Overview
Microsoft is rolling out new features to SharePoint Online on a frequent basis. There had already been many features rolled out from a developers’ perspective. Now we have some good features being added from the administration perspective. The new SharePoint Online Admin Center is in preview and is designed to ease the SharePoint site administration. One point to note is that, this new Admin Center is developed using SharePoint Framework (SPFx). This signifies that Microsoft is using SPFx for the product implementation itself.
Pain Areas of Administration
As of today SharePoint Online is supporting both the Classic and Modern SharePoint sites. Both the Classic and Modern SharePoint sites are getting created and used in the tenant. However the entry point and administration of both type of sites being handled separately.
Classic SharePoint Site Administration
Classic SharePoint sites are maintained from SharePoint Online admin center (https://<tenant>-admin.sharepoint.com)
- Only Classic sites can be created and maintained from here
- This view does not lists any Modern sites
Modern SharePoint Site Administration
Modern SharePoint sites are maintained from new SharePoint app launcher
(https://<tenant>.sharepoint.com/_layouts/15/sharepoint.aspx)
- Only Modern sites can be created and maintained from here
- This view does not lists any Classic sites
Administrator has to maintain Classic and Modern sites from different places and does not get consolidated view of sites and its usage information. Also the calculation of remaining storage has to be calculated separately for classic and modern sites, as the consolidated view was missing. This pain area of administrators is taken care by new SharePoint Online Admin Center.
Once you open the classic SharePoint Admin Center, you will notice the button to preview of new Admin Center.
SharePoint Online Admin Center Offerings
The new administration user experience is designed to be simple yet powerful to help track detailed activities and usage reports. The classic and modern SharePoint sites can be easily administered from one view.
Home Page
Home page gives consolidated view of
- User activities on SharePoint sites
- Message center view about updates being rolled out
- Service Health information
- Links to Classic SharePoint admin center and OneDrive admin center
The site management page has a modern list experience. This page gives a consolidated view of all the SharePoint sites created in tenant.
The site could be Classic site, Modern site or team sites belongs to Office 365 Group.
The default view can be easily changed by customizing the columns.
Site Management page offers useful functionality as,
- Listing of all classic and modern sites including team sites belongs to Office 365 groups
- Ability to create new Classic or Modern sites
- Site information such as site name, template, Storage used, Primary admin user, file and sharing information, date created and modified
- Ability to sort, filter, search and customize columns
- Built in views
- Edit site level sharing status
- Export site listing to CSV
- Ability to select multiple sites and email site admins
Recycle Bin page
- List of all deleted sites along with timestamp
- Ability to restore sites
Settings page
- Settings for lists and library experience
- Notifications
Summary
The new SharePoint Online Admin Center is helpful for administrators to manage the classic and modern sites from one view, track the user activities on the site, and keep updated with the upgrades being rolled out as a notification. The new SharePoint Online Admin Center is still in preview but in the near future, we will see more features being added to administer the sites better.