Monthly Archives: November 2013

SharePoint Online introduces the Touch Design mobile experience

Mark Kashman (@mkashman) is a senior product manager on the SharePoint team.  by Office 365 Team

With the new SharePoint we brought important innovations for how users interact with SharePoint sites and content on mobile devices: contemporary views, device channels, and new native apps (SkyDrive Pro apps and SharePoint Newsfeed apps). From the start, touch has been a key area of investment across all of the products in the new Office, and SharePoint is no exception. Now we’re making SharePoint even more touch friendly.

The new Touch Design mobile pages enhance the touch experience of two core SharePoint components, SkyDrive Pro and Sites. Now, when you access SharePoint Online from smaller devices-from 11-inch screens down to 4-inch-you have a new app-like experience that enables you to work your best with your documents and team sites.

Office 365 business users will see the new Touch Design pages over the next few week as we roll out worldwide.

The Touch Design view of “my documents” in SkyDrive Pro on an 11-inch touch tablet device.

Backstage of the Touch Design experience on a 11-inch screen showing navigation access to Office 365 tiles.

See the lists of supported mobile device browsers in SharePoint 2013.

Let’s take a closer look at how the Touch Design pages work.

SharePoint Online and the new Touch Design experience

Touch Design creates new and improved mobile browser views and experiences for SkyDrive Pro and Sites in Office 365. The app-like design, with documents displayed as big touchable tiles on the screen, was first introduced with the recently announced OWA for iPhone and iPad. With the new Touch Design pages in SkyDrive Pro and Sites, you touch tiles to view your documents, documents shared with you, or documents you follow. You can also open documents or share the URL of a document with other users using touch.

After reviewing a document or site, the next action you might want to take is share. So we made it super easy to share documents. To share a document, simply tap the share icon in the upper right (as pictured below), and then enter the recipient’s email address, the level of access (view or edit) you want to provide, and whether you require sign-in. This is the same external sharing process that has been of great value to Office 365 customers since we launched Office 365.

You can share a document (internally or externally) from the backstage view in Touch Design. To open the backstage, tap the ellipsis next to the document.

The new Touch Design pages will load by default on most devices. If you’re working on a Surface or other Windows tablet, Windows Phone, an iPhone or iPad, or an Android phone or tablet, when you land on SkyDrive Pro or Sites, the new Touch Design interface automatically appears.

Navigation

Once signed in, you can switch between SkyDrive Pro and Sites by tapping the navigation icon in the bottom left corner of the page. You may also see tiles for other components of Office 365 you subscribe to: mail, calendar, and contacts.

Tap the icon in the lower left to access the backstage, which shows tiles you can tap to reach SkyDrive Pro or Sites.

Touch Design scales to smaller devices

Touch Design was developed to scale to the optimal experience on smaller devices, from 11-inch devices down to 4-inch screens. The user experience is exactly the same for pages displayed on devices smaller than 11 inches as it is for pages displayed on 11-inch devices, which we described above. You have the same access to your documents and sites on smaller devices, too.

Here’s how Touch Design looks like on a 4-inch screen when you perform four common actions.

Backstage of the Touch Design experience on a 4-inch screen showing navigation access to Office 365 tiles.  After clicking into the SkyDrive Pro tile, you see a “shared with me” documents pivot.

After clicking into the SkyDrive Pro tile, you see a “followed” documents pivot.  After clicking into the Sites tile, you see a list of sites you’re following.

You are more mobile than ever

Today’s announcement brings greater touchability to core SharePoint destinations in Office 365-SkyDrive Pro and Sites-across your devices. And there’s more to come. Fingers ready…set…GO!

Thanks.

–Mark Kashman, @mkashman

FAQ

Q:  Which Office 365 plans will receive the new Touch Design mobile pages?

A:  The new Touch Design mobile pages are now available for all Office 365 for business users. Specifically, these plans are: Office 365 Small Business (P1), Office 365 Small Business Premium (P2), Office 365 Midsize Business, Office 365 Enterprise E1, E3, and E4, Office 365 Education A2, A3, and A4, Office 365 government G1, G3, and G4, and Office 365 Enterprise E3 for Nonprofits.

Q. Does this announcement apply to Office 365 dedicated subscribers?

A. No. The Office 365 dedicated plans are not receiving this same update at this time, because they are managed in a unique, isolated infrastructure.

Q. Does this announcement apply to customers who have deployed SharePoint 2013 on-premises?

A. No. This update applies only to the Office 365 service instance of SharePoint Online.

Office Remote – Windows Phone Remote Access for Microsoft Office

Office Remote

Office Remote turns your Windows Phone into a smart remote for Microsoft Office, providing convenient touch-based control of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents projected from your PC. It lets you show what you want, when you want, with all the freedom you need to walk around and connect with your audience.

Office Remote is a Microsoft Research application developed in partnership with Microsoft Office. The goal of our ongoing collaboration is to create more natural and seamless interaction across multiple screens and devices, in ways that help people to create and communicate more effectively.

Video

Releasing Office Remote as a research application is one of many ways in which we hope to gain a deeper understanding of real-world presentation practices. Try it out and let us know what you think. Your feedback is valuable to us, and we will use it to inform the design of new tools, technologies, and applications that have the potential to transform everyday productivity activities for the better.

Requirements

– Microsoft Office 2013 (does not work with earlier or RT versions)
– Bluetooth on your PC (does not work on PCs without Bluetooth)
– Desktop Add-In for Office installed on your PC (download here)

Usage

Open the Office documents you want to project, pick up your phone, and you are ready to present.

Start your PowerPoint slideshow and navigate slides with ease. Large, easy to reach buttons give you direct access to the next and previous slides, while bringing up the list of slide thumbnails gives you fast access to any presentation slide without missing a beat.

Stay on time and on-message with a glanceable timer, progress indicator, and speaker cues extracted from your slide notes.

Want to highlight a key point? Simply activate the touch-based laser pointer for accurate, non-shaky pointing at a distance.

Want to share data? Jump into Excel spreadsheets and hop between sheets and graphs. Wow your audience by controlling complex data slicers from the palm of your hand, bringing your argument to life.

How about more details? Smoothly switch to Word documents, scrolling freely or jumping directly to specific sections or comments.

Here is a full list of features incorporated in Office Remote:

PowerPoint

– Navigate next slide/previous slide
– View slide thumbnails and jump to slide
– View speaker notes on phone
– View presentation timer and slide progress
– Laser point using touch on your phone

Excel

– Navigate rows and columns
– Change sheets by swiping
– Use Slicers, PivotTables and Filters
– Jump to any named object in your workbook
– Change zoom level

Word

– Jump to headings
– Jump to comments
– Screen up/down
– Line up/down
– Change zoom level

 

Download

Mobile App for Windows Phone 8

Desktop Add-In for Office 2013

Move to Office 365 Fast with Free Funding from Microsoft

Move to Office 365 fast from Atidan
For a limited time, Office 365 customers can save thousands of dollars on deployment.

Buy a minimum of 150 qualifying Office 3651 seats between September 2013 and March 2014 and we’ll help you accelerate your adoption of Office 365 by investing in Office 365 FastTrack Step 2 deployment activities with Atidan.

The more seats you buy, the more we invest in your deployment

With the Office 365 Deployment offer, Microsoft will contribute to your successful deployment:

Number of eligible Office 365 seats Deployment investment paid to Atidan2
1,000 or more $20,000
250-999 $12,000
150-249 $5,000

Get Atidan’s expertise to help you deploy

The Office 365 Deployment offer can help you offset the costs of partner-led deployment activities in an Office 365 FastTrack Step 2 engagement. These can include:

  • IT-led migration
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How the offer works

When you buy at least 150 Office 365 Exchange Online or Office 365 Enterprise seats between September 2013 and March 2014, we’ll help you speed up adoption using the FastTrack Step 2 methodology. The deployment investment is paid directly to Atidan.

With the new Microsoft FastTrack deployment methodology, you can use the service within hours, deploy within days, and add features on your own terms in just weeks. Learn more about the FastTrack three-step approach to Office 365 deployment.

How to get started

  1. Read the details of the Office 365 Deployment offer, including the Terms & Conditions.
  2. Buy 150 or more seats of an Office 365 Enterprise plan or an Office 365 Exchange Online plan. Add the seats to your cart, and then complete your purchase. Compare plans.
  3. Select a deployment partner.
1 This offer is good on net new Office 365 Enterprise plan or Exchange Online seats and is available to commercial and government customers in all countries where Office 365 is available. Customers must buy a minimum of 150 net new seats during the September 1, 2013 to March 31, 2014 offer period. This investment is paid directly to Atidan. Volume Licensing customers may also qualify for this offer. Please see your Microsoft or Atidan representative for details.
2 All investment amounts listed in USD; equivalents are based on published Microsoft exchange rates.