Talking SharePoint 2016 & SharePoint Roadmap In 2017 with Microsoft’s Adam Harmetz

Hi, ya’ll! Welcome back to another episode of Dux Quax as we recap all the goodness that Microsoft brought in 2016 and look forward to what’s coming on the SharePoint roadmap in 2017.

We’re very excited to bring you more exclusive interviews from Microsoft HQ in Redmond! In this episode, we catch up with Adam Harmetz, Group Program Manager for the SharePoint Team at Microsoft and discuss what happened in 2016 and what’s next on the SharePoint roadmap.

Check out the full interview below:

Dux Raymond Sy: I mean, with a massive organization, how much visibility, I guess, does Sataya have, in terms of the team itself, how SharePoint’s doing and how SharePoint’s evolving?

Adam Harmetz: Yeah, well…Jeff…when Sataya became CEO, Jeff left for a couple of years to run the strategy team for Sataya so…and they, you know…that’s helped a lot that he’s come back in the role, you know, and Sataya asked him personally to come back and I think that was a good statement of how important Sataya sees SharePoint in content collaboration as part of Office 365 and, obviously, Office 365 is the growth engine for the company. So, you know, we’ve had a couple reviews over the past year, you know, before we embarked on the refresher SharePoint we, you know, met with him and his SLT to ensure that was right and very recently, right before Ignite…the Friday before Ignite, as if we weren’t…have enough to do, we actually presented to him and his SLT about what…how far we’ve come over the past year. 

Dux Raymond Sy: That’s great.

Adam Harmetz: And, so, yeah, and I do think he sees content collaboration as essential to 365 and 365 is essential to the growth of the company so it’s been great to have his support. 

Dux Raymond Sy: Sounds like it’s a busy 2016 so far, huh?

Adam Harmetz: Yes, definitely one of the busy years…busier for SharePoint and for me personally…for my career as well.

Dux Raymond Sy: 2017…what’s coming ahead…any big things that customers and partners and SharePoint lovers can look forward to?

Adam Harmetz: Yeah, well, you know, I get a lot of feedback that’s…from customers and partners that said, “2016 was great. Please, Adam, don’t go off to the shiny, new object in 2017. There’s still a lot of work to do.” And, so, the number one thing is that we’re going to finish what we started. I think we got some awesome stuff we can build off of…there’s still a lot of feedback.

People have used UserVoice and given us a lot of things we can continue to improve and, so, for the most part, if you look at the modern intelligent internet that we talked about of team size publishing biz apps, like, there…there will be, hopefully, few new conceptual models and just extending on what we’ve already done with the SharePoint framework and the new, modern UX. I do think, if you look at the story arc for SharePoint, I think we made an outsized investment in team sites in 2016 and I think with the work with PowerApps and Flow and SharePoint together, we had a…great year for business apps and we’ll continue with that.

Image: Homepage of https://sharepoint.uservoice.com/ 

And, then, publishing was the one area where we made some steps but didn’t get as far as, maybe, we anticipated in 2016. And, so, I think 2017…we’ll continue to make investment on all three but we want to get the water level line equal across all those so you’ll probably see an outsized investment in publishing and creating…and creating portals where a few people are broadcasting out to many. And, I think, that’ll be a theme as we complete the…modern UX of SharePoint. You know, once again, I don’t think people will see that as a…something SharePoint’s doing brand new scenario-wise but we are bringing it to a mobile world and we are infusing it with intelligence and providing a…hopefully, a refreshed and modern look and feel to it.

Image: Mobile integrated User Experience with SharePoint via Microsoft Blog

Dux Raymond Sy: And, then, all these advance workloads, too, right? So, for example, you mentioned PowerApps and Flow, where it’s not just specific to SharePoint…other technologies leverage that as well in the family of Microsoft Cloud technologies. You know, yesterday the whole provisioning where Groups is created…I think those connections and interactions with the whole stack makes a great value product and, at the end of the day, helps get my job done easier, faster, sooner and better, right?

Adam Harmetz: Yeah, absolutely, I mean, SharePoint’s always had a role of being a great way of aggregating a bunch of experiences together, you know, whether there’s a website or on the mobile phone, being able to embed a Power BI report and launch a Flow from a document library. It’s a great way of experiencing, maybe, some of the emerging technologies from Microsoft as well as bringing it all together in one place.

And I think 365 allows us to do it, Groups, in particular, in a decently, loosely coupled way, right? There’s no…SharePoint is a great way for creating a website but, you know…probably, sort of, have a snippet of a conversation preview and then go to Outlook to see the full conversation if it’s an Outlook conversation. I think that’s a…that’s a good strategy and it seems to be resonating really well.

Dux Raymond Sy: Yes, absolutely. And, again, just working and talking with customers, again, the pace and the possibilities just open a whole new opportunity now for innovation at the business level…now organizational level, right?

Adam Harmetz: Yeah, that’s what we’re hoping for. We’re eagerly collecting as many case studies and examples of the modern UX as we can and learning from that.

Dux Raymond Sy: So, if folks are interested to learn more about some of these technologies and case studies and use cases, what’s the best place for people to go and check out?

Adam Harmetz: Yeah, well, assume if you have feedback about the product…sharepoint.uservoice.com is an excellent place to give that. You know, I would say just get a file tenant Office 365 or log in your own Office 365 tenant where you tend to have first run experiences for a lot of the new UX and so that’s a great way of coming up to speed too. You mentioned FastTrack…there’s a bunch of great training available from there as well. And those are, you know, great resources.

[Uservoice screenshot]

Dux Raymond Sy: And in the tech community…the Microsoft tech community is a phenomenal place where you can interact with, you know, the whole world pretty much, and engage in great conversations and stories and use cases.

Adam Harmetz: Yeah, we monitor that and respond to the questions that we see based upon that as well. So, yeah, definitely those are great resources.

Dux Raymond Sy: Awesome, Now, Adam, this has been great. Thank you for your time but before I let you go, I gotta ask you a question.

Adam Harmetz: Sure.

Dux Raymond Sy: If you’re at SharePoint with…no, let me…let me rewind this. If you’re a Microsoft product, other than SharePoint…you can’t be biased…what would you be and why?

Adam Harmetz: Sure. Good question. You know, I have to choose PowerApps and Flow. One of the things about PowerApps and Flow…and I know you said I couldn’t choose SharePoint, but PowerApps and Flow remind me of the early days of SharePoint. I think SharePoint’s always had this role. And one of the reasons I’ve been working on the product for 11 years is it helps somebody and their team be a hero…using technology to be a hero because it allows them to, you know, without code, to be able to automate some processes or surprise other team members about how technology can actually help solve a problem. And not a surface level problem, not something they do every day, but really, like, what a power user [crosstalk] technology and help others and…

Image: Building a PowerApp from a modern SharePoint list via Microsoft Blog.

Image: Set up a new Flow from SharePoint via Microsoft Blog.

Dux Raymond Sy: Absolutely…without relying on IT or heavy [crosstalk], yeah.

Adam Harmetz: Yeah, yeah…what we’re doing with PowerApps and Flow and, of course, connecting to SharePoint so it really reminds me of the early success of SharePoint and what got such a big fan base and community and…together and so that’ll be my choice.

Dux Raymond Sy: Absolutely. So, here’s an idea…marketing idea. Maybe we have, like, a…these cape swag, like, cape swag giveaways that say “PowerApps” or something.

Adam Harmetz: Yeah, there we go.

Dux Raymond Sy: But I think the Windows team is already doing something like that.

Adam Harmetz: Yes.

Dux Raymond Sy: All right. Awesome. Adam, thank you so much. I appreciate your time. And, folks, thanks again for watching…until the next episode. Thank you. Goodbye.

Adam Harmetz: Thank you.