A few months back, Microsoft gave a brief mention of its upcoming SharePoint Server 2019, but most of the details are a mystery. In the following post, I would like to share what to expect and what not to with the new SharePoint 2019.
For those who have no idea, the big news of release was announced by Jeff Teper, corporate vice president for SharePoint at Microsoft among other new servers and expected to arrive by mid-2018. Now, I personally love experimenting and innovating with such technologies, I can call myself a fan. At first, I was pretty disheartened by the fact that Microsoft had drawn its focus on enhancing Office 365, and consequently neglected the on-premise, i.e. SharePoint Server 2016. No matter how unfair It may sound, but this is what I felt when I installed 2016 for the very first time.
Moving on to the next version, i.e., SharePoint 2019, here I would like to mention a few updates and improvements that I assume will find their way into the next release.
Custom Forms - Use PowerApps
I have come across many SharePoint users who requested the company to allow site owners change the default forums displayed in the content of lists and libraries. Although, the previous versions made use of InfoPath to create custom forms for both Lists and Libraries. With SharePoint 2019, Microsoft is planning to discontinue InfoPath. However, I didn’t feel good about it as the company did not announce a replacement or a successor. Let’s hope that the tech giant will enhance PowerApps in order to create custom forms. Benefits of using the technology are a glaring day in day out as PowerApps are even used to build custom forms for SharePoint lists and libraries as well. In addition to this, I also expect to see some enhancements to lists and libraries as well. For example, customizable columns, the "modern" infinite scrolling that has been found at so many Web sites these days.
Hybrid - Improve Usability and Administration
Remember the time, when Microsoft announced Office 365 and SharePoint online? More and more companies started migrating to the cloud. Soon they discovered that moving to the cloud was a wise decision made especially for large organizations. That was the time when hybrid environment had taken off in a big way. For those who have no idea regarding the hybrid’s working, it works like this: migrate to the cloud, what makes sense to be hosted in the cloud and keep everything else on premises until the company is ready to take the final step. But looking at the actual implementations, the situation turns out to be quite different. Several companies are facing issues with usability, user acceptance, maintenance, and administration. As a SharePoint developer, I hope that Microsoft is enhancing SharePoint 2019 in a way that enables companies to build, run and maintain a seamlessly integrated hybrid environment with less effort and improved usability.
Design - Expectations Continues
The tech giant continues its journey towards a fresh and modern look when they introduced communication sites and hub sites. With SharePoint 2019, the evolution in designing continues. The modern look of lists and libraries will become the new default, while the traditional look will still be available under the hood.
Customizations - Continued shift to SPFx
We all are well aware regarding the fact that success of the new communication sites wouldn’t be possible without a new paradigm for customization. This new client-side framework is replacing the traditional JavaScript/jQuery coding with a framework perfectly tailored to meet the specific requirements of the recent versions of SharePoint. Which also means SPFx will not only enable Microsoft but also developers to build great and exciting new apps and SharePoint Web Parts that can be hosted within the new page types that got introduced with the communication sites.