Observations on ‘Move To’ in SharePoint Online

The following are observations from using the 'Move To' function in a SharePoint Online library to move close to 18,500 files and folders over a weekend, from a 'classic' SharePoint subsite in a SharePoint Online site to a new and 'free standing' site in the same tenant. The moving was completed over a weekend to …

What happens when files are moved in SharePoint?

Every SharePoint document library, including the Teams 'Files' tab, includes the ability to move or copy files somewhere else in the tenant. For some unknown reason, the arrow in the SharePoint library points to the right but in Teams it points to the left, and in Teams the 'to' is missing. What actually happens when …

Sensitivity labels in Microsoft 365

Sensitivity labels are one element in a range of tools that can be deployed in Microsoft 365 to protect information, as shown in the diagram below. Image source: Microsoft page 'What is Azure Information Protection' If you are new to information protection, it is important to understand that Azure Information Protection (AIP) is not the …

Where are the records in Microsoft 365?

One of the consequences of the (relatively sudden) requirement to work from home from early 2020, was that Microsoft 365 - primarily Outlook and Teams (with 'Files' or SharePoint and OneDrive for Business behind the scenes) - became the de facto system to create and capture 'unstructured' records. Unlike centralised electronic document and records management …

Factors that can affect search outcomes in SharePoint

Searches from the search bar on a SharePoint Online site can sometimes return unexpected results. My previous post titled 'How the search scope returns search results in SharePoint' explored how the search scope setting can influence results. Searches in SharePoint Online (from sites, hub sites, the end-user SharePoint portal or via Teams) generally produce good results …

How the search scope returns search results in SharePoint

In April 2019, Kerem Yuceturk posted an article on the Tech Community site titled 'Configure modern search results to search all of your organization (rather than the current site'. He stated that '... there is a desire for being able to change the behavior to always search over the whole organization, or across the hub …

Avoid using folders to aggregate records in SharePoint

Folders provide a simple way to group content on network file shares. But, while they may look the same in SharePoint (or in a synced library in Windows File Explorer), and are the default way to group content in Teams-linked SharePoint sites, they are not always the best way to aggregate let alone manage digital …

Changing patterns of office work

A recent (September 2021) Verge post titled 'File Not Found' by Monica Chin (@mcsquared96) noted how pre-defined storage locations for digital content have become mostly redundant for the younger generation that grew up using Google to find content - 'the concept of file folders and directories, essential to previous generations’ understanding of computers, is gibberish …

Sync vs Add Shortcut to OneDrive from SharePoint

Microsoft 365 provides two primary locations for end-users to create and capture document type content - OneDrive for Business ('my files') and SharePoint Online ('our files'). Both of these can be accessed from the Chats (ODfB) and Team channels files (SPO) tabs in MS Teams. Both OneDrive for Business and SharePoint (including via the Files …

A basic retention model for Microsoft Teams

In my previous post about managing inactive Teams, the third option listed was to apply retention policies to those Teams. It included the graphic below. This post provides more details of a basic retention model that can be applied to both active and inactive Teams. Key takeaways Key takeaways from this post for records and …