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Construction Software

Struggling to Share SharePoint Files Externally? Here’s the Fix

Microsoft Tips |

Construction projects involve sharing files between owners and contractors. Many organizations have adopted Microsoft SharePoint as a collaboration platform to house project records and share them with external team members. Unfortunately, we've heard from several clients that they are unable to share files with team members outside their organization, or the process is too cumbersome. Check out this post to find out how to make this work for your construction projects.

Microsoft SharePoint Sharing Overview

Out of the box, users can share files with anyone who has permissions to the SharePoint site and its contents. To share with someone who does not have access to the site and who is outside of your organization, you can choose to add a person as a guest user or share a file or folder with anyone using a link, depending on your tenant and site sharing settings.

SharePoint Admin Center Tenant Settings

To set up sharing for the entire tenant (all sites), a SharePoint administrator needs to access the Microsoft 365 SharePoint admin center. Within the admin center, under the Policies menu is Sharing, where you can set the policies regarding sharing across the entire tenant (all sites/projects). In the settings, there is a slider where you can adjust how permissive the sharing is for both SharePoint and OneDrive.

Below are the levels of sharing permissiveness and the impact to SharePoint sites/projects:

  • Anyone. This level allows users to share links to files and folders with anyone and does not require the external person to authenticate. While this seems like an ideal setup, it could also lead to people sharing files that shouldn't be shared with external team members. Note: More than likely, you will need to share files on a SharePoint site/project with team members who don't have an organizational account and are not guest users. If that is the case, you will need this to keep this level since these settings are inherited from the tenant down to the site level.
  • New and existing guests. Guest users (external users that have been added to the tenant) will need to sign in, or they can use a verification code. This option is most likely the control level that is realistic for most organizations.
  • Existing guests. Only guests previously added to your tenant will have the ability to open files and folders. This option is probably not realistic because projects involve multiple stakeholders whom you need to share files with, but your organization has not yet added them as guest users.
  • Only people in your organization. No external sharing. If your project has external team members, this option will not work since it prevents sharing files or folders externally.

There is a slew of other, more granular settings available, but for the purpose of just sharing, the options above are a good starting point to understand the impact across the entire tenant.

What if I need to share with anyone on my SharePoint site/project?

Now you might ask, what if my tenant doesn't allow Anyone sharing at the tenant level? Unfortunately, you will not be able to share with Anyone at the site level.

So, you have a couple of options:

  1. Make all external users Guest Users or Licensed users in your tenant.
  2. As an organization, allow Anyone sharing at the tenant level, but at the site level, set the default to restrict sharing to new and existing groups. Then, on a site or project-specific case, allow a SharePoint Site Administrator to change sharing to Anyone. See below for site-specific sharing settings. Note: Allowing this level should be monitored, and if need be, you should put in place SharePoint compliance policies.
SharePoint Admin Center Site Settings

Get Expert Help Setting Up SharePoint for Construction Project Management

SharePoint permissions and sharing settings can be complex, especially at the site and project level. If you're still wrapping your head around how Microsoft 365 handles permissions, be sure to check out our previous blog article on Microsoft SharePoint permissions for a broader overview.

Need help setting up permission groups, site sharing policies, or aligning your configuration with your organization's needs?

As part of our Microsoft 365 Managed Services, we help construction teams implement secure, scalable, and easy-to-manage SharePoint environments.

Request a free one-hour consultation to get expert guidance tailored to your business.

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Use Microsoft 365 Groups for a Project Email Inbox

Microsoft Tips |

A frequent request from construction organizations using Microsoft 365 is how they can get a project email inbox. Check out this article to find out how Microsoft 365 Groups can address the need and so much more.  

Microsoft replaced SharePoint site email inboxes a while back with Microsoft 365 Groups. A Microsoft 365 Group is an access group for SharePoint and Outlook, Planner, OneNote, Power BI, Viva Engage, Teams, Stream, and other applications within the Microsoft 365 ecosystem.

Creating and accessing a Microsoft 365 Group

You can create a Microsoft 365 Group in the admin center. Also creating a SharePoint site will automatically create a Microsoft 365 Group:

  • The group is named after the SharePoint site and automatically includes an email address.
  • When you add members or owners from a modern SharePoint site, they are added to the group.
  • If you are added to a group, you will see the email inbox in Outlook under the groups heading.
  • You can also access the email inbox from the SharePoint conversations quick menu.

As the owner of the group, you can further control who has access, add visitors, enable whether people outside of the organization can email the team, allow sending CC emails to group member email addresses, and elect not to show the group in Outlook.

Groups have many functions beyond having an email address. If you want to find out how Microsoft 365 Groups can help you manage your construction projects, require general Microsoft 365 support, or need a construction management solution for Microsoft 365, you can request a free 1-hour consultation below.

Check out ConstructionViz.com for our turnkey construction project management solution powered by Microsoft 365.

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Copilot and Planner Premium – R.I.P. Project Schedulers?

AI Solutions |

Still on the fence about whether to jump in and pay for Planner Premium (formerly Project for the Web)? Microsoft has recently integrated Copilot AI into Planner Premium. Find out how Copilot can take scheduling in Planner Premium to the next level.

There are two Microsoft project web applications: Project Online, which has been around since 2016, and Planner Premium (Project for the Web). While Planner Premium might lack some features of Project Online, it is the future of Microsoft Project. With the addition of Copilot and the upcoming Project Manager Agent, Planner Premium is turning into a powerful tool.

So, you might wonder what AI could do for scheduling. I also asked that way back in 2016 when bots were picking up steam. While there are aspects of a scheduler role that cannot be done simply by AI, I can say that we are knocking on the door of having a scheduling AI agent capable of building, analyzing, and reporting on project schedules.

Read on to see how our testing of Copilot to assist with construction project management turned out.

Using Copilot for Construction Project Management

Copilot works by using prompts. The better the prompts, the better the results (assuming the AI is up to snuff). For the purposes of our analysis, we used the out-of-the-box Copilot, which had no agents.

The following are some of the prompts that returned some fascinating results.

Prompt: Build a plan for an excavation construction project.

Result: Copilot returned a list of grouped tasks based on a typical excavation project. Was it perfect? No. While it created the tasks and the associated goals, it did not add dates, durations, or logic.

Prompt: Create a task.

Result:  Copilot creates a task, but again, it has no dates or durations.

Prompt: Delete all or a task.

Result: Copilot will delete one or more tasks, but the goals remain.

Prompt: What is the critical path?

Result: While you can filter a schedule by critical path, the prompt will display the critical path tasks.

Prompt: What if a task is delayed by X days?

Result: This is pretty slick. It did a schedule scenario and provided the impact of the delay on each activity and the end date of the project.

Prompt: Give the status report for the project.

Result: Copilot will provide a formal response that includes the project manager, start date, finish date, duration, overall percent complete, effort, status of each task, and goals. This result could be huge as schedule analysis can take days to weeks in some cases, and Copilot did this in seconds. From there, you could copy and paste it into an email or a Copilot page and send it off to the project team for your weekly schedule review.

Prompt: How can we expedite the procurement process?

Result: This was a prompt provided by Copilot that we clicked. Copilot returned a mitigation approach that includes a general list of topics with explanations to consider in order to get the procurement process back on schedule.

Prompt: What activities are delayed against the baseline?

Result: We first created a baseline and then progressed the schedule. When we entered this prompt, Copilot summarized which activities have been delayed as well as the impact on the overall schedule compared to the baseline.

Evaluating Copilot for Construction Project Management

Our testing reveals some shortcomings and caveats in using Copilot to help provide scheduling support on construction projects. However, it also shows how fast this technology is improving.

Obvious Gaps

  • Copilot does not include start date, end date, duration, or schedule logic when adding tasks.
  • You cannot prompt Copilot to update the percent complete, schedule logic, or status of an existing task.
  • You occasionally have to close out of Copilot and reopen to get a prompt to run.

Additional Considerations

Planner Premium saves data to the Dataverse just like Dynamics and Power Apps. This integration opens many options for building custom Copilot agents to perform specific tasks for your project.

Lydon Solutions has been building custom solutions using Power Apps and Power Pages to augment Planner Premium, such as a Schedule of Value application for contractors to upload an Excel SOV for approval.

If you would like to know more about Planner Premium or our catalog of solutions, you can request a free one-hour consultation here.

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Always Find What You Need With SharePoint Favorites

Microsoft Tips |

Over the years, SharePoint has evolved into the place to do everything in Microsoft 365. But with the impressive list of features also comes complexity. For example, there are 20 options in the documents menu list, not including sub-menus. It is intuitive if you are an experienced SharePoint user, but it can be overwhelming for the non-tech-savvy field user. Fortunately, some shortcuts, like SharePoint favorites, can help you on your next construction project. Check out this article to find out more.

Favorites are a key feature often overlooked but can really help project teams find what they need.

SharePoint Site Favorites

For starters, when you create a new SharePoint site, it can sometimes be challenging trying to find it. If the site is one you frequently use, follow it so that it displays in the Following grouping on the Microsoft 365 SharePoint landing page. You can follow a site by clicking on the star at the top right of the card or clicking the following star once you navigate to the site's home page.

SharePoint Document Favorites

Finding documents is the #1 challenge for field workers in SharePoint. Do they use search, navigate to different sites, open folders, filter document views, or all of the above? Favorites might be a great option if they frequently use the same files.

In the document menu for a specific file, you can select Favorite, which will tag the file and add it to your Favorite menu in One Drive Online. Yeah, kinda odd place, but if field users make all of their key files into Favorites, they can access One Drive directly instead of multiple SharePoint sites. Also, the files will show in the OneDrive mobile app and the Microsoft 365 Copilot mobile app if you have them installed on your mobile device.

SharePoint Site Pages Favorites

If your IT team is familiar with SharePoint, they will most likely have more than one site page within SharePoint sites. The purpose of site pages is to display information differently for different audiences within the same site. So, if you have access to the site pages, you can also make them Favorites. This feature is interesting because SharePoint .aspx pages will also be displayed in OneDrive Online, which could make navigation more manageable for the field user.

Microsoft SharePoint for Construction Project Management

Want help managing your construction projects with Microsoft 365? Lydon Solutions has in-depth experience providing solutions for the construction industry on Microsoft 365. You can reach out below for a free one-hour consultation.

If you need a turnkey construction management platform for Microsoft 365 SharePoint, you can request a demo of Construction Viz here.

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How to Manage Construction Project Photos in SharePoint

Microsoft Tips |

Microsoft SharePoint 365 is the leading content management system in the world, full stop. Many features make it an excellent construction management tool; the most widely used feature is the ability to manage files. One of the challenges in construction is finding an easy way to store project photos and retrieve the images throughout the lifecycle of a project. Check out this article to discover your options for managing construction project photos in SharePoint.

Construction Project Photos in SharePoint

Back in the day, SharePoint included a Picture Library app that allowed images to be displayed as thumbnails and captured location information. Microsoft has since deprecated that app in favor of standard document libraries to store pictures.

So, what does that mean for uploading and finding your photos?

  • Location information stored as metadata is not available in an out-of-the-box document library. You could add a location column to the library, manually enter an address or lat/long, or use a Power Automate workflow to generate a location.
  • Image thumbnails are not part of the default documents view. You will need to switch to or create a new view to use tiles. Note: Tiles are not available to select from if you create a view from within the library settings. Creating a tiles view is only possible from the view settings directly on the document list.
  • Uploading images to SharePoint directly might be cumbersome. If you need to bookmark multiple SharePoint sites to upload your project photos, adding a shortcut to OneDrive from the SharePoint document library might make sense. This option will create a new connection that is accessible online and offline to the same SharePoint document library but from OneDrive or Windows File Explorer. Check out the Microsoft 365 Copilot mobile app for another approach to taking photos and uploading them to SharePoint.
  • You will most likely need folders or metadata to organize and search images. You can create folders in SharePoint or OneDrive or create columns with unique metadata in SharePoint. Read this article to better understand Folders vs. Columns in SharePoint. Also, Copilot AI has some interesting capabilities for extracting data from images, which we will discuss in future articles.

So, if you are looking to use SharePoint to store your project photos, you will want to leverage the tile view, decide where and how you want to access them, and whether metadata is appropriate for you.

To get a better experience capturing photos in the field you might want to evaluate Microsoft’s mobile apps. There is a Microsoft 365 SharePoint mobile app that is available for your mobile device that you can download here. If you are looking to leverage related Microsoft 365 apps while in the field to capture photos, you might want to install the Microsoft 365 Copilot mobile app which consolidates all of Microsoft’s mobile apps under one application and includes some image manipulation features as well as Copilot AI. You can download the Microsoft 365 Copilot mobile app here.  You can find out more about the app in our latest blog here.

If you are looking for a holistic approach to managing your construction projects, you can sign up for a free one-hour consultation here. Lydon Solutions works with construction companies, organizations, and projects of all sizes to help them maximize their investment in Microsoft 365.

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Take Project Photos in the Field Using the Microsoft 365 Copilot App!

Microsoft Tips |

Contractors on construction projects often use Microsoft OneDrive to upload project photos on their mobile devices while in the field. While the experience of uploading pictures to folders is straightforward, there is a little-known mobile app called Microsoft 365 Copilot that can provide some cool features to the experience. Check out this article to find out more.

The New Microsoft 365 App Name

Microsoft has recently renamed Microsoft 365 to Microsoft 365 Copilot across the web (office.com) and mobile app. Yes, it is getting a little confusing because Copilot is their AI tool, but it’s still the same Microsoft 365 with a different name and more focus on AI.

What is the Microsoft 365 Copilot App for Mobile?

Now that we have the name change out of the way, the Microsoft 365 Copilot app for mobile is actually the one app that rules them all from Microsoft.

While you can individually install each app like SharePoint, OneDrive, Power Apps, etc., the Microsoft 365 Copilot app provides a modern UI to access all of these apps and provide new features all under one hood. I wrote about it in detail in our Microsoft 365 for Construction newsletter.

For project photos specifically, there are a couple of nice features in the mobile app:

Photo Features in Microsoft OneDrive Tab

The OneDrive tab is a clean and easy-to-use UI that allows you to access your OneDrive files. View your files and navigate to specific OneDrive libraries. Other features include sharing files, making a file a favorite, keeping files offline on the device, renaming a file, deleting a file, and removing it from the list.

Also, there is a summary view of your files and the ability to search Microsoft Teams document libraries that you can access, which is pretty slick.

You can upload files into the libraries as well. You can even let the app manage files on your phone outside of Microsoft 365.

So, if you want to save your photos easily to OneDrive, you can upload them from this tab.

Photo Features in Microsoft Capture

You can take a photo and edit it before uploading it to OneDrive. Capture is a lightweight tool to scan and extract data from images, videos, and dictation.

  • Scan. You can use your camera to scan and mark up an image using a lightweight editing menu. It’s an easy-to-use way to take a photo in the field with some markup capabilities such as crop, ink, text, rotate, delete, and the ability to add filters. Once the image is ready to go, you can save it to OneDrive and include it in a daily report at a later date.
  • Extract. Extract is like scanning but it will read and extract text from an image. This feature could save some steps when typing data into Note or Word.

So, if you need to do photo editing before uploading, Capture could be your go-to app.

In summary, if you use OneDrive to store files, try the Microsoft 365 Copilot mobile app to see if it can enhance your project workflows.

Use Microsoft 365 to Manage Your Construction Projects

If you need help setting up your Microsoft 365 for success, you can request a free one-hour consultation using the form below.

Want an enterprise-level construction project management solution for Microsoft? Check out ConstructionViz.com to schedule a product demo.

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