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Microsoft Delivering AI-Enhanced SharePoint Mobile App Next Month
Microsoft has streamlined its SharePoint Mobile App and added artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to anticipate what mobile users will want to see on their devices, according to an announcement this week.
The coming updated SharePoint Mobile App is being gradually rolled out to Android and iOS device users. It's expected to be available worldwide for those users by "mid-September 2018," Microsoft indicated. Nothing was said in the announcement about any updated SharePoint Mobile App coming to Windows 10 users, though, so that detail remains unclear.
The main change made by Microsoft in the updated SharePoint Mobile App was to consolidate the "Sites, People and Search" tabs into a single, new "Find" tab. The Find tab uses AI to "tap into expertise and knowledge across your organization," explained Mark Kashman, a senior product manager on the SharePoint team, in the announcement. The Find tab shows the files and people that the AI deems relevant to the end user. Kashman described this new design as being Microsoft's "most significant SharePoint Mobile Apps update" so far.
Additionally, the SharePoint Mobile App provides intranet site browsing, personalized views of an organization's "Team Sites, Communication Sites and News posts," and access to organizational contact cards. It'll permit mobile users to create News posts and receive notifications about published articles.
The updated SharePoint Mobile App will just be seen next month for SharePoint Online Office 365 subscribers. Microsoft is planning to add updated app support for organizations that use SharePoint Server in their datacenters, but warned that the new Find tab user experience might lag. For instance, users of SharePoint Server 2013 or higher versions currently will just see the old user experience in the SharePoint Mobile App.
Some readers of Microsoft's announcement commented that they weren't happy about the simplified Find tab approach, describing the new design as "not a natural solution for many users." Nate Clinton responded that "we realize it's a bit of a change," and that Microsoft is seeking feedback.
Microsoft plans to talk more about the SharePoint Mobile App in an hour-long "Ask Microsoft Anything" Q&A session on Aug. 30, 2018, starting at 9:00 a.m. PST. The mobile app design also will be discussed in a Sept. 5, 2018 Web presentation conducted by Microsoft's Kashman and Clinton, starting at 9:00 a.m. PST.
In addition to the mobile app AI improvements, Microsoft also earlier described AI enhancements for SharePoint Online and OneDrive, which will arrive sometime later this year.
About the Author
Kurt Mackie is senior news producer for 1105 Media's Converge360 group.