Latest SharePoint topics

This is one installment in our series “In Own Words” by Voitanos asking experienced SharePoint developers to share their thoughts on the new development model for SharePoint - the SharePoint Framework. In this series, we ask each person a series of questions and let them share their thoughts.

Chris Kent

What’s your background as a SharePoint developer?

I started off as an ASP developer, ASP.NET, and then someone handed me SharePoint 2007 and said, “Good luck.” So, just went from there. Started all .NET all the way, and eventually we went into the client side, right, through a content editor web part and doing all that. Filing SharePoint Framework and [Office] 365 and everything else.

A few months ago, we partnered up with Rencore on their third annual State of SharePoint and Office 365 customizations survey. The point of this survey was to learn and share how customers were customizing SharePoint & Office 365.

Today, continuing our partnership, I’m launching the first annual comprehensive State of SharePoint Development survey. This survey is for developers with the goal of obtaining and sharing the technical state of SharePoint developers around the world. The findings of this survey will then be summarized into a report that provides valuable insights.

My development course, Mastering the SharePoint Framework, is currently in pre-release. That means it isn’t content complete but subscribers will receive access to all content added to the course in the future.

Today I wrapped up and published sprint 8 which means I’m happy to share that one new chapter has been published to the Fundamentals course and are immediately available to all Mastering the SharePoint Framework Fundamentals & Ultimate bundle subscribers. In addition, a couple of lessons had minor bugfixes applied. This update also included a significant update to the Deployment to Production chapter with a bunch of new content!

In this webinar, host Andrew Connell welcomes fellow MVP Elio Struyf to discuss using components from two community projects Elio is behind in custom SharePoint Framework projects. What are these? Microsoft provides many out-of-the-box controls for use in custom client-side web parts that you can leverage both in the web part and the property pane. While there are plenty of controls, the community has stepped up and created many more controls that can be used in your projects.

This is one installment in our series “In Own Words” by Voitanos asking experienced SharePoint developers to share their thoughts on the new development model for SharePoint - the SharePoint Framework. In this series, we ask each person a series of questions and let them share their thoughts.

Paul Stork

My name is Paul Papanek Stork. I’m the owner and principle architect at Don’t PaPanic Consulting. I specialize primarily in consulting on Office 365, SharePoint, SharePoint online and Dynamics CRM.

After our first SharePoint Framework LIVE online course in January 2018, we’ve made some changes that we are excited to share with you based on your feedback and announce the next class is scheduled for April 17-20, 2018!

Addressing Your Feedback

After the first delivery in January, we collected feedback from those who attended as well as many others who were interested. We evaluated what you told us and have taken action… and we think you will like it.

Yesterday Microsoft released a new version of the SharePoint Framework (SPFx) generator to version 1.4.1. I took some time picking apart the update and in this post I will show you what these changes have in store for you. Not bad timing… this update is showing some love to developers with some highly anticipated features! Too bad they missed Valentine’s Day by just one day… wait… this a developer update… they were off by one… heeeeeyyyyy… I see what you did there… well played Microsoft!

This is one installment in our series “In Own Words” by Voitanos asking experienced SharePoint developers to share their thoughts on the new development model for SharePoint - the SharePoint Framework. In this series, we ask each person a series of questions and let them share their thoughts.

Sebastien Levert

My name is Seb - Sebastien Lever, from Montreal, Canada. I am an Office Dev MVP, for now more than four years and a half, whatever that half.

Office 365 & SharePoint Online provide multiple management options. From the tenant to site level, developers and administrators can leverage browser-based administrative interfaces to perform many tasks. However, some tasks can only be implemented via an API or the command line.

The Office 365 CLI, a cross-platform and community-driven project from the SharePoint PnP team, expands these command line tasks beyond the Windows platform and existing PowerShell options.

In this webinar, join MVP and long-time SharePoint developer Andrew Connell (AC) from Voitanos with MVP Waldek Mastykarz from Rencore for a 30-minute discussion and demonstration heavy webinar on the Office 365 CLI.

This is one installment in our series “In Own Words” by Voitanos asking experienced SharePoint developers to share their thoughts on the new development model for SharePoint - the SharePoint Framework. In this series, we ask each person a series of questions and let them share their thoughts.

Ryan Schouten

My name is Ryan Schouten, senior architect with ZAACT out of Utah.

Microsoft gives us a few options for managing our SharePoint Online environments. We can use the SharePoint Admin center, REST APIs, the CSOM and the SharePoint Online PowerShell. To fill the gaps, the SharePoint PnP group has created PowerShell cmdlets that cover additional tasks not covered by the Microsoft provided PowerShell. While these are good options, they aren’t very friendly to those who aren’t on the Windows platform. These two PowerShell options don’t leverage the cross-platform PowerShell, rather they are only available for the Windows platform.

This is one installment in our series “In Own Words” by Voitanos asking experienced SharePoint developers to share their thoughts on the new development model for SharePoint - the SharePoint Framework. In this series, we ask each person a series of questions and let them share their thoughts.

Prashant Bhoyar

My name is Prashant G. Bhoyar, I’m from Washington D.C. area and currently working as senior consultant with Withum Smith, and Brown.

This is one installment in our series “In Own Words” by Voitanos asking experienced SharePoint developers to share their thoughts on the new development model for SharePoint - the SharePoint Framework. In this series, we ask each person a series of questions and let them share their thoughts.

Jeremy Thake

Hi, my name is Jeremy Thake, I work at Hyperfish as a VP of Product Technology.

Ever wonder how your organization compares with other organizations in the same space? Have you sat at your desk and thought “I wonder if the challenges we are facing are the same as what others in the industry are facing?”

Now is your chance to find out!

I’m teaming up with Rencore this year to co-host two surveys.

State of SharePoint & Office 365 Customizations 2018 Survey

In this first survey by Rencore, you can share some information about your organization (anonymously of course) and learn how your organization compares to others in the industry on topics such as:

It’s hard to stay on top of all the latest news from Microsoft for SharePoint Developers. There are so many resources out there, wouldn’t it be nice for someone else to curate the news and what’s coming? Look no further!

In this brief 30-minute webinar, Andrew Connell covered the latest updates, news, what’s coming with the SharePoint Framework for developers and more in the SharePoint Framework State of the Union - January 2018!

This is one installment in our series “In Own Words” by Voitanos asking experienced SharePoint developers to share their thoughts on the new development model for SharePoint - the SharePoint Framework. In this series, we ask each person a series of questions and let them share their thoughts.

Doug Hemminger

My name is Doug Hemminger. I am a SharePoint Developer, Architect, focusing on Office 365, now based out of Chicago. And, I work for a company called SPR Consulting.

This is one installment in our series “In Own Words” by Voitanos asking experienced SharePoint developers to share their thoughts on the new development model for SharePoint - the SharePoint Framework. In this series, we ask each person a series of questions and let them share their thoughts.

Amit Vasu

My name is Amit Vasu. I’m a senior consultant, Office 365 in SharePoint. I’m an independent consultant from Toronto, Canada and I’ve been specializing in custom development using SharePoint and Office365.

I’m sitting here with a smile on my face as I sit back in these last few days of 2017, reflecting on the previous year and looking forward to next year. It’s been quite a ride, finally getting Voitanos off the ground and working up production. While the stakes are not comparable, I cannot help but see similarities with my experience this past year and what Tesla has been doing with their Model 3 sedan. From delays in the ramp up, to launch and now working through issues to increase production and output, I’m working through similar things at Voitanos on a much smaller scale.

Many developers picking up the SharePoint Framework are coming from a traditional SharePoint development background. Some of these people server-side developers primarily who may have some client-side development experience while others may have been customizing SharePoint using client-side development techniques for a while.

Well, I am just about a week away from the pre-release launch of my Mastering the SharePoint Framework developer course. Last week I wrote about the September 19th release & how the special 1-day only 50% sale will work. If you missed that, not to worry, watch the following video that explains the pre-release as well as the special 1-day sale (exclusive to you, my email subscribers):

Full details on the pre-release launch, special 1-day 50% sale, terms & conditions as well as frequently asked questions, can be found on the Voitanos website.

In the most recent SharePoint Patterns & Practices - JavaScript Special Interest Group meeting, Microsoft shared some news on the SharePoint Framework. The news fell into three buckets:

• Recent Updates
• Update on SPFx Modern UI Extensions
• SharePoint Framework Engineering Backlog

Recent Updates

The big news that in the last few weeks Microsoft introduced a new, and often requested, feature for SPFx: **tenant-scoped deployment for SPFx client-side web parts and extensions. This means addins or extensions can be deployed to all sites within your tenant just a single time!

This is one installment in our series “In Own Words” by Voitanos asking experienced SharePoint developers to share their thoughts on the new development model for SharePoint - the SharePoint Framework. In this series, we ask each person a series of questions and let them share their thoughts.

Wictor Wilen

My name is Wictor Wilen. I work for Avanade out of Sweden as SharePoint MVP. I’ve been working with SharePoint for quite some time, both on the developer side and the infrastructure side.

This is one installment in our series “In Own Words” by Voitanos asking experienced SharePoint developers to share their thoughts on the new development model for SharePoint - the SharePoint Framework. In this series, we ask each person a series of questions and let them share their thoughts.

Eric Shupps

I’m Eric Shupps, SharePoint Server MVP, President of Binary Wave.

This is one installment in our series “In Own Words” by Voitanos asking experienced SharePoint developers to share their thoughts on the new development model for SharePoint - the SharePoint Framework. In this series, we ask each person a series of questions and let them share their thoughts.

Julie Turner

Hi, my name is Julie Turner. I am a Principle Architect with Sympraxis Consulting. Part of that, I work for Blue Metal Architects as an architect.

This is one installment in our series “In Own Words” by Voitanos asking experienced SharePoint developers to share their thoughts on the new development model for SharePoint - the SharePoint Framework. In this series, we ask each person a series of questions and let them share their thoughts.

Mark Rackley

What’s your background as a SharePoint developer?

My name is Mark Rackley and I am the Chief Strategy Officer for Pait Group, that SharePoint consulting firm out of Cincinnati, Ohio. My background as a SharePoint developer goes back to the early days in 2007, so not quite the 2003 days like the old fossils, but in 2007. From there I did a lot of web part development, the feature development that you would do in Visual Studio. Then from there I slowly moved into client-side development, actually back in SharePoint 2007 because of some limitations we had with a client doing development in SharePoint.

This is one installment in our series “In Own Words” by Voitanos asking experienced SharePoint developers to share their thoughts on the new development model for SharePoint - the SharePoint Framework. In this series, we ask each person a series of questions and let them share their thoughts.

Wes Hackett

I’m Wes Hacket. I’m the CTO at Addin365, productivity and Office 365 product company in the UK. I’m also an Office Sever and Services MVP for the last four years.

Today Microsoft announced new updates coming to the SharePoint Framework ahead of their sessions at the Build Conference. In a blog post, Build integrated user experiences with new capabilities of SharePoint and OneDrive, they talked about four big additions that engineering is working on and will make it into a new developer preview of the SharePoint Framework by the end of May 2017.

So… what’s new you ask? Some of these things were teased up a bit in the last SharePoint JavaScript/SPFx PnP SIG meeting that I covered in a previous blog post.

In last week’s SharePoint Framework & JavaScript Special Interest Group meeting, Microsoft’s Vesa Juvonen shared what’s the engineering team at Microsoft is working on and more!

Updated SharePoint Framework Yeoman Generator

In early April, Microsoft quietly shipped two updates to the Yeoman generator for the SharePoint Framework, @microsoft/generator-sharepoint. The latest version is v1.0.2. The updates were fairly minor… I recently blogged about what you will find in the updates and how I figured out what the updates were as they aren’t well documented: SharePoint Framework Generator Updated to v1.0.2.

Did you know the SharePoint team at Microsoft updated the Yeoman generator, @microsoft/generator-sharepoint, twice in the last month? Yeah… I didn’t either until yesterday.

The final version was released on February 23, 2017, as version 1.0.0. They then slipped two more updates in early April in quick succession as versions 1.0.1 & 1.0.2. Unfortunately, Microsoft still hasn’t published the repo for the generator or made the homepage for it in the NPMJS registry of any use… just some boilerplate copy… so it’s not easy to figure out what’s changed.

Yesterday I was lucky enough to join THE Waldek Mastycarz in a webinar hosted by Rencore, the guys behind SPCAF! Did you miss the webinar? You can watch a recording of it from their site here: Rencore Webinar: Building Client-Side Web Parts with the SharePoint Framework.

We had a great turnout and collected some fantastic questions from the attendees. While we tried to answer as many of the questions during the webinar, we ran out of time because you guys had such great questions! Waldek and I collected the questions afterward and re-answered some with additional responses (as some were quick in the webinar in an effort to get through as many as possible in the allotted time) and address the ones we missed. You can see these combined responses on their associated blog post here: Webinar Recap: Building Client-Side Web Parts with the SharePoint Framework;

Earlier this week I presented a session at the Atlanta SharePoint User Group on Building Client Side Web Parts with the SharePoint Framework. I had my session planned well in advance, out but wanted to build the demos while they were fresh in my head. Last week I was out of work mode with my family relaxing on a beach in Mexico for Spring Break, so I planned to do build my demos yesterday morning, on Sunday. While we were supposed to return home Saturday night, we missed our international connection and got stuck overnight, not making it home until about 12pm EDT Sunday.

Yesterday Microsoft announced that the SharePoint Framework has reached the Generally Available milestone. That means we’re at v1! The development tools have been updated to v1 and the v1 bits are rolling out to Office 365 SharePoint Online tenants now. Microsoft said it will take about a week or so for it to reach all Office 365 tenancies.

You can get the details of this update from their wiki page in the main sp-dev-docs repo. So what change from RC0 to GA?

Last week I was in New Orleans presenting at the Nintex InspireX conference on building apps using the microservice approach with containers and Docker. During that week I sat down with Jeremy Thake of Hyperfish to talk about the SharePoint Framework and what it means for end users of SharePoint.

During this discussion we discussed:

• what is the new SharePoint Framework
• how the SharePoint Framework will effect the SharePoint user experience
• some tips on how to keep up with the SharePoint Framework

You can listen to the whole discussion on the Hypefish podcast.

If you are a SharePoint developer doing any work in SharePoint Online and you have held out on taking a look at the SharePoint Framework, now is a good time to start taking a look. We are currently at the release candidate 0 (RC0) and in the coming weeks, we can expect to see the generally available (GA) release. This release will support client-side web parts as Microsoft wanted to make sure they got that capability perfected… but they won’t stop there!