To be honest when SharePoint Spaces was announced I had thought what can be practical usage of this but now I after using it in preview mode I can understand the usage part of this as well.
I must admit SharePoint Spaces is really cool to use and I have never thought I would see Augmented Reality in SharePoint but like all things nothing is impossible.
There are nice practicle samples provided by Microsoft SharePoint which you can find here https://www.exploresharepointspaces.com/samples but my example is a simple and scale down one.
This based on my experience with a customer I have worked with for many years.
I would like to create “Product Catalog” to display 3D images for the product and display relevant documents related to the Product.
To set some context: Large product / euiqpment manufacturing comapanies such as mining, construction or vechiles upload there marketing material for sales people to be accessed internally and share externally for sales pitch when needed on portal sites.
In general in these portal sites you will find images of the product and documents related to it in OOB user interface or custom user interface.
Companies also have product 3D images but they don’t show on intranet as SharePoint Spaces was not available so not so practical I would say.
Now we have set the context let’s check how easy is to use SharePoint Spaces.
- First of all you need a SharePoint Site preferably a Communication site as it will give you more space in screen to create SharePoint Spaces.
- Spaces is not available automatically and feature needs to be enabled in “Manage Site Features” called “Spaces”.
- Once you have enabled it you will see below option in “New”
- Select a structure , input a name to create a Space Design page which will look like below depending on which structure you have selected
- Click on “+” to add 360 degree image, video etc shown as below
- I will be adding a two Product groups like Trucks and Cars, which will take user to two different Spaces page which will contain different Trucks and Cars, you can imagine this as Product group and when you click you go to different Products available under that group.
- I will add a 3D Object with Podium , please check below screen shots
- The properties which I have used are “Podium”, “Link to another space” , “Alternate text” and “Description”.
- The “Link to another space or link” is great option as you can hierarchy and structure around Spaces.
- I will be adding another Space which display multiple Products and then each product will also link to another Space which will have a Document Library attached
- This will complete our Product Catalog so it works like this Product Group –> Products –> Document Library (Space)
- Now let’s see the whole set up in action
- During the process of creating this I found some improvement areas or issues
- If you have only folders in a document library then the SharePoint Spaces cannot load it
- If you want to connect a object to a folder in library you have to use a “Link” option and the link to Folder will not be recognized which you get from “Copy Link” option so you have to construct on your own which will also be not recognized but it will work
- If you have done connections using SharePoint Spaces then the page does not reload but Space area reloads which is good but it will be good to have some kind of hirearchy navigation which can help in contructing structures
- Another thing I would like to add is that it works in Microsoft Teams as well
I think SharePoint Space has lot of practical usage you just need to think in different way and visualize.
Let me know what you think and what pratical usages to you can see.
Connect with me on Twitter or Linked In if you need more information.
References and links:
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/sharepoint-spaces-7b65edfb-7cc9-42e3-af37-178d79364a5e
https://www.exploresharepointspaces.com/
Kislay Sinha 