Column Formatting VS SPFx Field Customizer

If there is something that SharePoint cannot be accused of is to be a static platform, new features are released weekly and sometimes it’s hard to keep up with all the new functionalities.

With so many new features seem that some of them are doing the same thing as the Column Formatting and the SPFx Customizer.

Both features were released this year and both are used to format data in SharePoint lists and even though the result might be similar the purpose of each one is different.

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By João Ferreira Nov 23, 2017 Development, Office 365 2 Comments

Build a breadcrumb using SPFx extensions

A few months ago, I’ve built a solution to add the breadcrumb navigation to all SharePoint sites and pages. While that solution still works fine on SharePoint 2013, 2016 and on the classic experience of SharePoint online it no longer works for the modern sites.

In the previous solution I used a script link to add the breadcrumb globally to the site collection, this functionality was disabled by Microsoft in the modern experience and it was replaced by the SPFx Extensions.

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By João Ferreira Oct 11, 2017 Branding, Development, Office 365 8 Comments

How to add Google Analytics to SharePoint without modifying the master page

Google Analytics is the most widely used web analytics service in the internet, it provides a concise analysis with reports of everything that happens in your site as well as real time reports, mostly targeted for public sites it also works on intranets.

Intranet portals are the central hub of companies; important information is communicated to employees through these portals and you need to make sure that everyone can access to it no matter the device or technologies used.

Analyzing your intranet portal will help you to understand how users interact with it, what are the most viewed sites and what sites do you need to improve.

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By João Ferreira Feb 26, 2017 Development, Office 365, SharePoint 51 Comments

Can you still use sandbox solutions in 2017?

The answer to this question is yes, but… not for all situations and not all types of sandbox solutions.

SharePoint sandbox solutions were introduced with SharePoint 2010 and provided a mechanism to execute code outside of the ISS worker process. The sandbox solutions do not affect the entire farm; they are installed per site collection and they can be installed by the site collection administrator.

Every day I deal with SharePoint users that are extremely afraid of using sandbox solutions mainly because the message about this type of solutions being deprecated was not properly communicated by Microsoft.

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By João Ferreira Feb 19, 2017 Development, Office 365, SharePoint 6 Comments

Create a modern breadcrumb navigation on SharePoint

Breadcrumb navigation was available by default on SharePoint 2007 and 2010 but with the introduction of SharePoint 2013 it was removed and until today it wasn’t reintroduced.

Today I’m revisiting one my most read articles, back in 2013 I wrote an article to explain how this functionality can be added again to SharePoint and judging by the number of views this article still has there’s a lot of people trying to get the breadcrumb back.

The method from the previous article is still valid but it requires you to manually modify the master page, if you are not going to customize the layout of your site there’s no need to mess with it.

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By João Ferreira Feb 12, 2017 Development, Office 365, SharePoint 55 Comments

How to solve the most common issues on SharePoint Designer

If you work with SharePoint at this point you’ve probably realized that SharePoint Designer is one of your best allies but still is a bit temperamental and sometimes it just refuses to work properly.

In this article, I’ll cover the most common issues and how to fix them.

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By João Ferreira Feb 1, 2017 Development, SharePoint 0 Comments

Remove Faulty Web Parts from page

If you are a SharePoint developer and the Web Part you are working on is causing so many errors that you can’t even edit the page this tip is for you.

Removing malfunction webparts is very easy all you have to do is access the Maintenance Web Part Page, in this article I’ll show you three different ways to open this page.

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By João Ferreira May 29, 2016 Development, Office 365, SharePoint 0 Comments

Be prepared to the SharePoint framework

The SharePoint Framework was announced on 4th of May and it introduced a new model to develop SharePoint webparts that is radically different from its predecessors.

Over the years SharePoint development required a specific environment, with SandBox and Farm webparts is required at least one server with SharePoint and Visual Studio to develop and debug, with the App model introduced in 2013 the SharePoint server is no longer needed but it requires Visual Studio and a Developer site collection hosted on Office 365.

With the new framework you are absolutely free to choose your environment, the only requirement is a computer able to run the latest web technologies, you can even use Mac OS or a Linux distro.

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By João Ferreira May 22, 2016 Development, Office 365, SharePoint 5 Comments

SharePoint WSP Repackage

A few years ago I wrote an article explaining how to manually modify a SharePoint WSP solution using a specific software, over the years I got feedback about adware being added to the computers during the installation process of the software.

I recently tried to install this particular software and my antivirus automatically pop up saying that the file was not safe, to get rid of all this issues I decided to build a specific application to repackage all the files inside of the WSP solution.

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By João Ferreira May 19, 2016 Development, Office 365, SharePoint 2 Comments

This is the start of something new

Hello World! 🙂 My name is João Ferreira and I’m a SharePoint developer.

I’ve been collecting a series of tips and tricks over the last few years related with SharePoint and I’ve now decided to share it with you guys.

In this blog you will find articles about SharePoint development but also a lot of stuff related with the SharePoint branding, I’ll tell you everything about making SharePoint beautiful.

I have planned this blog for over a year and I think today is a good day to finally release it since it’s also the day of the official release of SharePoint 2016.

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By João Ferreira May 4, 2016 Branding, Development, News, Office 365, SharePoint 0 Comments