SharePoint 2019 bringing the cloud closer to on premise SharePoint.

Microsoft announced it would be releasing SharePoint 2019 in the second half of 2018 at Ignite 2017, with the preview version available in mid-2018.  SharePoint 2019 will be very much an on-premises edition of the platform built on the foundational release of SharePoint Server 2016. The goal is to reduce the difference between online and on-premise versions of SharePoint creating greater consistency and integrability between them.

The highlights of what your organisation can expect from SharePoint Server 2019 are:

• Next-Gen Sync Client support – Enhancements to OneDrive functionality and Office to make them more efficient and intuitive
• Modern UX throughout the product – Improved design of lists, libraries and pages
• Flow / Power Apps integration – Enhanced integration with Flow and PowerApps (allowing more flexibility with the use of these key tools that are so useful within SharePoint online)
• Other SharePoint Online innovations – making the most of what SharePoint online offers that can be exploited within the on-premise version.

According to Microsoft MVP Dmitri Plotnikov, new possibilities for SharePoint 2019 are likely to include the following improvements for Intranet sites (a key area of interest for Primaxis):

• Simplify communication sites with more layouts
• Simplify News Pages
• Web Search with Bing for search outside the intranet
• Promote Button to share pages with the world
• Improved people cards
• The ability to quickly create new sites, based on your custom configuration by clicking a button
• New toolbox for looking overlay web parts
• News Digest
• The ability to create a new hub site or designate an existing one, and connect any of your other sites
• Custom forms with PowerApps which embed your apps straight into SharePoint

What lies ahead

The emphasis that Microsoft has put on bridging the gap between online and on-premise SharePoint from what is being proposed in SharePoint 2019 is a clear indicator that they are serious about user experience and consistency of approach. It’s also an indicator that Microsoft recognises that there are plenty of companies have an appetite for a SharePoint environment housed within their own firewall (self-managed) that has all the features they would expect from the Office 365 version.