When
SharePoint was first launched, it did not have strong functionality
backing up mobile access for its content and features. However, as
this software platform gradually gained ground, organizations began
to feel the need for tapping this product to operate efficiently on
cellular devices. As a result, companies began to look for
alternatives for enhancing as well as expanding mobile access to this
platform. The outcome of these efforts is that SP 2013 comes with a
range of new, enhanced mobile features to make SharePoint
2013 mobile development easier and quicker.
- The mobile browsing experience has become much better owing to the newly incorporated contemporary view which enables site rendering in HTML5 and operates with the latest mobile Safari, IE as well as Android browsers. Designed to ensure touch-screen interaction, it is optimized for activities such as accessing wikis, lists, web parts and document libraries. The classic view belonging to the older mobile browsers is still intact, delivering HTML based sites along with the option for displaying a complete desktop view of the website.
- Another new feature is the back-end cellular channels which render a SharePoint site for diverse cell phone devices automatically, enhancing the single default view for mobile devices as present in the 2010 edition which was difficult to customize.
- With the 2013 version, SharePoint sites come with the capability of pushing notifications towards mobile devices, making users alert regarding the changes, such as modification or addition of content.
- With SharePoint 2013, we have a couple of new native mobile applications. One is the SharePoint Newsfeed application which enables users to get access to the documents and people they are following. This feature is available for Windows Phone and iOS as well as Windows 8. The second is the SkyDrive Pro app which empowers users to access the file sharing along with cloud storage service on iOS as well as Windows 8.
Some
of the other mobile features new to 2013
edition of this software platform include the ability of
incorporating geolocation tags within a list, the capability of
viewing specific categories of business intelligence content as well
as enhanced viewing of PowerPoint, Excel and Word documents with
Office Web Apps.
Using
Cellular Devices for SharePoint Online Sites
Your
site can be accessed with a Windows phone once the web browser of the
phone is opened and the URL or Uniform Resource Locator of the
SharePoint site is typed. In case you are making use of a non-Windows
phone, the URL can be entered within the browser or to get an
optimized mobile view, /?Mobile=1
can be just appended to the URL.
Using
Windows Phone 7 for accessing SharePoint Online site
A
site can be opened on a Windows Phone 7 in almost the similar manner
as it is opened from a PC, simply by entering the URL in the browser.
Whatever is seen on the phone is not the cellular version but the
site's actual view. The site can be operated in the same manner as it
is done from the PC. Most of the tasks such as creation and editing
of items within a list, changing the site theme, uploading documents,
creation and edition of site pages, along with addition of images,
hyperlinks or web parts can be conveniently carried out.
Utilizing
non-Windows phone for SharePoint Online site
When
the mobile version of a site is opened, only some of the elements
seen in a desktop version are visible, such as search feature,
libraries, lists and so on. While you are making use of the cellular
version of SharePoint, you can easily perform the tasks of viewing
items in libraries and lists or operating Open Office documents from
the website.We provide SharePoint application development services. If you would like to talk to one of our certified sharepoint programmers, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.