. She can also not share her screen.

The People popup shows the same as for the attendee on the web.

5. Attendee – iPhone

The meeting experience on the iPhone is different again. Please note the attendee is not signed in to the app. Top right you see chat and people options. There’s no “share” button, not even greyed out.

iPhone experience.

When you click the 3 dots in the meeting control bar, you have even fewer options than a regular attendee: just “put me on hold”, “keypad” and “turn off incoming video”.

Translation of these 3 items is above. In any case, very few options with the iPhone, not signed in.

6. Attendee – Business User

It was a bit of a juggle to get this meeting together with all these people (all of them ME) and all these devices and options.  But a second user, with Office365 account and a fully-fledged laptop, was easily available (again: ME at work) so for comparison’s sake: here goes.

Business attendee can not share screen, but has more options than a non-business user: the Live Captions option is available. And everything is in Dutch 🙂

Conclusions

The meeting experience is very similar for all attendees, regardless of how they got there.

There is hardly any difference between a Guest (someone without Office365 account, not logged in) and Someone outside your organization (an external business user with Office365 account, logged in). The only difference is that the organizer/presenter can see who’s what.

The role is the largest differentiator – if you are a presenter, you can simply do much more than when you are an attendee. See the differences here.

There are some differences between web and desktop app. The main advantages of the desktop app are

• 4 people visible instead of 1 (when you have cameras turned on).
  This has been a BIG issue in my organization, especially for our therapists doing online group therapy sessions. Most of our therapists have an F3-license, which means they can only do web and only see 1 person. We have suggested they also log in with their phone to see 4 more people. We have now installed the desktop app for them as well but we are still looking for another tool that shows more people. I really can not wait until Microsoft finally rolls out the 3 x 3 view!
• The option to blur or change backgrounds.
• The option to do a Test call.
• Live Captions. As these are currently only available in English, this is not relevant for my organization right now, but it may be a big plus for others.

The iPhone experience is sufficient, but sparse.

My suggestion would be to tell your non-business users to use the web version. I would only suggest to download the app when

• it is important to see 4 people
• a non-business user is the presenter (so they can adjust their background)
• when they join on iPhone.

Joining on the web will probably be easiest for them, especially if they are not very savvy. Perhaps you can just send them the link in an email, instead of the official Outlook invitation, and tell them to open the link in Chrome or Edge (new versions).

Agree?

Teams meetings for non-business users – getting into the meeting

Right now Teams is being used by many non-business people, and I have had a lot of questions about “how it works” for non-business or external users, as in: “what do they get and what do they have to do in order to participate?”

In my former post we discussed the email invitation to the Teams meeting for non-business users, and how it can differ depending on device and email client.
This time, we will look at getting to the meeting.

It’s the browser, baby!

In this part of the process the main difference is not in the email programme, but in the browser that people use.  I have added a ton of screenshots so you know what participants can expect.

I use an up-to-date Windows 10 laptop with up-to-date browsers. This may already be different from what your “consumer” users have. I have no Mac, but I have used an iPad and an iPhone.

In the invitation you will see the link to join the meeting.

The link. Please note you can copy the link and share it with others.

1. What happens when you click on the link?

a. Firefox and Internet Explorer

If you are using Firefox or Internet Explorer as your browser, you will get the message that those browsers do not support Teams and a nudge to move to Edge OR to download the app.

You are pushed to use Microsoft Edge or download the appEnter a caption

b. Edge or Chrome

If you are using Edge (the new one) or Chrome, you will get this nudge to either download the app or to join on the web:

You will have to make a decision: download the app or join on the web.

I have occasionally seen this image, which is the new experience, or so I think:

I think this is the new experience – it is more obvious you have 3 options

c. Safari on iPad

If you use this, you will get a similar screen as for Internet Explorer or Firefox, except that you will only have “Get the Teams app” as suggestion.

Safari does not support this – downloading the app is the only suggestion you get.

d. Safari on iPhone

If you are on an iPhone you will get a warning that Safari does not support it, and a nudge to download the app.

It’s in Dutch but I guess you will understand that you are nudged to download the Teams app

2. What happens when you join on the web?

a. Edge or Chrome

When you have decided to open Edge or Chrome (if you are using Chrome as your default browser) you will get to this screen. You are requested to enter your name and click “Join Now”. Look at the bottom, where you are again enticed to sign in (if you have a Microsoft account) or to download the app.

Strangely enough the name of the meeting is not shown. Enter name, select camera and phone settings and click “Join Now”.

After clicking “Join Now” you get into the lobby. As you may know, recently Microsoft changed the default settings for all meetings to “People outside your organization will have to wait in the lobby”. While I agree with this setting, especially now that so many new (and often non-business) people are using Teams, it led to a lot of questions in my organization because we had just been telling everyone that by default everyone could get into your meeting immediately. 😤

The lobby

In any case, you will enter the meeting as a Guest with the role that the organizer has given you. 

If you have a paid subscription to Microsoft365 it is worth signing in, because you will get the full web experience. The link to the meeting is accessible for everyone, so you can just sign in even if your Microsoft365 account has a different email address than the one that you have been invited with.

3. What happens when you download the app?

a. Laptop (Windows 10)

Downloading and opening the app can take a few minutes, so you may want to warn your newbies to start early or do a test run well before the meeting. 

Once you have the app installed, and you click the meeting link from your email, you can use the “launch it now” button or your browser will ask you to open the link in the app. Internet Explorer just opens the app.

Chrome and app

Firefox and app

Edge and app

Once the app has opened, you will be requested to add your name and click “Join Now”, like when you join on the web. Please note that the app has two extra features:

• You can enter the meeting with a blurred or custom background (the toggle between camera and microphone)
• You can check your microphone by clicking on “PC Mic and Speakers” and then selecting “Test Call”. (Functionality that I know and ❤ from Skype)

Some extra functionality when you join a meeting with the Teams app.

You will enter the lobby as usual.

Again, you will see the extra options that the app has to offer. While you are waiting, why not select a nice background! 😄

If you download the app and you do not sign in with a Microsoft account, you will enter the meeting as a Guest with the role that the organizer has given you. 

b. iPhone.

If I download the app on my iPhone, give permission to use the microphone, and click that horrible long link from my email, it will ask me if I want to open the link with Teams and then I get this message (Time to meet):

You can enter as a guest or again, sign in.

After entering your name and clicking Participate you will get the lobby message, which looks similar to the ones above.

iPhone lobby message (in Dutch)

c. iPad

On my iPad the “Open in Teams?” message did not happen so I could not make the switch from my email to the app. I was also forced to sign in with an account, which is not the purpose of this exercise. Anyone out here who had more luck?
Copying the link to the meeting and pasting it into the Edge app on my iPad worked. It switched over to the app and I could enter as a guest, with the same image as above for iPhone (but wider).

What have I found so far?

• Your non-business participants do not need to have a Microsoft account to participate.
• You do not need to download the app on your PC, as you can participate on the web if you use Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome as your browser.
• Internet Explorer, Safari and Firefox can not be used for a Teams meeting.
• If you do not have a Microsoft account (or if you do not sign in with it), you will have to enter a name when you log on, and you will participate as a Guest.
• The Teams mobile app is a must if you want to take part from an iPhone.
• Both the mobile and desktop apps may take a few minutes to download and install, so always ask your participants to download and test-drive well in advance, or start at least 10 minutes before the meeting.
• The desktop app will give you more options such as the custom backgrounds and the option to do a test call.
• If you have an external presenter or discussion leader, strongly suggest to use a laptop and download the desktop app as the extra options will be very useful especially for them.

Next time, we will look at the meeting experience.

 

Teams meetings for non-business users – invitations

Teams may have originally been intended as a business-to-business meeting and collaboration tool, it is now, in COVID-19 times, used heavily for all kinds of gatherings. The education sector is using it big time, my own organization is using it temporarily as a group therapy session tool, and I use it to meet with my fellow “citizen activists” who want to keep our lovely home town a great place to live in for real people.

So, right now Teams is being used by many non-business people, and I have had a lot of questions about “how it works” for non-business external users, as in: “what do they get and what do they have to do in order to participate?”

The fun part when you use Teams for “consumers’ is the variety of systems that people use – devices, browsers, email clients. So, I tried a few things, starting from my own Office365/Microsoft365 tenant.

I created a meeting from Outlook Online, as described earlier.

• It does not show attendees
• You can not forward the invitation
• Externals need to wait in the lobby
• Externals are an attendee, not a presenter

I sent this to various online emailclients: Outlook.com, Gmail.com, Yahoo.com

I opened the mailboxes with various browsers on laptop and the Outlook one on Iphone and Ipad.

I looked at the invitation and accepted the meeting (where possible).

What does the invitation look like?

Laptop/Outlook.com mail. This invitation looks the same in Edge, Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer. The yellow bar mentions that the invitation can not be forwarded. (in Dutch)

Laptop/Yahoo mail. Invitation looks the same in Edge, Chrome and Firefox. Internet Explorer shows a basic version. There is no Accept/Tentative/Decline option and no mention of the non-forwarding. And what is that silly logo next to my name?

Laptop/Gmail. Invitation looks the same in Edge, Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer. There is an option to respond, but no mention about the non-forwarding. Although the time is technically correct, it is not the “natural” Dutch time and I could not find a way to correct it.

iOS: Outlook.com mail via Apple Mail app. Yikes, this is all you get. The top says: this message is plain text, download the full message. If you do that, you get this:

Well, double Yikes. While iOS is usually so cool and user-friendly, this is awful. You have to download the message to make sense of it, and then you get a ton of ugly links and then at the bottom your instructions and the .ics file. No mention of the non-forwarding.

Android. Microsoft365 account, Outlook app. Response options but no mention of the non-forwarding.

What have I found so far?

• Do not expect a response message if you are inviting external non-business users. I did not receive any responses except from the Microsoft365 user, even though I did accept the meeting on Gmail and Outlook.com.
• Invitations to Gmail often go into the Spam box, especially when I used the “hide meeting attendees” option. You may want to check with your externals that they have seen the invitation.
• Check if the meeting is on the right date and time on the receiver’s end. If people have their mailbox on a different timezone, they may want to adjust it.
  Or in case of Gmail, do they realize that the time is in UTC and what UTC means? 
• Tell people that the invitation may move out of their inbox after accepting or declining it and that they can find it in their Deleted Items if they want to keep it. 
• Sending an invitation does not mean that the date and time are added to the Calendar option of the email client automatically. In some case you need to download the .ics file (which not everybody may understand) or specify to the email client that invitations should always be added to your calendar.
• “Do not forward” appears to work only within Microsoft email – the option to forward is greyed out in Outlook, but the emails sent to Yahoo and Gmail could be forwarded and the recipient could enter the meeting. ☹
• Please note that I have an up-to-date Windows 10 laptop with current versions of browsers – be aware that non-business users may have different setups and different versions!

Do not assume!

In other words, do not assume that everything will work in the same way as with your external business contacts. Your “consumer” audience has a much larger variety in devices, mail clients, updates and browsers than your business contacts (who in many cases use Outlook, if not the full Microsoft 365suite). Your “consumer” audience may also be less exposed to formal meetings and be not as tech savvy – or be more savvy with other systems than Microsoft365.

Next time, I will discuss what happens when you click on the meeting link. 

Take control of your Teams meeting

Updated: August 28, 2021

The roles in Teams meetings, especially for the Organizer, are changing constantly. To see who can do what, please check out my post “The importance of being Organizer” and look at/download the “who can do what” sheet.

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Our health care organization has gone a step further in using Teams.

Our dedicated (non-Microsoft) software for helping our clients online was just (=before COVID-19) being rolled out with various amounts of success. Some people loved it, and saw the benefits for both client and therapist (no need to travel for both parties, client being in their own environment, connection with the client registration systems), others said they needed the face-to-face meetings to be able to provide real help.

Now that we have had to move all therapy online, we found a functionality gap in the software: the option to use this for group sessions, either multiple therapists seeing one client, or sessions with one therapist and several clients.

After discussing various options we agreed to make Teams temporarily available for this purpose, so our therapists can finalise the existing group therapies, and perhaps even start new ones.

Microsoft Teams is a business tool and meant for collaboration in an organisational context. Mental health therapy is something completely different, so we had to create special instructions to make sure that our therapists are in control of the meeting.
But also in other situations, such as meetings with many attendees (You can have up to 350 people in a Teams meeting!) knowing these control options can be useful:

1. Create the invitation from Outlook

• Create the invitation from Outlook Online, NOT from Teams.
• Add the relevant title, attendees, date and time, and message info.
• Make sure you make this a Teams meeting.
• Before sending, click the “Response Options” top right and select “Hide attendee list”.
  Optionally, you can also UNselect “Allow forwarding” to avoid uninvited people getting into your group session.
• As soon as you have made a choice, the popup will go away, so it is a good idea to check if you have made the right selections.
• Click Send.

Make sure to hide the attendee list, so clients do not see eachother’s email addresses.  Also, do not forget to toggle the Teams meeting button if you have not yet made all meetings a Teams meeting!

Alternatively you can add the attendees to the BCC field, but as this field is not visible by default, it means people will have to change their Outlook settings. Using “Hide attendee list” is easier.
Those who use the Outlook desktop (in our case: hardly any therapist has this) can use the BCC field or add the users as a Resource. This is a bit of a weird workaround in my opinion. Just use Outlook Online, it is great!

Now, if the invitation is sent, the attendees will see only their own name in the invitation, which is a privacy requirement in this situation.
If you have also disabled the “Forward invitation” option, this will be displayed on the invitation, depending on the recipient’s email programme.

2. Manage meeting options

By default, everyone can go into the meeting freely, and everyone can present. (Update 15-04-2020: the default is now that externals will have to wait in the lobby. Good idea.) While this is the easiest setting for regular business purposes, it is not always the best option. We have heard about Teams meetings in education, where pupils muted the teacher and/or changed his/her role into attendee or even threw each other out of the meeting altogether!

So, in our situation it may be best to prevent any issues and provide a little more control to the therapist(s). The following can only be done by the person who has organised the meeting.

• Open the meeting in your Teams calendar
• Click the Meeting Options, to the right of the time zones OR on the bottom of the invitation underneath the link to the meeting. (see the Outlook screenshot below)

I prefer this button to adjust meeting options.

• Change the lobby settings to: “People in my organization”  (so you can discuss with your colleague before you allow everyone into the meeting)
• Change the presenter settings to anything except Everyone. “People in my organization” is a good one.
  This will make all others an attendee, and they can only use audio, video and chat. (Roles description by Microsoft)
• Update Feb. 7, 2021: Determine if you want people to be able to unmute. By default everyone can talk, but you could start the meeting in silence, and then allow people to speak up later in the meeting.
• Update Feb 7, 2021: Decide if attendees are allowed to chat (default: yes), or  not, or in-meeting only.  (=when at least 2 people are in the meeting)
• Click Save.

I would suggest the above meeting options for a group session with our (psychotherapy) clients.

This can also be done from the invitation in Outlook:

At the bottom you will find the meeting options. Please note you are reminded that you have hidden the list of attendees.

3. Change meeting options during the meeting (added Feb 7, 2021)

In case you would like to change presenters or other options during the meeting, the organizer can also adjust the meeting options from the control bar by clicking the … (1) and selecting “Meeting Options” (2):

The meeting options are a bit hidden behind the menu for this screenshot, but normally, when you click “Meeting Options from the control bar, the full menu becomes visible. 

4. Manage attendees during the meeting

During the meeting the organizer and presenters also have some other controls via the Participants icon.

See who is present in the meeting and control their microphone, roles and other things.

You will now see the list of participants.

The options to manage attendees. These options are available for organizer and presenters.

You can now “Mute all” or manage individual participants by clicking on the … behind their name and

• Mute someone individually, e.g. when they provide background noise.
• Pin, to make them visible all the time, for you only.
• Spotlight, to make the visible all the time, for everyone. This is useful if someone gives a speech.
• Make an attendee or, when they are an attendee, you can make them a presenter.
• Remove them from the meeting.

Steven Collier has made a nice video where he explains “Teams-bombing” and the prevention thereof with an example of a rebellious student.

5. Avoid “private viewing” of your presentation

If you are sharing via PowerPoint, by default people are allowed to click through at their own pace.

This is what an attendee sees on-screen, when you share a PowerPoint without switching off the private viewing.

It may be a good idea to switch that off, especially if your presentation has a carefully designed build-up.
After selecting to share “PowerPoint” and your presentation, you will see some controls in the meeting control bar. Click on the eye icon to turn off private viewing. It looks like this:

Click on the eye to allow or stop (this screenshot) clicking through the presentation.

6. End the meeting

If you want to make sure that the conversation stops when the meeting ends, you can click the arrow next to the “Leave” button and click “End meeting”, which will stop all audio and video. The chat will still be accessible for people in the organization and can still be used, if you have enabled chat this way.

End the meeting. This option is only available for the organizer.

Conclusion

The default settings of Teams may be a little too “flexible” for non-business purposes. Fortunately there are many options to have more control.

Updated Feb. 7, 2021: You have most control when you are the organizer of the meeting. Check out my post on the importance of the organizer.

Mind you, you as my regular audience will probably know all of this, but our therapists generally know only the basics of Office365 (oh, I need to say Microsoft365 now, right?) and they need detailed instructions, as they have to schedule these sessions themselves.

Next time, I will discuss the user interface for various email programmes. I have had a ton of questions about what clients see and I want to make sure I can answer that properly.

How to demo your telephone to a large audience

At the very last “Office365/SharePoint Connect” gathering in Haarlem* I was quite impressed when Rick van Rousselt gave us a demo of Kaizala, sharing his telephone on a large screen.

This may come in useful when we want to provide our colleagues with more information about the Office365 mobile apps. So, I thought I’d write out the steps and practice as I am usually quite clumsy when it comes to connecting devices. 😎

The secret ingredient is…a Teams meeting!

March 2020.
As the next weeks will mean “remote working’ for a lot of people, due to the Corona virus, this may also come in useful if you want to demonstrate a cool new app to a colleague, or for helpdesks to support colleagues who have questions about the workings of a smartphone. 

A few days before the demo

1. Make sure you have the Teams app installed on your presentation laptop and your telephone
2. Schedule a Teams meeting for the time of the demo
3. Remove any apps on your mobile that you do not want to show – or move them to a separate page – and check if your phone’s background image is suitable for the audience 😉
4. Create your demo (what do you want to show and which sequence)
5. Practice sharing your screen on your phone

The day before the demo

1. Charge your devices (and a powerbank, to be on the safe side)
2. Remove screen notifications and sounds to avoid disturbance (or embarrassment – you do not want to know what I have seen during all the years I have been working in multi-location organizations 🙄 ) during your demo
3. Sign in to both Teams apps with the account you want to use for the demonstration

At the time of the demo

1. Start well before time, if possible
2. Connect your laptop to the demonstration screen
3. Mute the sound on both devices to avoid an irritating reverb
4. Join the meeting on both devices, without microphone and camera
5. On your mobile, click the … in the meeting bar and select “Share”

   

   Enter a caption

6. Select “Share screen” (exact words may vary on iOS and Android) and then “Start broadcast”

   

   Dutch again! Click on “Start…” to start broadcast.

7. Wait until your mobile phone is shown on the screen
8. Go to the content you want to show (on your mobile) and dazzle your audience!

   

   It is a bit dark but this is my phone (device left), displayed on my laptop (in the middle),  while showing SharePoint News.

8. When your demo is over, open the Teams app and click “Stop broadcast”.

To end, click “Stop…”.

 

Although my (iOS) app tells me that everything is recorded, (it even shows a timer in the red bar on top) it does not mean that a video is created. I guess they mean everything will be shared.

Conclusion

As usual, this is not rocket science, but I thought it might be helpful for myself and for others to share the detailed steps.

Are you ever demonstrating smartphone (apps) to an audience and are you using Teams or something else?

* Office365 and SharePoint Connect, Haarlem/Amsterdam

I am really sad that Office365 and SharePoint Connect will no longer be around, as it was always VERY useful, in a convenient location, well-visited by many people in my network, and not too expensive. Thank you, Nigel and Irene Clapham, for organizing this great event for so many years!

9 steps to clean up your OneDrive

As mentioned in earlier posts, the majority of my colleagues have 2 GB of storage space in their OneDrive and some struggle to stay within those limits.

So, we are currently helping them with cleaning up and giving them some tips on how to keep within boundaries. It may be interesting for you as well!

1. Empty the Recycle Bin

You may want to start with a clean slate, so let’s empty the Recycle Bin first. If, during cleaning, you accidentally delete too much, you will have fewer documents to search through for restoring. Also, emptying the recycle bin will free up space!

Click “Recycle bin” on the left-hand side and then “Empty recycle bin”

2. Check the size of your OneDrive

It helps to know how much stuff you have, and how much you need to remove. So, click on the Gear wheel top right, click “OneDrive settings” and then select “More settings”. You will pass a useful screen with notification options – worth looking at but out of scope for this post.
Then click “Storage metrics”.

Almost there!

On the next page you will see the lists in your OneDrive site collection (it is a SharePoint site collection, after all) and the amount of free space is shown top right.

Look at the top right of the page to see how much free space is left.

3. Move shared documents to SharePoint or Teams

Sharing documents in OneDrive to collaborate on is great as long as the document is not final. Once it is final, please move it to a SharePoint site so it can be part of the team’s collective knowledge and make room in your OneDrive.
Do not hoard shared OneDrive documents – if you leave the organization your OneDrive will disappear with all its content. (After a period when your manager can access it.) We frequently get questions about lost shared documents as many people appear not to be aware of this. 😦

Do you plan on leaving the organization soon? Check out this post to see what to do – and start now.

So, check out which documents you share and with whom. Do you still need them at all? Do you still need to share them or are they ready to live elsewhere?

The overview of the documents I share with others – “Departmental docs” sounds like an excellent candidate to be reviewed and moved!

If you want to move the documents to SharePoint, go back to your “My One Drive” section, select them and then click “Move To” from the grey bar and select the SharePoint site where they will live. (Make sure you follow that site so it appears as one of your first choices). The documents will be deleted from your OneDrive in the process. (If you want to know how Copy To and Move To work, read my earlier post and also my post about the risks)

Moving documents to a SharePoint site

If you have many documents to move, you may either want to do it in smaller batches or use Copy To and delete the documents after you have checked that they have all safely arrived at their SharePoint destination.

And if you no longer need the documents you share, you can just delete them.

4. Create or Request a SharePoint or Teams site

In case you have no location at your disposal, create or request a SharePoint site or a Team (which comes with a SharePoint site) so you can share documents with your project team or department.

5. Find the largest and the oldest documents

Unfortunately you will have to do this by folder, as you can not create views without folders. Although OneDrive is a SharePoint site, it misses some cool SharePoint functionality, such as the option to add metadata columns and create views, or the possibility to add templates. (note to self: submit to User Voice 🙂 )

The following paragraph has been added in May 2020:
* Please be aware that Microsoft365 adds folders to your OneDrive when you use certain applications. The “Attachments” folder to store email attachments is one, but Apps (contains Forms documents), Microsoft Teams Data, Microsoft Teams Chat files and Pictures can also contain a lot of documents that you may not be aware of.  Read my post on this topic*

Open a folder and click on the pull-down arrow next to the File size column and click on “Larger to smaller”.  Determine whether the largest files need to stay on your OneDrive. They may fit on your SharePoint or Teams site as well, so you can Move them there, or perhaps they can be deleted.

Then sort for the oldest documents by clicking the pull-down arrow next to the Modified column and selecting “Older to newer”. Generally you will have accumulated quite a lot of documents in your career. When projects have been completed or interest has waned, you might as well move them to a SharePoint archive site, a records center (in that case they should have been moved there long ago!) or delete them.

6. Remove versions

This can make sense for very large documents that you have worked on intensively and that you want to keep. There may be several versions that take up space.
Select the document, click the … to the right of the name, and select “Version History” from the menu.

How to go to the version history

You will now see the versions.
If you are still working on the document, it may be safer to remove the oldest versions only.

Click the version you want to remove and select “Delete Version”. Repeat if needed.

If your document is final, you can delete all versions and keep the latest version only. If there are many versions involved, the quickest route is to go to the Storage Metrics (see par. 2), click on “Documents” and drill down until you see the document.

This is a good way to remove all versions in one go.

Click “Version history” on the right of the document and then you will see an option to delete all versions in one go, leaving the last one.

This is the best way to delete all versions in one go.

7. Move private files to a personal location

While it is all too common to have a mix of private and organizational docs on your systems, your OneDrive is primarily meant for organizational stuff. Your private info should not be here, especially if it takes up valuable storage space.  You also do not want to lose it when you leave the organization, right? So, move your personal files and photo’s to your private OneDrive (now with extra-secure Personal Vault), iCloud, Google Drive, a USB stick or another place.

8. Empty the Recycle Bin and check storage

Hopefully this has helped you get below that 2 GB. If you, you need to repeat and be a little more strict this time around!

9. Repeat regularly

In order to stay below the limit, go through these steps again on a regular basis.

10. Bonus tip: Give your folders different colours

(Added December 2023)

If you have many folders and would like to see in one glance what is what, you can now give your folders different colours. How cool is that?

Greg Zelfond explains how to do it and what to look out for: https://sharepointmaven.com/how-to-color-code-folders-in-sharepoint-and-onedrive/

Do you have tips?

Do you have experience with colleagues whose OneDrive fills up quickly? Any suggestions that we can use?

8 steps to retrieve a lost SharePoint document

We frequently get calls from colleagues whose documents have “disappeared” from their SharePoint site. Over time, we have come up with a few steps to investigate and (often) find them.

They are comparable with the steps taken when you misplace a OneDrive document, but finding lost documents in SharePoint is a bit more complicated than finding them in OneDrive:

• Other people can edit or delete documents
• You only have 1 OneDrive (which is one document library), but you probably work in multiple document libraries in multiple SharePoint sites
• Permissions can vary within and across sites

On the plus side, there is a Site Owner and a SharePoint admin who may be able to help you out!

What could have happened?

These are the most frequent “disappearing acts” of documents:

• Deleted (deleting a synced folder without disconnecting it first also deletes the documents from SharePoint!)
• Renamed
• Moved to another folder in the same document library
• Moved to another library in the site
• Moved to another site. This means the original document has been deleted.
• Moved to your OneDrive
• Permissions have changed and you no longer have access
• Metadata have changed so it appears in a different view than usual

Which tools are available?

• Search
• Recycle bin
• The document details pane
• The site owner or your SharePoint admin

Where to start?

Just like my post about the disappeared web parts and lost documents on OneDrive, I have thought about the best possible order to use the available tools. It may appear to be fastest if you go to the Recycle Bin first, but that may be quite a chore if your site is active, your document has been deleted some time ago and/or document name, the author or the suspected deleter starts with M or N. Sadly you can only Sort, and not Search, in the Recycle bin.

My suggestion would be to first try and find the document in the original library. But please, feel free to disagree! It also depends…:)

1. Search in the Document Library where it used to live

Found it? Open it to see whether this is the document you are looking for. It has most likely been moved from one folder to another, or metadata has changed so it appears in a different view. Take step 2 to find the location if you do not see it straight away and/or confirm with step 7 to see what exactly has happened if you are curious.

There are two documents in this library. You can click to open them from there or click “Show more results”

No luck? Move on!

2. Search in the SharePoint site

You can easily do this by clicking “Expand search to all items in this site” on the bottom of the Search results page from step 1.

You do not get any more results in this case, nor the exact location of your documents, but this view allows you to expand search and that will give you more info.

So there is another result if you search in the site. If you get too many results, you may want to use the Files tab and/or the Filters to narrow down. And…this view will show you the path of the document!

Found it? Note down the path and navigate to it to confirm this is the correct document. The document has been moved to another library. Confirm with step 7 if you feel the need.

No luck? Move on!

After this, you can do what is most easy for you.

3. Search from the SharePoint landing page

Found it? Well you are lucky! Unless your document has a very unique name, it will be hard to find between all the other documents in your organization. (Of course, using the Files tab and the Filters should help a little). So, it has been moved to another site. Note down the path and confirm it is the correct document. Confirm with step 7.

Results from SharePoint search. In this case you get results from all of SharePoint, so it will be necessary to narrow down the results by using the Files tab and the Filters. You see there is also a result from OneDrive.

Results from OneDrive are also shown in SharePoint search, so if you have accidentally moved the document to OneDrive, you will find it there as well. Unless you want to know WHEN you did this, there’s no need to confirm with step 7 as you are the only one who could have done this. 🙂

No luck? It has probably been deleted, renamed or had its permissions changed (with or without moving). Take any of the next steps to find out.

4. Search in Office365

Frankly, chances are slim that you will find it here but you can try! If it is not in OneDrive and not in SharePoint (including Teams) it may be in Outlook or Yammer but would you not remember if you have done that? But, just to be on the safe side, give it a try.

Found it? Congratulations! Now move it back to where it belongs!

No luck? Well, you really did not expect to find it after all your other trials, right? Time to look in the Recycle bin.

5. Check the Recycle bin

Found it? Restore it.

No luck? Move on!

6. Ask the site owner if they know, or to search in Library or Site

Found it? It has probably moved to a place to where you do not have access, or you have actively been removed from the access group. Discuss with the site owner to give you access again, if possible.

No luck? Move on.

7. Check the Document Library’s details pane

In some cases you may want to do this earlier, but especially in a busy SharePoint site you need to scroll a lot! If someone knows a good way to export the data into a nice Excel file or something, please let me know.

The details pane is context-sensitive and will display different details depending whether you are on the document library landing page or in a folder.

Nice icons, clear descriptions and clickable links for documents that are still in this folder or library. Deleted documents are not clickable.

Found it? Confirm it is the correct document and note down the path and/or new name.

No luck? There is one last option…to be done when all else fails.

8. Ask your SharePoint administrator

Your SharePoint admin will likely have permissions to everything so if they can not find the document in Office365 search, it will not exist in its original shape anymore.
Additionally, they can also check the 2nd stage Recycle bin to see if it has been deleted.

Found it in Office365 Search? Confirm it is the document, note down the path and ask the site owner to give you permissions again.
Found it in the 2nd Stage Recycle bin? Ask your SharePoint admin to restore it.
Confirm what has happened with step 7 and give your SharePoint admin a compliment on Yammer or Teams for everyone to see! 🙂

No luck? Sorry….

Any other thoughts?

Did I miss something? Do you think there is a better order? Any other tricks to share? Please let me know!

Image courtesy of ronnieb on Morguefile.com

4 steps to retrieve a lost OneDrive document

We sometimes get calls from colleagues who have lost a document in their OneDrive. Over time we have learned some procedures to try and find it.
Please be aware that the majority of my colleagues has a F3-license, so I am focusing on OneDrive Online only.

What could have happened?

• Deleted
• Renamed
• Moved to another folder
• Moved to SharePoint (which means deleted from your OneDrive)

Which tools are available?

• Search
• Recycle bin
• Document details pane

Where to start?

I would suggest to start either with Search or the Recycle bin. I love the details pane, and it has greatly improved since I last wrote about it, but as almost every change is captured, you will have a lot of scrolling to do.

So let’s start with

1. Search in OneDrive

The search results will show you where the document lives now. If you have many results, use the Filter option top right to narrow down the options. You can filter on modified date, document type and people’s names.

Found it? Phew, that was quick! That means it has been moved to another folder. Confirm it is the correct document and note down the new location. If you want to know WHEN you did this, check out the document details pane. Move the document back to its original folder if the move was an accident.

No luck? Well, there’s other ways to look!

2. Check the Recycle bin

The search box does not work for the Recycle bin. You can only sort.

Sadly you can only Sort in the Recycle bin, not Search, so if your document’s name starts with M or N, and it has been deleted some time ago, you will have to scroll a great deal.

Found it? Restore it! It will be back into its original folder, but if you forgot which one that was, you can Search again.

No luck? Well, it has been deleted or… it may have been moved to SharePoint more than 93 days ago, so let’s just have a look there.

3. Search on the SharePoint landing page

You will see where the document has moved to. If you get a lot of results, use the filter option!

Found it? Congratulations! Confirm it is the document you are looking for and remember where it is.

No luck? Most likely you have either deleted the document more than 93 days ago, or renamed the document. There’s only one way to find out!

4. Look in the document details pane

As I mentioned above, you can do this as step 1 or 2 but if you are using your OneDrive intensively, you may need to scroll a lot and the other steps may be quicker.

The details pane has improved a lot since I last wrote about it. It is now available for OneDrive for Business,  has clear icons and displays almost every change. It is context sensitive, so will display different things depending whether you are on your OneDrive landing page or in a folder. It also has clickable links for all documents that are still there. So please use this to check if the document has been renamed and/or moved.
If you have not been able to find the document in another way, this is the one option left. Scroll down until you see a “Deleted” or “Renamed” action for the document in question.

To create this screenshot, I created a new document from OneDrive, gave it a name, added text in the document, deleted and restored it, and then moved it to another folder. Now you have all the icons and descriptions!

Moving a document to SharePoint only results in a “Deleted” mention, so you have no indication whether it has been moved to SharePoint or just plain deleted.

Found it? Hopefully you renamed it! Click on the title and find out where it lives.

No luck? Sorry, this is all that I can think of…

Can you blame the person with whom you shared the document?

No. If you share the document with someone, they can only edit the text in the document. They can not rename, move or delete the file.

Any other thoughts?

Did I miss something? Do you think there is a better order? Any other tricks to share? Please let me know!

Next time…

…We are going to complicate things by trying to retrieve lost documents from SharePoint!

Picture by ronnieb on Morguefile.

SharePoint Holmes and the Invisible Image

The case

“It is possible to show the person’s picture in a list, next to the name?”  the user asked me. “Of course”, I said, but it depends on the list and the definition of the column. Let’s have a look.”

The user did a screenshare with me and showed me the list. It contained a number of “People or Group” columns.

We checked the settings of the columns and it turned out he had used the default option, “Name (with presence)”.

The default option when you create a “Group or Person” column.

So I showed him there were more options and that he’d better select “Name (with picture and details)”.

I suggested this option to make the picture show in the list

So he did, and he went back to the list. But no image was shown.

No image next to the name 😦

The investigation

1. I checked the column again, as this was unexpected behaviour. Yes, that was the right setting.
2. I also tried the other options, “Picture only” in various formats. But the image would not show.
3. I was flabbergasted. Microsoft Office, especially in the Modern fashion, has such an obsession about pictures, images, icons and other visuals that I could not understand why the picture would not show up. I mean, I have to look at myself all day but SharePoint would refuse this?
4. But then I thought, what about Classic View?

The solution

I switched to Classic View and there it was:

This was what the user was looking for!

The user was happy and changed the Advanced Settings to make sure this list would always open in Classic View for all the site’s users.

I am not so happy, however. This was a modern site with a modern list and a perfectly legit column setting. Why is the picture not displayed in the Modern View, knowing the emphasis Microsoft places on visuals?
Please note it is the same with Styles and Totals – they only display in Classic View 😦
I have already added a warning to my SharePoint Style Counsel blog…

Additionally, over time I have grown an aversion to the Classic view as I think it looks cluttered.

So, does anyone know when can we expect these display options to be available in the Modern view?

About SharePoint Holmes:
Part of my role is solving user issues. Sometimes they are so common that I have a standard response, but sometimes I need to do some sleuthing to understand and solve it.
As many of my readers are in a similar position, I thought I’d introduce SharePoint Holmes, SharePoint investigator, who will go through a few cases while working out loud.

Image courtesy of OpenClipArtVectors on Pixabay