SharePoint in Depth

A chronicle of issues encountered in SharePoint

Category: SharePoint Online

Workarounds for SharePoint Online Modern Site Limitations

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On January 2, 2023

In SharePoint Online

If you’re working with a modern SharePoint Online site, such as the modern Communications site, you are probably disappointed at the limited number and features of the web parts available.  Notably, the Script Editor web part (SEWP) and the Content Editor web part (CEWP) are no longer available, which is most unwelcome.  To fill this gap, there are several options, at present:

  1. The Modern Script Editor web part from Puzzlepart.  Salaudeen Rajack has provided a helpful write-up here.
  2. Dave Schmidt’s forum answer to add a classic “Web Part Page” to your site’s Content Types.
    Note: If the classic page looks too dramatically different from the rest of your modern site, use CSS to customize it.
  3. React InjectCSS: An SPFx extension that injects CSS on every page of your modern site
  4. Another gem from Salaudeen, this clever solution involves using the Embed web part to call a custom HTML page you’ve created.
    Note: It requires enabling custom scripting in the SharePoint Online Admin Center.

Clever Techniques for Dealing with Folder Sprawl

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On November 20, 2022

In SharePoint 2010, SharePoint 2013, SharePoint 2019, SharePoint Online

I cannot count the number of clients I’ve encountered who have treated the default document library on a SharePoint site as the *only* document library they could use.  So they filled it up with folders, then sub-folders, then sub-sub-folders, etc.  It makes for a difficult conversation.  I usually say “let’s take ALL of the top-level folders and make them each their own document library!”  And then they say “No” because they’ve gotten used to it like this.  And by “this” I mean sprawled and unmanageable, generally.

So if you’ve got sites that have folder sprawl, this article from Veronique Palmer will give your users a little help figuring out how many sub-folders are beneath your top-level folders, and how many items they contain.  It’s a start.  And it’s helpful.

One last piece of advice: if your organization manually provisions sites for users, delete the default “Documents” document library and during the provisioning process, ask your users to think about how many document libraries they’ll probably need going forward.  Get them to provide meaningful document library names.  And then create them for them.

Repair Broken Links Before or After a SharePoint Migration

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On September 6, 2022

In Office 365, SharePoint 2010, SharePoint 2013, SharePoint Online

Today I found two tools from LinkTek that I want to share.  First, the free one.  LinkReporter is a free tool that reports on broken links throughout your IT enterprise.  I suggest you run it and then decide to either fix the links manually or use a paid product to fix them for you.

The second tool is LinkFixer Advanced which runs against SharePoint on-premise, Microsoft 365, Box, OneDrive, DropBox, and regular file servers.  It is an enterprise-wide application that appears to run against any of these platforms so it’s not specific to SharePoint at all.

For SharePoint-specific migrations, they offer a page which goes into more detail: LinkFixer Advanced for SharePoint.  This could be the tool that saves your job or your sanity.

How to Enable “View in File Explorer” in Microsoft Edge

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On July 1, 2022

In SharePoint Online

June 15, 2022 marked the End of Life for Internet Explorer.  Now, we are redirected to Microsoft’s Edge browser.  It appears that Edge does not support the SharePoint library feature “View in File Explorer” that many of us have come to rely upon.  Apparently, since Edge build 93, the feature is now supported but there are two steps that must be followed.  The article at the link below provides the solution.

How to Enable “View in File Explorer” in Microsoft Edge

However, Microsoft advises against using File Explorer in favor of the Sync feature.  Click this link and then scroll down to the section heading “What’s the difference between Sync and View in File Explorer?” for a full explanation of this modern, recommended feature.

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