MPM Q3FY20 - What's New in SharePoint 2019

synchronization issues. For example, there were problems if a file name was too long or included special characters. SharePoint 2019 resolves all those issues. OneDrive is robust, works reliably, and can be used on both desktops and mobile devices. The hash sign (#) and percent sign (%) are supported in file and folder names in both SharePoint 2019 and OneDrive for Business, and the URL path length restriction has been increased from 260 Unicode code units to 400. The OneDrive sync client is marvelously easy to use, yet it supports advanced features such as Files On-Demand, push notifications and IRM protection. In fact, the sync feature works so well that organizations will be able to retire Box, Dropbox and other enterprise file sync and share (EFSS) solutions and consolidate on their Microsoft portfolio. By simplifying their IT ecosystem, the organization can reduce IT overhead, reduce costs, and enhance user productivity and satisfaction. SharePoint home page In the past, users had to use bookmarks to keep track of their favorite SharePoint sites. Now, they can easily create a beautiful SharePoint home page that gives them unified access to all their sites, both on-premises and in the cloud. From a single pane view, they can quickly catch up with what’s been going on within their teams and projects, navigate seamlessly through their intranet, and get a personalized view of news from the sites they're following, as well as recommendations for additional sites that are likely to be of interest. As noted earlier, the SharePoint home page also features a Create site button that enables users to create sites in seconds without any help from IT. SharePoint mobile app Finally, there’s the new SharePoint mobile app, which enables users to stay connected and informed — even when they’re on the go. They can stay engaged with their team sites and get notified when someone posts a comment on a page they authored or responds to a comment they have made. In addition, they can quickly open and preview Office documents, “like” news posts or modern pages, and view their SharePoint calendar. In short, the SharePoint mobile app puts the intranet in the user’s pocket. 3 SHOULD YOUR ORGANIZATION INVEST IN SHAREPOINT 2019? Clearly, SharePoint 2019 has a lot of new features and functionality to offer. But does it make much business sense to adopt it? After all, Microsoft has made it abundantly clear that its focus is the cloud — in this case, SharePoint Online. Why bother to upgrade your on-prem deployment at all? The very existence of SharePoint 2019 is evidence that many organizations are not yet ready or able to fully embrace the cloud. For a variety of reasons, including both practical and security concerns, they are choosing to maintain either an exclusively on-premises SharePoint environment or a hybrid deployment. In either case, there are compelling reasons to upgrade to the new on-premises version of SharePoint: you’ll see a sound return on investment (ROI), you will reduce risk significantly, and you’ll position your organization for a move to SharePoint Online in the future. Migrating delivers a sound return on investment. As we explored the key new features and enhancements in SharePoint 2019, you might have noticed a common theme: streamlining the work of both business users and IT teams. SharePoint 2019 enables users to easily get the information they need when they need it and respond faster to the needs of customers and the business. Its support for all the various form factors ensures they can collaborate and be productive anywhere, anytime. Since IT is no longer a bottleneck in site creation, the business can be far more agile and seize more opportunities. The benefits of that increased productivity and agility are hard to quantify, but they can be substantial. We also discussed some more concrete cost benefits. You’ll no longer need to budget for expensive site designers and custom developers, since your business users will be able to easily create compelling sites on their own. And having a simpler, more intuitive solution will reduce IT workload, including helpdesk costs. Migrating to SharePoint 2019 can improve user productivity and business agility while reducing costs and IT complexity — which adds up to a sound ROI. SharePoint 2019 is a single collaboration suite that eliminates the need to purchase, install and manage multiple products from different vendors, or build and support your own custom solutions. You don't have to rely on a separate intranet solution, a separate file storage tool, a separate mobile application, a separate document management tool and so on — you get it all in one solution. By consolidating on SharePoint, you’ll reduce licensing, maintenance and training costs. Migrating reduces risk. By choosing proven migration solutions and an experienced partner, you can minimize disruption and ensure your new SharePoint 2019 delivers the most value. Beyond the question of ROI are very real concerns about business risk. You know full well that no software solution is supported forever, and staying on a deprecated version brings significant risk. It’s not just about missing out on the latest and greatest functionality; if you’re running an old version of a product, the vendor will no longer provide security patches, or even support with functionality issues. While that might be okay for a relatively minor tool that a particular team uses only occasionally, it’s not a wise strategy for any key piece of your IT ecosystem — and as the system your business relies on for storing and sharing information, SharePoint certainly qualifies as mission-critical. Migrating enables you to become cloud-ready. We’ve seen that SharePoint 2019 offers a modern experience with features drawn directly from SharePoint Online. By delivering that modern experience, your organization will look much better, both internally and externally, helping you attract the best talent and bring the skill sets of your current staff up to date. If you have a hybrid SharePoint deployment, users can work seamlessly, as we saw with the federated search and the integrated home page. Moreover, you’ll be well-positioned for the future: When you decide to move to SharePoint Online, you’ll be cloud-ready, and the transition will be much easier for IT and business users alike. There are ways to minimize disruption to business operations. Of course, migration by its very nature means changes to user workflows, 4 business processes and IT routines. SharePoint 2019 offers many valuable new features, but some existing features are deprecated. Organizations are right to be concerned about how the move will affect business operations. Having the right tools and expertise makes all the difference. By investing in proven solutions that can deliver a seamless migration, you can minimize disruption across the organization, and by relying on experts who have performed thousands of migrations, you can ensure your new environment delivers the most value. And there’s no better migration partner than Quest. CHOOSING THE RIGHT MIGRATION SOLUTION Quest is the hands-down expert in Microsoft platform migration and consolidation, and our acquisition of Metalogix solidifies that position with unmatched solutions purpose-built for SharePoint migration and management. Only with Quest can you get end-toend solutions that not only help you plan and execute a ZeroIMPACT SharePoint migration but effectively manage the new environment and ensure proper governance and regulatory compliance — no matter what source platform you’re starting from and which version of SharePoint you’re migrating to. Whether you have an on-premises, cloud or hybrid environment, we offer SharePoint solutions that will simplify your: • Pre-migration assessment •