Continuing on Part 1 of What’s new and different in SharePoint 2013 Server as well as Part 2, below is a continuation with some more features that are new and different along with some easy to read descriptions and some screenshots:

Search

People and Expertise Search Enhancements

 

Multi-lingual phonetic search (or people name variations), search results display authored documents and information about past projects that showcase a person’s expertise and a new contact card to contact someone directly from the search results.

image 

image 

 

Navigation enhancements

Better placement of search box with easy scope selection. Logically grouped searched results and query suggestions based on past results. New hover panel allows you to see additional data without having to click the item.

image 

image 

 

Search Centers, Search Results and Result Sources

Search Centers are now maintained at the site level giving site owners to manage their styling, settings and results.  Furthermore, admins, owners or designers can specify locations on where to get the search results from by using a new concept called “Result sources”.  Result sources allow the specification of a content repository such as local SharePoint sites or federated sources.

image 

image 

 

Business Intelligence

New BI Site, OData access from Excel, Mobile Access

A new Business Intelligence site, enhancements in Excel and PerformancePoint Services and support for viewing BI content on mobile and tablet devices such as IPad.  Also connect external data using OData providers in SharePoint or Office 365.

image 

 

More advanced BI capabilities in Excel and Excel Services

Ability to drill into data displayed in Excel Services reports and dashboards, better timeline controls, right click context menus, ability to add, change, and remove items from rows, columns, values, and filters in PivotChart and PivotTable reports, publish workbooks that contain calculated measures and calculated members.

image 

PerformancePoint Services

PerformancePoint dashboards now all searches on items within filters which gives the ability to focus on a small number of items in a filter that might contain many items. Includes a new look and feel with transparent dashboards enabling use of custom background images, and ability to move entire dashboards from one location to another.

image 

 

Site Customization

Design Manager

Design Manager enables a step-by-step approach for creating design assets that you can use to brand sites. Upload design assets—images, HTML, CSS, and so on—and then create your master pages and page layouts. You can preview how your design looks either in a client-side code editor or on the server as you are designing it.

image 

 

These Gallery

There is a new theming experience that guides you through a quick process to change the look of your site and make it unique. You can choose among multiple options of color, font, site layout, and available background images or your own.

image 

image 

 

Workflows

Redesigned workflow architecture

Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2013 has major improvements for designing workflows and modeling more complex business logic and process.  SharePoint 2013 workflows are built on a new architecture and infrastructure called Windows Workflow Foundation 4 (WWF4) but still support SharePoint 2010 workflows.

More complex logic and loops in SharePoint Designer 2013

Workflow Stages allow you to model workflows as containers of logically grouped actions and stages also allow for looping so you can have more control over the flow of the logic and create more sophisticated workflows.

image 

 

Multiple Designers

Two ways to author workflows, the traditional text-based workflow designer in SharePoint Designer 2013 and a new visual designer based on Microsoft Visio 2013 and the Visio workflow shapes. Dynamically switch back and forth between the text-based and visual designers while editing the same workflow.

image 

 

Improved workflow email editor

Easier to format workflow email message by using a standard formatting toolbar to the workflow email editor

image 

 

New workflow actions
  • Assign a Task, Start a Task Process, and Go to This Stage
  • Call a Web Service
  • Start a List Workflow, Start a Site Workflow
  • Build DynamicValue, Get Property from DynamicValue, and Count Items in DynamicValue
  • Trim String, Find Substring in String, and Replace Substring in String
  • Translate Document
  • Set Workflow Status
  • Create a Project from Current Item
  • Set the current project stage status to this value
  • Set the status field in the idea list item to this value
  • Wait for Project Event
  • Set this field in the project to this value

image 

External Data Access

Add and Analyze External Data in Excel and Visio and BCS Performance Improvements

Export data from an external list to Excel 2013 and keep the data synchronized. Under the covers it will create a data connection to your SharePoint External List.   Enhanced performance features help speed up the display, refresh, and data operations of the external data on a web page and in any Office product that works with external data.

image 

 

Security, site management, and site upgrade

Security, site management, and site upgrade

Allow or disallow iFrames

Tightened security on iFrames by specifying a list of domains from which iFrames are accepted.

image 

 

Site collection upgrade experience and Deferred site collection upgrade

Flexibility for farm and site administrators by separating the process for upgrading the software and databases from the process for upgrading sites. Site Collection Admins can perform their own self-service upgrades to their sites, whenever it is most convenient for them.

image 

 

 

 

Site collection health checker and evaluation site collections

Use the site collection health checker to detect and auto repair some issues with their site collections and address them before upgrading the sites to the new version. In preparation for upgrading the site, site owners or administrators can request an evaluation site collection, which is a copy of the site, for review purposes. Evaluation sites are set to automatically expire and be deleted.

image 

 

 

Introducing apps for SharePoint

SharePoint Server 2013 includes support for the development, installation, management, and use of apps. An app is a small-scale, stand-alone program that solves a specific end-user need. End users can discover and download apps from the SharePoint Store, or from their organization’s Internal App Directory.

Refer to my Slide Deck on Introduction to the new SharePoint 2013 App Model

image 

View SharePoint 2013 Server – What’s new and different? – Part 1 here

View SharePoint 2013 Server – What’s new and different? – Part 2 here

For more in depth information of the new and improved features in SharePoint 2013 Server visit http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc261970(v=office.15)

Technorati Tags: ,

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *