Office 365 Distilled EP 16: Sweet and smokey sixteen!

16!! 16 episodes. Over 3500 listens. We are so happy. Does that mean that we have now grown up? Adult podcasters? Is that even a thing?
We even got a new intro! Did you notice it? On this episode we are taking a look at some things Microsoft promised to have released after Ignite 2018 and what isn’t there yet.

This time we will drink a brilliant 16 yo whisky (one of Marijn’s favorites) and we will get the T-shirts and stickers out.

After talking about Ignite last episodes, we wanted to dedicate this episode about things that are not (yet) released.

This tweet (because the slidedeck from Susan Hanley isn’t available anymore) is just brilliant: it lists all things Microsoft wants to release after the Ignite 2018 event.

Let’s take a look at these slides and see what we can find that is not released (yet).
To start off, Microsoft and the Office 365 teams are doing an amazing job. Almost everything that was announced has been released, with the exception of a few (albeit important) items. Also, with the introduction of Uservoice(s) for all Office 365 applications, Microsoft will work in a more agile way, tackling the most important items on that list first. This will ofcourse change the roll out schedule or even what they are rolling out. Big kudo’s for the teams for working this way!

We found 6 items that haven’t been released yet (in juli 2019).

8:35 Files tab in Teams

The elephant in the room. This was announced in 2018 at the SharePoint NA session, it was promised at ignite 2018 and it still isn’t there.
To be fair, libraries in SharePoint and Teams files are getting some improvements.. But still… This is getting ridiculous. It has been shown, so why is it not there yet?
Could it be that, like private channels in Microsoft Teams, this isn’t so easy to roll out ?

10:18 Folders in SharePoint recognize Teams channel connections

When you go to a Teams backend SharePoint document library, there is no way to know what folders in there are linked with a channel. Microsoft promised something here, to make it visually noticable which folders are the files back end.

Could we limit the depth of folders (to 3 levels deep for example?) Apparantly there is allready a uservoice item for this! https://sharepoint.uservoice.com/forums/329214-sites-and-collaboration/suggestions/38064529-limit-the-creation-of-sub-folders-to-maximum-level

12:57 Central asset library in SharePoint

Back in good old (just kidding) on prem SharePoint land, there was this notion of a Central Asset Library. This could be deployed so that it would contain the company-approved images to use on your sites and pages. It is coming back as “organisation assets”. You can set these up via PowerShell.

15:16 Time to read on word docs / keypoints on Word docs

You can look at the file card (on hover over a document) that will say how long it takes to read it, and what the keypoints are.
The question we pose is that the AI is looking at the number of words or if it also will take a look at how difficult the text is written to read ?
Can we connect it to the Graph technology so the system can learn how fast I read ?

25:03 Calendar in Teams

From the left application bar in Microsoft Teams you can click on the calendar. This is now just showing the current day and your meetings. Microsoft promised a more “Outlook” like feature around april and we haven’t heard anything about it since then.

25:55 Change root site to communication site in SharePoint

This one was a big one. To be able to change the “root site” into a modern Communication site would be a huge one. We are guessing that the wait is all about the new Home site template.

Now Microsoft go fix it and have it done before Friday 🙂
One of the major things the community is worried about is the speed of delivery towards different tenants. When the roll out starts, you have no idea on which of the next 21 days it will be hitting your tenant.

Whisky: Lagavulin 16 years old

After Steve shares the story about his first Lagavulin 16 (in Dublin, Ireland), we take a deeper look at this amazing whisky.

This is one of the best (in our humble opinions) scottish, islay whiskies in the world. The distilery is next to Laphroaig and Ardbeg on the south side of the Islay island. It doesn’t have the kick in the face like its neighbours, but it does has this great, intense nose. You can just keep on smelling.
The color is a golden, deep amber, initial notes are smokey (ofcourse), fruits, pepper. The first tastes have honey, maritime , oranges.
This sherry cask finished whisky has a lovely long aftertaste finishes this divine experience.

If you add a drop of water to it, wonderous indian spices and tea comes out. This is a wonderful experience that we didn’t do before. It completely changes the taste to something mellow.

Lagavulin 16 year old
Lagavulin 16 years old

About: Marijn

Marijn Somers (MVP) has over 14 years experience in the SharePoint world, starting out with SP2007. Over the years the focus has grown to Office 365, with a focus on collaboration and document management. He is a business consultant at Balestra and Principal Content Provider for "Mijn 365 Coach" that offers dutch employee video training. His main work tracks are around user adoption, training and coaching and governance. He is also not afraid to dig deeper in the technicalities with PowerShell, adaptive cards or custom formatting in lists and libraries. You can listen to him on the biweekly "Office 365 Distilled" podcast.