Posts by Joaoferreira

How to import Excel spreadsheets to SharePoint as lists

Excel and SharePoint lists were always connected and have a lot in common however the available methods to transform a spreadsheet into a list were outdated and not compliant with the latest web standards.

During the last Microsoft Build the world was introduced to the new Microsoft Lists, a new application in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem that will leverage the power of SharePoint list. While we don’t have the chance to play with Microsoft Lists a new feature to import Excel spreadsheets has landed on SharePoint.

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By João Ferreira May 31, 2020 SharePoint 4 Comments

How to create an index for SharePoint Spaces using the content query web part

SharePoint Spaces are great and allow you to display data like never before however they are just regular pages and there is no place where you can get a central view of all the spaces you have created.

As part of the Library series of articles I’ve been doing (you can read more about it here and here) in this one I’ll show you how to build an index to display SharePoint Spaces using the content query web part.

The content query web part is an open source project included in the PnP initiative and it just got updated to make use of the latest version of the SharePoint Framework.

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By João Ferreira May 10, 2020 Development, Spaces 0 Comments

Create SharePoint Spaces templates using PnP PowerShell

After a few days exploring SharePoint Spaces I felt the necessity to get a pre-built template instead of starting from scratch every time.

Since SharePoint Spaces are created in the Site Pages library and each component is a web part I’ve tried to create my own template using PnP PowerShell and it worked perfectly.

I’ve built a space to display my magazines, and I want to replicate it to display books and other files I have in my library.

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By João Ferreira May 3, 2020 Development, SharePoint 0 Comments

How to enable SharePoint Spaces in all modern sites

SharePoint Spaces Preview have just arrived, however they are disabled by default and you must enable the feature in any site where you want to build VR environments.  

This can be a tedious process if you want to enable it to all your modern sites, but thanks to PnP PowerShell this process can be easily automated.

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By João Ferreira Apr 29, 2020 Office 365, SharePoint 2 Comments

How to build an interactive library using SharePoint Spaces

SharePoint Spaces have been introduced almost two years ago and finally we can start playing with the preview version. If you are not yet familiar with the Spaces concepts you can read more about it here and here.

To test how SharePoint Spaces work I’ve built an interactive library inside my library site collection, the idea is to display the CompartiMOSS magazines with a modern and futuristic interface. Let’s see how it was made and how you can also use Spaces to build something similar.

SharePoint spaces are disabled by default, to enable this feature follow the steps described here.

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By João Ferreira Apr 28, 2020 Office 365, SharePoint 1 Comment

How to use jQuery with SPFx projects

jQuery is a JavaScript library that helped to shape the internet we all know today, even though it’s first release was 13 years ago and despite the fact we now have access to other powerful libraries like React and Angular, jQuery is still used by 80% of the top 1M sites in the web.

With SharePoint framework you can use pretty much any JavaScript library to build your application however you will need to know how to make them available in the solution.

In this article I’ll explain you how to add jQuery to your SPFx solutions using 2 different methods.

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By João Ferreira Apr 22, 2020 Development, SharePoint 0 Comments

SharePoint Spaces is finally arriving

After almost two years since the original announcement we will be finally able to put our hands on SharePoint Spaces.

According to the announcement published on the Microsoft 365 message center, SharePoint Spaces preview starts the rollout to Target Release customers in April 2020. You can follow this item in the Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 62752.

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By João Ferreira Apr 2, 2020 SharePoint 2 Comments

Customize modern SharePoint menu with icons

Creating a well-structured and meaningful menu using just a few words per item can be difficult. Wouldn’t be awesome to customize the menu items with icons?

I’ve wrote about this topic in the past and I even did a solution to customize classic SharePoint with Fabric UI icons.

Since SharePoint has evolved and the methods used in the past are no longer valid, today I bring you a quick tip that will allow you to customize your modern SharePoint menus in just a few clicks.

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By João Ferreira Mar 29, 2020 Branding 3 Comments

How to brand the SharePoint mobile app

If you usually read this blog you might have seen a post or two about SharePoint branding methods and good practices.

With the evolution of the product Microsoft limited the branding options and have defined a set of rules and elements that you can customize to make sure you can still have your corporate identity without breaking the product.

With this in mind everyone using SharePoint Online can now extend the customizations to the mobile SharePoint app available for Android and iOS.

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By João Ferreira Mar 26, 2020 Branding 0 Comments

2019 Review – The roller coaster

Another year is ending and for me it is time to sit down, look back to the last 365 days and write about everything I have produced and shared with the community.

2019 was a crazy year with a lot of ups and downs, turns and twists but in the end it was the best year of my professional career.

Without further ado, let’s go down memory lane and let me share everything that happened in the last year of the decade.

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By João Ferreira Dec 31, 2019 SharePoint 0 Comments