Choose when and how you want to receive Office 365 updates (all about rings)

One of the best thing you get from Office 365 or, any Microsoft Cloud stack related product for that matter is that, you are eligible to receive product updates (enhancements, fixes, security updates, new features and so on) regularly for no effort or massive costs on platform migrations every few years. It means Microsoft enhances your experience almost every month now, for no additional cost. ! Yes you go that right !

With this post, we will see how we can change the way cookie crumble !. Let’s find out how you can change the update ring so that your tenant will receive updates earlier than the other who are waiting for public release.

Important note (Microsoft): The Office 365 updates mentioned in this blog applies to Office 365, SharePoint Online, and Exchange Online. And do not apply to Skype for Business and related services. These release options are targeted, best effort ways to release changes to Office 365 but cannot be guaranteed at all times or for all updates.

There are 4 rings in Microsoft release management strategy. This is also known as Release Validation.

Any new update is first goes to the respective feature teams and then to the entire Office 365 product team. The entire Microsoft team is the next to receive this to validate the solidness before it goes out to customers. 3rd ring is the Targeted release who will receive it right after Microsoft’s. Finally the Worldwide release (general availability) to those who are waiting for the finest.  3rd ring here (or Targeted) has the advantage here to receive it earlier than the others in the final ring.

Login in to your Office 365 Work or School account with Admin privileges and click on the App Launcher to start.

Important Note (Microsoft): It can take up to 24 hours for the below changes to take effect in Office 365. If you opt out of targeted release after enabling it, your users may lose access to features that haven’t reached the scheduled release yet.

From the app Launcher –> Head on to Admin and click “Show all” to expand blades.

Expand Settings –> Click on “Organization Profile”. If you have not done this before, you would immediately see the release preferences stays in Standard release mode which means you are in the last ring.

There are a few things to be aware before you choose your option here:

1. If you setup target release for everyone, it’d better be a test (or POC, UAT) subscription as the change is going to affect for all users in the organization.
2. 3rd option is the best ! you do not need to have a dedicated test subscription here, as you have few set of users to enable this so it won’t affect to production users. In my case, I only have 5 users in my tenant and I will change the track for my account only. It means, you can have mixed experience users in a single organization (single O365 tenant). Once you choose the best for you, hit “Next” to proceed here.

You have to say “Yes” to this.

In just a second you will get this message if everything went well. 99,99 it does !

By adding people you can define the group you set as target release users. These are the only users going to get the latest during the ring 3 releases (Target) so in my case, it’s just going to be me only. Hit “Save” to complete it.

Close the message. And head back to Organization Profile.

You should notice the change here. And, you can change the target group of people by adding one or more people under Action menu.

To Add more, next to Release preferences, click Actions –> + Bulk add people for first release under the Standard release heading.
Choose Browse to select a file containing each person’s email address –>
Click Next and then Close.

Until next post, enjoy the updates !!

DISCLAIMER NOTE: This is an enthusiast post and is not sponsored by Microsoft or any other vendor.

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SharePoint All New Intelligent Intranet: Future of SharePoint Global Event at a Glance

The SharePoint Begins and MAY THE COMMUNITY BE WITH YOU !

With the global event of Future of SharePoint by Microsoft, here I’m covering some key areas highlighted during the presentation and demo.

SharePoint 2016 is the most reliable, rock-solid release ever done by Microsoft “Seth Patton – General Manager SharePoint and OneDrive”

• This is a Foundational release not the last server release. Born in the cloud, Delivered on-premises, Hybrid at core.
• The Most Comprehensive, Validated, tested version of SharePoint history so far.
• Built for continuous innovation and improvements.

The first point is a huge breath release for all SharePoint lovers across the globe for sure. Swipe your sweat and this is the biggest news on the event which means the absolute SharePoint era is just began. Finally with the mobile first cloud first strategy, Microsoft brings SharePoint in to the arena with trending capabilities with all new technological changes.

SharePoint 2016 is the most comprehensive, validated and tested version so far. bringing the power used in Office 365 in to SharePoint 2016 is a big leap in terms of performance and experience. and that seems to be very much true because my deployment proved it with the experience I had with SharePoint 2016 compare to 2013. Performance and experience wise, this is obviously the most robust and wonderful (few things yet to come though !).

Key Areas:

• User Experience
• Compliance and Policies
• Hybrid Cloud
• Insights (based on graphs) end to end security and manageability
• Comprehensive DLP and E-Discovery

SharePoint is very much core to the productivity and core to the Office 365 platform. And it is central to Office 365. This means a lot for SharePoint community indeed. It is obvious in this people and data centric era, SharePoint acts the biggest role.

It was previously the SharePoint wheel if you remember. Those features won’t die and don’t get misled with this image. This isn’t the new version of SharePoint wheel. These are the improvements were highlighted by Microsoft as bolt investments carrying out.

New Site Creation

Easy and faster site creation with the Group Integration and a brand-new UI.

New Mobile App for both SharePoint online and On-Premise will be rolled out this year. Mobile app isn’t new but an effective and nice looking mobile app was one thing missed the most for SharePoint specifically for Intranets. Ultimately you will get your Intelligent Intranet in your Pocket with these wonderful capabilities along with Office Graphs.

Activity Feed for various sites will allow you to navigate across sites and content easily than ever before.

Frequent (navigate across both On-Prem and Cloud Content effectively)

Used office graphs to Display people who often interacts with you.

And tap in to profiles simply via People Tap. See the content they are working on and even communicate straightaway.

New SharePoint Home

Finally an all New home for SharePoint. The Left navigation is there but not the traditional ways it supposed to be in any previous versions. Sites and Links are nicely displayed in the left panel while the Frequent and Suggested items are shown in the Main area with the Office Graphs Intelligence. You can create a new site right away thought the link given and even follow a site straight from the same area.

New team Sites Experience

Either on Web or Mobile, All new Team Sites experience is just looks incredible. Finally Microsoft has bought the trending user experience to pages. News and Activities are by default displayed with the power of office graph. Office graph is everywhere and it understands your work pattern and trend then brings you the most awaited experience all over the portal.

The Experience is showed in Office 365 SharePoint and it might also get in to SharePoint On-Premise in the future with the updates (well, that’s the wish!)

All in all, the new site experience is definitely a huge change in terms of design and the performance perspectives. Creation of a Page, site or a library is incredibly faster than it was so that will simply grab the user adoption and attraction.

Simple File Sharing

1. Deep Office Integration (office, PPT and all works hard to make this integration more seamless)
2. Rock solid Sync
3. Intuitive browser experience
4. Seamless collaboration
5. 4+ star-rated mobile apps
6. Intelligence – Power of Office Graph (helping you to be productive with)

Document Libraries Redefined

Introduced under the Unified access and intelligent Discovery, a Seamless experience given to Libraries as your experience on OneDrive. With these new Library improvements, you will get the same experience as you interact with OneDrive Interface.

Faster Uploading and Syncing with more key board Interaction commands. This Library experience will provide you full power with the consistency of OneDrive. Doesn’t matter where you are and what type of a device you use, your experience will yet remain the same.

These Capabilities are Rolling out this quarter:

• Access to SharePoint Online document libraries and Office 365 Group files from the OneDrive mobile app.
• Intelligent discovery of documents from both OneDrive and SharePoint.
• Copy from OneDrive to SharePoint in the OneDrive web experience.
• OneDrive Universal Windows Platform (UWP) application.

And within this year (2016):

• Document analytics surfaced in OneDrive to provide insight into document usage, reach and impact.
• Synchronization of SharePoint Online document libraries with the new OneDrive sync client.
• Synchronization of shared folders with the new OneDrive sync client.
• Mobile access to SharePoint document libraries in on-premises farms.
• Move and copy files between OneDrive and SharePoint in web experiences.

One of the most excited INSIGHTS

Community was so much exited to see the insights. There were many rumors about this capability but the ultimate idea is to provide Comprehensive Security and Compliance power to SharePoint In-Premise which is powered by Office 365. Office 365 operates with a massive commitment to security, privacy and compliance. Insights will provide you the same capabilities to have in your in-premise environment via the Hybrid Integration. All new DLP (Data Loss Prevention) features will be then available to SharePoint in-premise as same as Online.

Office 365 Currently Supports:

• Customer Lockbox.
• DLP, mobile device management (MDM) and mobile application management (MAM).
• Whitelist and blacklist domains for external sharing.

Releasing Within this quarter:

• Dynamic conditional access policies.

Releasing End of the Year 2016:

• New datacenters in Germany and Canada.
• Bring your own encryption key.
• Granular access controls.
• SharePoint site classification.
• Hybrid SharePoint Insights (preview).

Biggest News was for the Developers

The SharePoint Framework introduced and will be available soon. A Page and Part model based Open platform with full Client-Side development support was an incredible news for Developers indeed. This is much awaited renovation for long time and now here it comes at the right time with Mobile-First Cloud-First era. Pretty sure that developers are the most exited audience during the whole presentation.

Microsoft Graph, Microsoft Flow, Power Apps, Power BI and finally SharePoint Framework. Now we know where we have been heading from last few years by seeing this lineup isn’t it? Yes the SharePoint feels to be just began !

Microsoft planned to release these in 3rd quarter in 2016:

• The Files API on Microsoft Graph.
• SharePoint Webhooks (preview).
• Client-side web parts for existing pages (preview).

And in the end of 2016:

• The Sites API on Microsoft Graph.
• SharePoint Webhooks (GA).
• Custom sites on the SharePoint Framework.

What and year full surprises for SharePoint community ahead !. Stay Tuned with updates here – https://blogs.office.com/2016

More Resources:

Announcing simple and powerful file sharing and collaboration for Office 365

Power to the people—introducing Microsoft Flow and announcing the public preview of PowerApps

Flow and SharePoint

PowerApps and SharePoint

SharePoint—the mobile and intelligent intranet

The SharePoint Framework—an open and connected platform

SharePoint Server 2016—your foundation for the future

Office 365 Trust Center

May 2014 Cumulative has been Released for SharePoint 2013

Microsoft has recently announced the May 2014 Cumulative Package for SharePoint 2013 Foundation | Server under the Build No of 15.0.4605.1004 (Version No).

Download the Packages here – http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/jj891062.aspx

Notes:

1. Before you apply the Cumulative in Production Environments, test the same in a Staging Environment thoroughly.
2. Consider to apply this only if you are getting the mentioned issues below because it doesn’t deliver any extra benefits for you except the mentioned fixes. 

Prerequisites:

It is compulsory to have March 2013 Public Update Installed Prior to this Installation. Your farm Should have been updated with the same. Download March 2013 CU here – http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2767999 

List of Issues Fixed by this package are as below:

1. When SharePoint Server 2013 claims the provider returns no matches, the people picker still displays a suggestion from the user information list.
2. When you create a site by using a custom site template, the composed looks list is empty.
3. When you view the slides in picture library, pictures may not display if the file name contains complex characters such as multibyte characters.
4. When you create a site from a saved template that contains an AlternateCSSUrl property, the AlternateHeaderUrl value is set to the AlternateCSSUrl value incorrectly.
5. When you add a link to the reusable HTML field in a reusable content item, the link does not work as expected.
6. You cannot send alerts to a security group instead of a user.
7. When you try to upload a file that exists and is checked out to a SharePoint Server 2013 document library, you receive an error message that displays the logon name instead of the display name.
8. When you use some reusable content in a variations context, the reusable content is displayed incorrectly if the labels are in certain languages.
9. When you change the fallback language on a SharePoint Server 2013 server, you experience high CPU usage on the server.
10. When you configure Forms-Based Authentication (FBA) with active directory as back end for a SharePoint Server farm, the "Everyone" view on the Newsfeed page displays an error.
11. When you view a non-published page anonymously, you receive an unexpected error.
12. When you try to import user properties from business data connectivity (BDC) and activity directory (AD) at the same time, the time zone is not updated.
13. When you experience an error during ping checks in the health check of Office Web App Server (WAC), all future checks fail until you restart the process.
14. When you select a Web Part on a publishing page, the ribbon context is changed incorrectly.
15. Assume that you create a list workflow on list A that creates an item on list B. Then, you create another list workflow on list B. When you create an item on list A and start the workflow for the list, list B is not triggered as expected.
16. When you use SharePoint Designer 2013 to deploy a workflow that contains an activity that adds an item to the workflow history, the workflow fails.
17. When you reply to a discussion board item that is created by an anonymous user, you encounter an error if you are an anonymous user.
18. When SharePoint Designer 2013 workflows contain one or more local variables and there is a disconnected stage, you cannot load the workflows.
19. When you load a contact list that contains many users in SharePoint Designer 2013, it takes longer than expected.
20. When you try to create SharePoint Server 2013 workflows in SharePoint Designer 2013, you receive the following error message:

    Retrying last request. Next attempt scheduled in less than one minute.

Windows 8.1 Update has been released to TechNet and MSDN

Microsoft has been announced an update for Windows RT, 8.1 and Server 2012 R2 which is now available in TechNet and MSDN. General Public will get this by 6th April.

however it will not contain the Generic Start Menu as it will only contain in Update 2 which is not yet announced.

find here the changes contains in this package – http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/windowsexperience/archive/2014/04/02/windows-8-1-update-important-refinements-to-the-windows-experience.aspx

This package contains 6 Separate Installer files and Here is the recommended order of installing.

1.  KB2919442
2.  KB2919355
3.  KB2932046
4.  KB2937592
5.  KB2938439
6.  KB2949621

August 2013 Cumulative Update Now Available for SharePoint 2013

If your SharePoint 2013 Farm is just RTM, Make sure that you have installed March PU prior to the August Update as it’s mandatory to proceed with future updates.

If you aren’t having March PU, you wont be able to proceed with any later updates and below error will pop out.

“The expected version of the product was not found on the system”

KB 2817517 – SharePoint Foundation 2013

KB 2817616 – SharePoint Server 2013

KB 2817521 – Office Web Apps Server 2013

KB 2817507 – SharePoint Designer 2013

KB 2817615 – SharePoint Server 2013 with Project Server 2013

Note :

Anyway what’s the difference between PU and a CU package. Stefan Gobner has written a informative article for TechNet which I would suggest you to refer on this.

Further information, for Farm which are having Search Components and Highly available search topologies are enabled across servers refer to Kirk Stark’s Article on How to install update packages on a SharePoint farm where search component and high availability search topologies are enabled (which is well described)