How to create a basic (“Hello world”) SharePoint app

This blog provides step-by-step instructions to develop a basic “hello world” SharePoint app.  If you are new to the SharePoint app world, then please read my previous blog to get an intro to the “App Architecture” and its benefits before proceeding further.  For those who has an understanding on the SharePoint App model, please read further :

Pre-Requisites
Apps do not come pre-configured with a vanilla SharePoint installation.  You need to perform the steps as provided in this MSDN link which describes the procedure to configure the local development environment for deploying and accessing apps from SharePoint.  For a step by step instructions on configuring the production / development environment, click here to view this private blog post on the same topic.
1. Provision Developer Site
The first step is to create a new site collection that accepts the deployment of SharePoint apps from the Visual Studio environment.  In Central Administration, navigate to the web application and go to “Create New Site Collection” option:

Provide the details as seen in the above screenshot and click “OK”.  Once SharePoint is done with creating a new site collection it will render the below site :

2. Once after the Developer Site is provisioned, goto Visual Studio and create a new “App for SharePoint 2013” project:


Now a wizard with 3 questions will appear as follows:

Make sure that you select “SharePoint-hosted” as the option.  Also when you provide the URL don’t include the “/_layouts/15/start
.aspx#/….”.  Just stop with /Sites/<SubSiteName>.
3. Visual Studio may take a few moments to create a the new project and once done expand the Pages folder in the Solution Explorer, and Double-click on the Default.aspx page to begin looking for the contents in the default project template:

Also, if you notice there will be no “Code-behind” file as its a “SharePoint-hosted” app and there cannot be server code deployed with the app.
4. The Default.aspx contains the necessary references to the JS and CSS that are needed for the app to render itself.  If you scroll down you will notice a “Div” tag inside of the “PlaceHolderMain”.  Just above the “Div” tag include the below highlighted HTML element:
<h1>Hello World! This is my first SharePoint 2013 app!</h1>

5. Now click on “Start” in Visual Studio to build and deploy the solution to SharePoint.  Once its completed, it will automatically open the “Site Contents page” along with the newly added app (as shown below):

If it doesnt open it automatically, navigate to your site (for eg., http://<ServerName>/sites/MyTeam) and then click on “Site Contents” tab to see the new app being deployed to the site.  If you are prompted with the “Windows Login diaglo box” when accessing your app, then make sure that you perform the Registry configuration as detailed in this Link to exclude the app URL from the loop back checking performed by windows.
Note:  If you get any  errors (during deployment from Visual Studio) such as ” Apps are disabled on this site.” refer to this MSDN link which describes the procedure to configure the local development environment for deploying and accessing apps from SharePoint.  For a step by step instructions on configuring the production / development environment, click here to view this private blog post on the same topic.
6. If you click on the app (as highlighted in the above image) you should see the new app in action (as in the below image):


 Note: If you dont see images or see HTTP 500 errors for JS/Images/CSS in the app, then your “Root” site (not \Sites\) is not either available or is not based on the “Developer Site” template which is needed for the apps to function properly. 

SharePoint App Model Architecture Overview

What is an App?
An app in SharePoint is a solution that connects to a SharePoint server/installation via client-side API’s (JSOM), CSOM or REST.  It can either be embedded into a SharePoint page or can be deployed as a seperate application that leverages OAUTH 2.0 protocol to authenticate and access SharePoint functionality.  They are managed through the “App Management Service” to manage, secure and license apps.  Since the interaction between the App and SharePoint is controlled through OData-compliant REST interface, remote .Net client API’s and OAuth security protocols, an app can be developed in any language with any development tool.  Apps can be developed either through Visual Studio 2012 or by using web-based development environment called Napa Office 365 Development Tools available free of charge.  Apps can be purchased from SharePoint store (a public app marketplace) where users can find free and premium apps that can be installed onto individual sites (or managed through the App catalog).

Advantages of SharePoint Apps

1. Apps are independent of server deployments and are self-contained.  This eases the job of developers by allowing them to develop and deploy SharePoint app’s without worrying about farm deployments or administrator approvals.
2. Apps eliminates the hassles to be dealt with Microsoft updates to the underlying SharePoint platform through product updates, service packs etc., as they run as a separate web application (running in an IFrame) well outside the SharePoint server and are never affected because of the changes done to SharePoint.
3. Since Apps are designed to support multi-tenant installations, a site administration-controlled approach to manage and install functionality eliminates accidental farm-level customization’s that affect other/all numerous distinct tenants that occupy/share the same farm.  In other words, the App architecture is of pivotal use in Office 365 environments where custom solution packages can be deployed and managed independently without affecting other tenants that share the same environment.
4. Apps supports heterogeneous languages and widens the scope of leveraging any flavor of ASP.Net, Java, Ruby, PHP, CoffeeScript, TypeScript etc.,  as long as they can emit HTML, CSS and Javascript.

How are they different from Farm (or deprecated Sandbox) Solutions?
With the introduction of the new App model in SharePoint 2013, Microsoft has indicated to the developer community to discontinue the use of “Sandbox” solutions and start looking at the direction of “Apps” as the next generation feature aimed at supporting the development and rollout of custom applications targeted against the SharePoint environment.  Having said that, the below table summarizes (at a high level) the difference between a “Full Trust” (or Sandbox) solution against an App based solution :

Farm Based Solution	App Based Solution
Rarely developed as standalone applications and are always intended to customize or extend the OOB functionality.	Best suited for Standalone applications that are aimed for achieving specific functionalities.
Requires Full Trust and deployed by site administrators, hence not so flexible.	Very Flexible as there is no need of full trust and individual developers can deploy updates without need for approval from Farm / Site administrator.  Site administrators are individually notified on updates and they can choose to update on their convenience.
Doesn’t support multi-tenant scenarios as they often impact all web/sites in the environment.	Designed for Multi-tenancy.
Installed and Managed only by Farm Administrators.	Managed through the App Catalog by IT administration team.

Hosting Options
Since Apps are rendered in the  browser as HTML, CSS and Javascript, they are flexible by supporting three hosting options :

1. Provider-Hosted App – They support server side coding and needs to be deployed on a separate server (hardware) external to SharePoint (either on-premises or on cloud – as a VM).  In other words, these apps reside on a local IIS server (or on cloud) with support for a wide variety of language choices such as PSP or java.  It uses the OAuth protocols to connect and communicate with the SharePoint environment and leverages SharePoint 2013 REST / OData-based web service to interact with SharePoint.  This type of app can be of choice in scenarios where the app needs to consume SharePoint data (such as list etc.,) and external entities, services that are non-SharePoint in nature.
2. Azure Auto-Hosted Apps – They are available only for Apps deployed on Office 365 which consist of Windows Azure website, an optional Azure Sql database that are automatically provisioned by Office 365.
3. SharePoint-Hosted Apps – These types of apps are deployed in SharePoint (as a sub web) and their custom business logic executes within the client browser.  No Server side coding are allowed in this app type of app and they cannot interact with other app as they run in isolation.  They can reuse web elements like lists and files and allow only client-side code for logic and UX.  In other words, its effectively an aspx page full of JavaScript that implements the necessary behavior via client-side script and service calls.  Hence these types of app can either use JSOM or can expose/embed Silverlight client (which internally can use Silverlight object model to access SharePoint data).

Irrespective of how the app is developed and deployed, once installed into the SharePoint instance, the SharePoint app management engine secures the app and underlying platform by enforcing a level of isolation.  Any time an app executes, it actually executes on a unique appdomain with a unique, generated URL.  This is done to prevent deliberate/accidental cross-site scripting attacks and well provide tenant isolation during execution.
App Shapes (i.e., App Rendering options)
SharePoint 2013 allows multiple different ways to interact/access apps.  App shapes define the experience for interacting with and using an app.  There are 3 app shapes available and are list below:
Immersive (or full-page app):  This kind of app offers a fully immersive experience by rendering the app using the entire real estate of the page.  Even though it gives complete control over the app experience, its important to make sure that the app properly links back to the SharePoint site, just so the user experience feels integrated and not lost.  In order to make it possible, SharePoint offers a “Chrome” control that not only lets the app to automatically point back to their SharePoint environment (By providing a link in the top left), but it also provides the same UI look and feel by using the same CSS as in the main SharePoint site.  So at any point when the SharePoint theming changes, it automatically takes effect on the app as well.
App Part:  The second option is to use an app part which is an IFrame hosted in a Web Part that is represented by the ClientWebPart class.  The IFrame can take parameters which can change the user experience of the app part, except that they do not interact in the same way legacy Web Parts do.
Extension app: Extension apps are just custom actions that can direct to a page in your app. This could be a page hosted on SharePoint, or, in the case of a cloud-hosted app, a remotely hosted webpage. You can think of extension apps as entrance points to your app. They don’t provide a user experience in themselves.

Conclusion
With the introduction of the new App model in SharePoint 2013, Microsoft has given more choices for developers such as webparts, Farm-solutions, apps etc., for achieving the necessary customization’s per our requirements. However care needs to be taken to understand the challenges in each of these models before adopting one to ensure smooth integration with SharePoint. 

Step by Step Procedure to Install Sharepoint Server 2016 Enterprise

You can download installation guide by below link-

Click to download

I have completed a Single-Server installation of SharePoint Server 2016 with Database server on a separate machine. I am sharing the installation details here which can be helpful for many who are new to SharePoint. The installation is similar to the older versions of SharePoint except MinRoleTopolgy which is introduced for the first time in SharePoint 2016.

System Requirement
Hardware Requirement

Scenario	Processor	RAM	Hard disk
Database Server	64-bit, 4 cores	8-24 GB	80 GB for system drive100 GB  for second drive and additional  drives
SharePoint Server	64-bit, 4 cores	8-12 GB	80 GB for system drive80 GB for  second drive

Software Details:

I have used the below hardware and software configuration form my current installation.

Server	OS	Installation media
Database Server	Windows Server 2012 R2 – with latest updates	SQL Server 2014 with SP1 – x64
SharePoint Server	Windows Server 2012 R2 – with latest updates	SharePoint Server 2016 Preview

What's New in SharePoint 2016: Features Overview

Ladies and Gentlemen: Microsoft has officially made SharePoint 2016 available for us to play with. As expected, since the last week of August 2015, we were granted the opportunity to install SharePoint 2016 to see what the first preview is all about. Since then, I’ve had the chance to play with it for a little while, and here's everything you need to know.

Download SharePoint 2016

If you're looking for the hardware and software requirements to get started, Bill Baer had previously posted everything you need to know to get started. Microsoft has also published a list of everything new with this new version if you are interested.

After downloading and installing SharePoint 2016 for myself, here is what I found.

New Hybrid Possibilities with SharePoint 2016 and Office 365

No surprises here, though not the only focus of this new release, making SharePoint 2016 work with your Office 365 is a major part of it.

I’ll be honest though, the word “Hybrid” is getting thrown around very easily these days, so it’s important to note that there isn’t a complete hybrid experience available just yet.

Free Bonus: Download the Ultimate Migration Checklist to better execute your move to SharePoint 2016.

Here's what you will see:

OneDrive Redirection

Though this has been available in SharePoint 2013 since SP1, with SharePoint 2016 you can redirect your My Sites to your Office 365 subscription’s OneDrive for Business host. In other words, if a user clicks on OneDrive, he'll be redirected to his Office 365 My Site and no longer to his On-Premises.

Sites you follow in one place

Now users can click on “Follow” both On-Premises and on their Office 365 and see them all in one place under the “Sites” app in the App Launcher.

The wizard to configure either of the simple scenarios above work very well, as long as you follow the requirements.

Hybrid Cloud Search

This is what a lot of us have been waiting for, a unified Search experience. Put simply, the Office 365 Search will take your On-Premises SharePoint Search Index so that it can give you results from both for the same query.

You should know that you'll have to use the Office 365 Search for this to work. If SharePoint 2016 On-Premises users query against their On-Premises Search service, it'll continue to only give them local results only.

However, once available, this will allow users to fully embrace Experiences likeDelve in Office 365 and more to come in the future.

App Launcher and UI changes in SharePoint 2016

Our users couldn’t care less about the technology they have to use, and even less if they're in Office 365 or SharePoint 2016. That’s why it’s important to provide them with an (almost) identical interface to navigate both.

SharePoint 2016 introduces the App Launcher, as well as changes to the UI, to help it match the Office 365 experience.

SharePoint 2016 Infrastructure and Performance Improvements

“SharePoint 2016 was built from the Cloud-Up” – Bill Baer

Hybrid isn’t the only thing to get attention with SharePoint 2016, a lot of polishing has been done by Microsoft after having used the platform themselves with Office 365.

MinRoles

You can now install just the role that you want on particular SharePoint 2016 servers. This will only install what’s required there, but even better, it'll make sure that all servers that belong to each role are compliant. You’ll also be able to convert servers to run new roles if needed.

You can even look at the services running on the SharePoint 2016 server and see if they are compliant as well.

Zero Downtime Patching

Now this will surely please many of you managing the SharePoint servers, the size and number of the packages are immensely reduced. They’ve also removed the downtime previously required to update SharePoint servers.

Removed 5,000 View Threshold – sort of

A Document Library can have 30,000,000 documents, that’s never been an issue. However, many of you know that 5,000 seems to be the actual limit for many end users that don't know they had to index their columns.

I'll spare you the details, but the 5,000 view threshold is actually necessary, or your entire SharePoint would be slowed down. It prevents SQL from locking the entire database, really.

Instead of removing this unpopular threshold, they automated the creation of Indexed Columns. This means that, technically, the limit is still there, but you won’t have to worry about it.

Increased File Size for uploads

Though I still wouldn’t recommend storing large files in SharePoint, you can now go way beyond the previous 2GB limit for files. Though there's no real limit, Microsoft has strongly recommended it stays at 10GB. Otherwise, end users will very likely get disconnected, or get a time out while uploading large files.

Fast Site Creation

By using a template, they're now able to create Site Collections in 1 second. This compares well to SharePoint 2013 that takes up almost over 40 seconds sometimes. This will require a level of configuration with PowerShell to set up.

New Compliance Center in SharePoint 2016

Not only can you leverage a lot of the compliance features in Office 365 with your On-Premises SharePoint 2016, new sites have been introduced to help you stay in control.

The In-Place Policy Hold Center and the Compliance Center allow you to build your own policies and apply them against your environment. New basic policies allow you to delete data in OneDrive for Business sites after an x amount of years for example, not unlike “Retention Policies” if you think about it.

New Collaboration Experience in SharePoint 2016

Can’t really go to work without a mobile device of some kind these days and that expands to tablets as well now. For this reason, you’ll find SharePoint 2016 comes with a touch friendly interface.

Durable Links

The concept is simple, make sure that links you sent to people to open or work on your content continues to work regardless of what happens to the document. If the file name is changed or the document moved, durable links should make it seamless to the user.

Problem is, I have no idea how it actually works for a SharePoint user. I took the URL in the hover panel of a picture, changed the filename and pasted the old URL and it did not work. I am sure I am missing something, but will update this as soon as I find out more.

Update: It turns out that Durable Links isn't necessarily a SharePoint 2016 new feature, you'll actually need to have Office Online Server previously known as Office Web Apps Server. Granted we typically have this when installing SharePoint On-Premises so customers should benefit from Durable Links anyway. It works as described meaning your URLs to documents will always work, great news.

Site Folders

The OneDrive for Business area is turning out to be more than just a My Site. It aims to bring users to one place to help them work with their files regardless of where they are. Now, you’ll also be able to navigate your Sites and their libraries from there.

SharePoint 2016 Release

There are yet a number of things not mentioned in this article. If you wish to learn more about what's new in SharePoint 2016, discover our latest webinar:Microsoft Unveils SharePoint 2016 and find out what Bill Baer, Senior Technical Product Manager had to say about it. Some things are also no longer available and may need you to adjust. As quick examples, the Product Catalog Site Template is gone, though you can still use the Catalog Feature. One thing you can bank on though, is Sharegate being here to keep you updated, and helping with all your SharePoint migration and security management issues and concerns!

New and improved features in SharePoint Server 2016

Learn about the new features and updates to existing features in SharePoint Server 2016.

For a comparison of SharePoint on-premises features between SharePoint 2013 and SharePoint Server 2016 editions, see SharePoint feature availability across on-premises solutions.

Learn about the new features and updates to existing features in SharePoint Server 2016.

For a comparison of SharePoint on-premises features between SharePoint 2013 and SharePoint Server 2016 editions, see SharePoint feature availability across on-premises solutions.

Summary of features

The following table provides a summary of the new features that you can try out in this SharePoint Server 2016 release.

 

Feature	Description	More information
Access Services	New Access features are available when you deploy Access Services in SharePoint Server 2016 .	For more information, see Access Services.
Compliance features	New compliance features for SharePoint Server 2016 include the document deletion and in-place hold policies.	For more information, see Compliance features.
Customized web parts	The compile time for customized XSLT files used for Content Query, Summary Links, and Table of Contents Web Parts is improved.	NA
Document Library accessibility	SharePoint Server 2016 includes new document library accessibility features.	For more information, see Document Library accessibility.
Durable links	Resource-based URLs now retain links when documents are renamed or moved in SharePoint.	NA
Encrypted Connections	SharePoint Server 2016 supports TLS 1.2 connection encryption by default.	For more information, see Encrypted Connections.
Fast Site Collection Creation	The Fast Site Collection Creation feature is a rapid method to create site collections and sites in SharePoint.	For more information, see Fast Site Collection Creation.
Filenames - expanded support for special characters	SharePoint Server 2016 now supports using some special characters in file names that were blocked in previous versions.	For more information, see Filenames.
Hybrid in SharePoint 2016	Hybrid in SharePoint Server 2016 enables you to integrate your on-premises farm with Office 365 productivity experiences, allowing you to adopt the cloud at your own pace.	For more information, see Hybrid in SharePoint 2016.
Identify and search for sensitive content	SharePoint Server 2016 now provides the same data loss prevention capabilities as Office 365.	For more information, see Identify and search for sensitive content in both SharePoint 2016 and OneDrive documents.
Image and video previews	You can now preview images and videos in SharePoint Server 2016 document libraries.	For more information, see Image and Video previews.
Information Rights Management	SharePoint Server 2016 provides Information Rights Management (IRM) capabilities to secure information by encrypting and securing information on SharePoint libraries with OneDrive for Business.	For more information, see Information Rights Management.
Large file support	SharePoint Server 2016 now supports uploading and downloading files larger than 2,047 MB.	For more information, see Large file support.
MinRole	MinRole is a new feature in SharePoint Server 2016 that allows a SharePoint farm administrator to define each server’s role in a farm topology.	For more information, see MinRole farm topology.
Mobile experience	SharePoint Server 2016 offers an improved mobile navigation experience.	For more information, see Mobile experience.
New controls for working with OneDrive for Business	SharePoint Server 2016 provides controls at the top of your personal document folders that make common tasks in OneDrive for Business more accessible.	For more information, see New controls for working with OneDrive for Business.
New Recycle Bin in OneDrive and Team sites	SharePoint Server 2016 adds a link for the Recycle Bin in the left navigation area of the OneDrive and Team sites.	NA
Open Document Format (ODF)	SharePoint Server 2016 adds support for Open Document Format (ODF) files to use in document library templates.	For more information, see Open Document Format (ODF) available for document libraries.
Project Server	New Project Server features are available in SharePoint Server 2016.	For more information, see Project Server.
ReFS file system support	SharePoint Server 2016 now supports drives that are formatted with the ReFS file system.	For more information about the ReFS file system, seeResilient File System Overview and Resilient file system.
SharePoint business intelligence	SharePoint Server 2016 now supports SQL Server 2016 CTP 3.1 and the Power Pivot add-in and Power View.	For more information about SharePoint business intelligence, see Power Pivot add-in and Power View are now available to use with SharePoint Server 2016 Beta 2.
SharePoint Search	SharePoint Search Server Application has significant changes to its deployment.	For more information, see SharePoint Search Server Application.
Sharing improvements	SharePoint Server 2016 has many new sharing improvements available.	For more information, see Sharing improvements.
Site Folders view	SharePoint Server 2016 provides a new Site Folders view that lets you access the document libraries in sites that you're following.	For more information, see Site Folders view.
Sites page pinning	This new feature helps you see and follow sites.	For more information, see Sites page pinning.
SMTP Connection Encryption	SharePoint Server 2016 supports sending email to SMTP servers that use STARTTLS connection encryption.	For more information, see SMTP Connection Encryption.
SMTP ports (non-default)	SharePoint Server 2016 adds support for SMTP servers that use TCP ports other than the default port (25).	For more information, see Use SMTP ports other than the default (25).
Web Application Open Platform Interface Protocol (WOPI)	You can now rename files, create new files, and share files from within the WOPI iframe on the browser page.	NA

Detailed description of features

This section provides detailed descriptions of the new and updated features in SharePoint Server 2016.

Access Services plus Access client and server

The following new Access features are available when you deploy Access Services in SharePoint 2016:

• Support apps for Office. For more information, see Spice up your Access app with add-ins for Office.
• Access App Upgrade. For more information, see Upgrade an Access app.
• Download in Excel feature available for users to pivot Access tables. For more information, see Introducing a new feature in Access 2013 web apps-Download in Excel.
• With the improved Related Item Control, you can do the following:
  • Choose from any existing view for the dialog box on the Related Item Control.
  • Add a new item on the Related Item Control when the parent record isn't saved.
  • Turn off the Add link at the bottom of the Related Item Control.
• The Cascading Combo box is now available in Access. For more information, see Introducing a new user experience feature in Access web apps: Cascading Controls.

Central Administration is no longer provisioned on all servers by default

SharePoint Server 2016 Central Administration is now provisioned on the first server in a farm by default when using the SharePoint Products Configuration Wizard. Central Administration is not provisioned on additional servers in a farm by default.

You can provision or unprovision Central Administration on individual servers in a farm, no matter what the server role is by using the following methods:

• The Services on Server page on Central Administration > System Settings
• Windows PowerShell cmdlets:
  • New-SPCentralAdministration
  • Remove-SPCentralAdministration
• The psconfig.exe -cmd adminvs operation
• The SharePoint Products Configuration Wizard

Note:
The state of Central Administration does not affect whether a server is considered compliant with MinRole. The MinRole health rule will not attempt to provision or unprovision Central Administration.

Compliance features

The document deletion policy allows you to delete documents in users' OneDrive for Business sites after specific periods of time. The In-Place Hold policy allows administrators to preserve documents, email, and other files.

For more information, see Overview of document deletion policies.

Document Library accessibility

The following features are now available for working in SharePoint Server 2016 document libraries:

• Landmarks to a page make it easier to navigate, and there are alt text improvements for all major navigation links.
• Keyboard shortcuts are provided for the following document tasks:
  • Alt + N - New
  • Alt + E - Edit
  • Alt + U - Upload
  • Alt + M - Manage
  • Alt + S - Share
  • Alt + Y - Synchronization
• Focus improvements, such as keeping focus on prior elements and focus trapping.
• Announcements for upload progress.
• Announcements for file name and file types when browsing folder and file lists.
• Improved callout reading.
• Fixed use of color issues for views switcher.
• Updates to the Help documentation.

Encrypted connections

When you set up an SSL binding in Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager to host your web application, SharePoint uses TLS 1.2 connection encryption if your client application supports it. SharePoint also supports TLS 1.2 connection encryption when connecting to other systems, for example when crawling websites.

Note:

A security vulnerability was identified in the SSL 3.0 protocol that can allow an attacker to decrypt data. For enhanced security, some SharePoint features now disable SSL 3.0 connection encryption by default, as well as certain encryption algorithms (for example RC4) with known weaknesses. SharePoint disables SSL 3.0 connection encryption by default for some, but not all features. To ensure that SSL 3.0 is disabled for all features, you should disable it in Windows by editing the Windows Registry. For more information, see the "Disable SSL 3.0 in Windows For Server Software", and "For Client Software", workarounds in Microsoft Security Advisory 3009008.

Fast Site Collection Creation

This new feature provides templates that work at same level as SQL Server, which reduces the round trips required between the SharePoint and SQL servers. Use the SPSiteMaster Windows PowerShell cmdlets to create sites and site collections quickly, see Use Windows PowerShell cmdlets to manage sites in SharePoint Server 2016.

File names - expanded support for special characters

SharePoint has historically blocked file names that included the &, ~, {, and } characters, file names that contained a GUID, file names with leading dots, and file names longer than 128 characters. These restrictions are removed in SharePoint Server 2016 and are now available to use.

Important:
Restricted characters such as % and # are still not allowed in file names.

Hybrid in SharePoint Server 2016

In SharePoint Server 2016, new hybrid features are available to enable hybrid solutions.

Hybrid sites

Hybrid sites features allows your users to have an integrated experience while using SharePoint Server and SharePoint Online sites:

• Users can follow SharePoint Server and SharePoint Online sites, and see them consolidated in a single list.
• Users have a single profile in Office 365, where all of their profile information is stored.

For more information, see Plan for hybrid sites features.

Hybrid OneDrive for Business

Hybrid sites features are used in concert with Hybrid OneDrive for Business (introduced in SharePoint Server 2013 with Service Pack 1 (SP1)):

• Users can sync files with Office 365 and share them with others.
• Users can access their files directly through Office 365 from any device.

Cloud hybrid search

Cloud hybrid search is a new hybrid search solution alternative. With cloud hybrid search:

• You index all of your crawled content, including on-premises content, to your search index in Office 365. You can set up the crawler in SharePoint Server 2016 to crawl the same content sources and use the same search connectors in Office SharePoint Server 2007, SharePoint Server 2010, and SharePoint Server 2013.
• When users query your search index in Office 365, they get unified search results from both on-premises and Office 365 content.

For more information about cloud hybrid search, see the public Microsoft cloud hybrid search program on Microsoft Office connection.

For more information, see Plan for hybrid OneDrive for Business.

For more information about the hybrid solutions available today, please visit the SharePoint Hybrid Solutions Center.

Identify and search for sensitive content in both SharePoint Server 2016 and OneDrive documents

With this new capability, you can:

• Search for sensitive content across SharePoint Server 2016, SharePoint Online, and OneDrive for Business.
• Leverage 51 built-in sensitive information types (credit cards, passport numbers, Social Security numbers, and more).
• Use DLP Queries from the eDiscovery site collection to discover sensitive content relating to common industry regulations from the SharePoint eDiscovery Center, identify offending documents, and export a report.
• Turn on DLP Policies from the Compliance Policy Center site collection to notify end users and administrators when documents with sensitive information are stored in SharePoint and automatically protect the documents from improper sharing.

Information on configuring and using this feature is documented in SharePoint Online and Office 365. For more information, see:

• Search for sensitive content in SharePoint and OneDrive documents
• Use DLP in SharePoint Online to identify sensitive data stored on sites

Image and video previews

In SharePoint Server 2016 when you post images and videos to a document library, you can see a preview by hovering the mouse over the image or video, or by clicking on them.

Information Rights Management

For more information, see Secure and sync with Information Rights Management on OneDrive for Business.

Large file support

Previous versions of SharePoint did not support uploading or downloading files larger than 2,047 MB. SharePoint 2016 now allows you to upload or download larger files. You can configure the desired maximum file-size limit on a per-web application basis in your SharePoint farm.

MinRole farm topology

The role of a server is specified when you create a new farm or join a server to an existing farm. SharePoint automatically configures the services on each server based on the server role, optimizing the performance of the farm based on that topology. There are six predefined server roles that are available, as shown in the following table.

 

Server role	Description
Front-end	Service applications, services, and components that serve user requests belong on front-end web servers. These servers are optimized for low latency.
Application	Service applications, services, and components that serve back-end requests, such as background jobs or search crawl requests, belong on Application servers. These servers are optimized for high throughput.
Distributed Cache	Service applications, services, and components that are required for a distributed cache belong on Distributed Cache servers.
Search	Service applications, services, and components that are required for search belong on Search servers.
Custom	Custom service applications, services, and components that do not integrate with MinRole belong on Custom servers. The farm administrator has full control over which service instances can run on servers assigned to the Custom role. MinRole does not control which service instances are provisioned on this role.
Single-Server Farm	Service applications, services, and components required for a single-machine farm belong on a Single-Server Farm. A Single-Server Farm is meant for development, testing, and very limited production use. A SharePoint farm with the Single-Server Farm role cannot have more than one SharePoint server in the farm. Important: The Standalone Install mode is no longer available in SharePoint Server 2016. The Single-Server Farm role replaces the Standalone Install mode available in previous SharePoint Server releases. Unlike Standalone Install, the SharePoint administrator must separately install and prepare Microsoft SQL Server for SharePoint. The SharePoint administrator must also configure the SharePoint farm services and web applications, either manually or by running the Farm Configuration Wizard.

For more information about the MinRole feature, see MinRole overview.

Mobile experience

When you use a mobile device to access the home page for a SharePoint Server 2016 team site, you can tap tiles or links on the screen to navigate the site. You can also switch from the mobile view to PC view, which displays site pages as they are seen on a client computer. This view is also touch enabled.

New controls for working with OneDrive for Business

You can click a control to create new Office documents, upload files, synchronize your files for offline use, and share your files. For more information, see “Simple controls” on The OneDrive Blog.

Open Document Format (ODF) available for document libraries

The Open Document Format (ODF) enables you to create new files in a document library and save as ODF files so that users can edit the new file with a program they choose. For more information, see Set Open Document Format (ODF) as the default file template for a library.

Project Server 2016

Project Server 2016 for SharePoint Server 2016 has many new capabilities and features, including:

• Resource Engagements: Now project managers can request needed resources from resource managers to complete their projects. Also, resource managers can use the new heat map functionality to see where resources are spending their time.
• Multiple Timelines: Project and Portfolio managers can now create richer timelines that display multiple timelines in a single view.
• Simpler administration: Project Server now has multi-tenant storage capabilities and has combined data storage with SharePoint. This greatly reduces IT overhead by eliminating the dedicated Project Server database and improves backup and restore capabilities.
• Cloud grade performance and scale: Many performance and scalability improvements that have been added to Project Online have also been added to Project Server 2016.

For more information, see What's new for IT pros in Project Server 2016.

Important:
Project Server 2016 is installed with SharePoint Server 2016 Enterprise, though is licensed separately. For more information about Project Server licensing, see Licensing Project.

Power Pivot add-in and Power View are now available to use with SharePoint Server 2016 Release Candiate

SQL Server 2016 CTP 3.1 is now available. You can now download SQL Server 2016 CTP 3.1 to use the Power Pivot for SharePoint add-in. You can also use Power View by installing SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) in SharePoint-integrated mode and the SSRS front-end add-in from the SQL Server installation media.

Download SQL Server 2016 CTP 3.1 from Microsoft Download Center.

The following SharePoint Server 2016 business intelligence features are available when you upgrade to SQL Server 2016 CTP 3.1:

• Power Pivot Gallery
• Scheduled Data Refresh
• Workbooks as a Data Source
• Power Pivot Management Dashboard
• Power View reports
• Power View Subscriptions
• Report Alerting

For more information, download the new Deploying SQL Server 2016 PowerPivot and Power View in SharePoint 2016 white paper. For details about configuring and deploying business intelligence in a multiple server SharePoint Server 2016 farm, download Deploying SQL Server 2016 PowerPivot and Power View in a Multi-Tier SharePoint 2016 Farm.

Request Manager service improvements

SharePoint Request Manager now provisions on the server roles shown in the following list, to support both throttling and routing scenarios:

• Application
• Distributed Cache
• Front-End

Additionally, the Request Manager service will no longer prevent sites from rendering when the service is enabled while you have no routing rules defined.

Sharing

The following list shows the sharing improvements that are available for SharePoint Server 2016:

• Create and Share folder
• Sharing Hint
• See who the folder is shared with when viewing a folder
• Members can share
• Improved invitation mail
• One-click email to approve or deny a request for access
• Recently Shared Items cache, see Enable the Recently Shared Items (RSI) cache to quickly populate the Shared with Me view.

SharePoint Search Service application

SharePoint Search supports indexing of up to 500 million items per Search Server application.

Simplified SSL configuration for Central Administration site

We've simplified the process for configuring Central Administration to use SSL bindings. The following command parameters are now available to use:

• New-SPCentralAdministration -Port <number> -SecureSocketsLayer
• Set-SPCentralAdministration -Port <number> -SecureSocketsLayer
• Psconfig.exe -cmd adminvs -port <number> -ssl

You must assign a server certificate to the Central Administration IIS web site by using the IIS administration tools. The Central Administration web application won’t be accessible until you do this.

If you specify port 443, it will automatically create an SSL binding instead of an HTTP binding even if you don’t include the SecureSocketsLayeror SSL parameters.

The Central Administration public AAM URL will be automatically updated to use the appropriate protocol scheme, server name, and port number.

Site collection upgrades

There are three options available for upgrading site collections. For more information, see Upgrade a site collection to SharePoint Server 2016.

SMTP connection encryption

The following list shows the SharePoint 2016 requirements that are needed to negotiate connection encryption with an SMTP server:

1. STARTTLS must be enabled on the SMTP server.
2. The SMTP server must support the TLS 1.0, TLS 1.1, or TLS 1.2 protocol.

   Important:
   SSL 2.0 and SSL 3.0 protocols are not supported.

3. The SMTP server must have a server certificate installed.
4. The server certificate must be valid. Typically, this means that the name of the server certificate must match the name of the SMTP server provided to SharePoint. The server certificate must also be issued by a certificate authority that is trusted by the SharePoint server.
5. SharePoint must be configured to use SMTP connection encryption.

To configure SharePoint to always use SMTP connection encryption, open the SharePoint Central Administration website and browse to System Settings > Configure outgoing e-mail settings and set the Use TLS connection encryption drop-down menu to Yes. To configure SharePoint to always use SMTP connection encryption in Windows PowerShell, use the Set-SPWebApplication cmdlet without theDisableSMTPEncryption parameter. For example:

$WebApp = Get-SPWebApplication -IncludeCentralAdministration | ? { $_.IsAdministrationWebApplication -eq $true }

Set-SPWebApplication -Identity $WebApp -SMTPServer smtp.internal.contoso.com -OutgoingEmailAddress sharepoint@contoso.com -ReplyToEmailAddress sharepoint@contoso.com

To configure SharePoint to never use SMTP connection encryption in SharePoint Central Administration, browse to System Settings >Configure outgoing email settings and set the Use TLS connection encryption drop-down menu to No. To configure SharePoint to never use SMTP connection encryption in Windows PowerShell, use the Set-SPWebApplication cmdlet with the DisableSMTPEncryption parameter. For example:

$WebApp = Get-SPWebApplication -IncludeCentralAdministration | ? { $_.IsAdministrationWebApplication -eq $true }

Set-SPWebApplication -Identity $WebApp -SMTPServer smtp.internal.contoso.com -DisableSMTPEncryption -OutgoingEmailAddress sharepoint@contoso.com -ReplyToEmailAddress 
sharepoint@contoso.com

Note:

If SharePoint is configured to use SMTP connection encryption, it will only send email messages if it successfully negotiates connection encryption with the SMTP server. It will not fall back and send email messages unencrypted if connection encryption negotiation fails. If SharePoint is not configured to use SMTP connection encryption, it will always send email messages unencrypted, even if the SMTP server supports connection encryption.

Sites page pinning

You can now pin sites that you see on the sites page. A pinned site shows at the top of the list of sites that you're following.

Site folders view

For more information, see "Site folders" in The OneDrive Blog.

Suite Navigation is themable

You can now apply themes to your Suite Navigation.

Use SMTP ports other than the default (25)

To configure SharePoint to use a non-default SMTP port open SharePoint Central Administration, browse to System Settings > Configure outgoing email settings, and set the SMTP server port to the port number of your SMTP server. To configure SharePoint to use a non-default SMTP port in Windows PowerShell, use the Set-SPWebApplication cmdlet with the SMTPServerPort <port number> parameter. For example:

$WebApp = Get-SPWebApplication -IncludeCentralAdministration | ? { $_.IsAdministrationWebApplication -eq $true }

Set-SPWebApplication -Identity $WebApp -SMTPServer smtp.internal.contoso.com -SMTPServerPort 587 -OutgoingEmailAddress sharepoint@contoso.com -ReplyToEmailAddress 
sh  arepoint@contoso.com