What is Microsoft 'Feature Pack' for SharePoint

What is Microsoft 'Feature Pack' for SharePoint

Posted by Sophina Dillard on Thursday, 5 January 2017 0

Image Source: products.office.com

When Microsoft released the SharePoint Server this year, the team understood they were just laying out the foundation. They wanted SharePoint to be tested and edited so that it could improve.  The new Microsoft Feature Pack SharePoint 2016 are the enhancements users have been waiting for. They have made these new additions to help drive innovation and productivity for your business. The latest SharePoint updates made by Microsoft are truly user-centric because they took the direct advice given to them by users for these updates. Here is a run-down of what the Microsoft Feature Pack is and what these new improvements mean for your brand. 
The Microsoft SharePoint 2016 Application sought to make collaboration and productivity better through cloud based technology. The newly released Feature Pack has put forward all the feedback given by consumers to create an even better platform for your business. It includes new features for administration and puts user experience at the forefront of the operation. These upgrades give you more flexibility when it comes to keeping track of your data, managing your business, and interacting with others. 

New Capabilities for Admin 

Administrators spend large amounts of time dealing with the nuts and bolts of the business. What the Microsoft Feature Pack SharePoint 2016 aims to do is to help admin in their daily tasks by adding more detailed logging of their actions. Bill Baer, who is the senior product manager for SharePoint writes, “We have added logging around key SharePoint administrative actions performed either through the SharePoint Server 2016 Central Administration website or through the SharePoint Server 2016 Management Shell.” Their goal is to make troubleshooting less troublesome by providing a more comprehensive history of your actions.  

Hybrid Auditing

This is another feature that gives administrators the ability to gain detailed insight as to what’s going on in their businesses. Hybrid Auditing gives administrators the ability to access multiple reports and dashboards in Office 365, which are produced from SharePoint 2016 Preview. These reports are based on on-premise diagnostic and usage logs so you can view patterns you business’ SharePoint server farm. 

                                                           Image Source: blogs.office.com 

Benefits of this feature

The new MinRole enhancements are just what users have been asking for. Previously, MinRole was created to service larger farm topologies but with the new update, you can access these benefits on a smaller scale. Instead of eight servers being the requirement for a high availability MinRole configuration, the Feature Pack allows you to do the same thing with just four server roles. They have been optimized for small and medium sized farms because of the additions of Front-end Distributed with Cache and Application with Search. With this new update, the Microsoft Feature Pack SharePoint 2016 now services a wide range of sizes with MinRole farms. 

                                                              Image Source: blogs.office.com 

User Experience for Business

Being able to store, manage, and edit your work files all in one place while sharing them with your team makes OneDrive for Business a key feature in Office 365 and SharePoint Server. The new Microsoft Feature Pack SharePoint 2016 allows you to add a little more personality to your work by creating your own custom tiles. They can lead to anything your business wants from already existing apps in Microsoft SharePoint and Office 365 to external sites. These customizable tiles help make your work easier because you can edit the tiles according to the unique needs of your business. 

In a Nutshell 

The Microsoft team understands that innovation is an ongoing process, which requires updating. These enhancements are to help make the individual actions of your business easier by providing you with more options and capabilities. The Feature Pack 1 is a response to the initial advice given by users to help make SharePoint a better tool for your brand. 

1. Administrators now have detailed action logging 
2. They are also given access to multiple reports and dashboards for better insight 
3. MinRoles were created for small to medium sized farms
4. Customizable tiles for users