At the time of this writing, the one major issue that appears is a “401 Unathorized” message that shows up when trying to browse to “_layouts/15/start.aspx”.  From my experience with this solution the message shows up every second load of that page. Currently the way to get around this issue is to disable the “Minimal Download Strategy” feature, but if that is not an option for you, you’ll need to look for another responsive solution or create your own.

Overall a really good solution, and I’m looking forward to seeing this issue get fixed.

My tip here is that if you’re creating a new environment or once you’ve cleaned up your existing environment, is to change the “Delete Job History” schedule from once a week to once a day. This will help to keep the timer job in a state that it’s able to complete its work and have the database size under control.

Out of control SharePoint_Config Database 

• Your membership provider
• The User Information List (UIL) in the site collection you’re on
• The User Profile Service Application

Recently I found another source for the profile for people picker – your browser’s cache. I have tried updating the user profile information and have confirmed this information are updated in all sources. However, when double checking the changes in people picker, my changes are not applied!!

Only when I used another browser then I figured out the puzzle. The profile information is stored in the browser cache and it will keep showing the old profile information until you clear your browser cache.

So if you keep finding your old information in your People Picker query result. Delete your browser cache and that should take care of it.

Take a look at the following scenarios.

A. SharePoint search is setup to show results from the current site. However, the user is expecting a Google type search where all results are shown.

B. SharePoint search is setup to show results from all sites; however, this user only works within one team site and only wants to see this site’s results.

How can we make this experience better?  It’s through messaging. On the search results page you can add a web part to check if contextual search is being used. If yes, then output text that says “Currently viewing results for all sites” otherwise output “Currently viewing results for [this site]. To view results for all sites click [here]” and redirect to the full search results.

You can see more details about my session and the others here. Previously I posted an Early Bird Registration discount to SharePoint Summit 2014. If you missed out on that deal and plan to attend, it’s not too late to still take advantage of a discount. Register from now up until September 5th, 2014 you are eligible to receive 15% off the price of your ticket. See more information about the back to school special in the ad below.

Among all Office client apps (the one that you install with office suit), Excel client does not support co-authoring, only through the Excel Web App can we do this. This has been clearly documented by Microsoft here. The limitation is primarily due to Excel client’s richness in functionality (i.e. – data models in PivotCharts and PivotTables) which makes co-authoring a bit tricky.

The requirement for co-authoring is that the document is in fact stored in SharePoint (on-premise or online in Office365) OR SkyDrive. So if you take the document out of SharePoint (or SkyDrive), co-authoring files will be out of the window with it!! Depending on where the document is stored, there are some similarities and differences in behavior which as been documented here.

Upgrading to SharePoint 2013 doesn’t change these limitations, however SharePoint 2013 adds a few new features to what was already there (see this post here). Overall, there is a better syncing pipeline between co-authors in Excel web apps and there is more visibility over who is online doing “what” in the workbook. Limitations still apply though!! When you view a workbook in Excel Web App 2013, some features are not supported or might work differently, as summarized in this post by Microsoft (Excel Web App 2010 link is here).

A few common questions I get asked by clients about co-authoring:

• Q) Can you co-author on Excel files stored in SharePoint using Excel clients (2013, 2010, 2007, etc)?
• A) No. You need Excel Web App and Excel Services depending on what you do in the Excel file.

• Q) Can you take the Excel file out of SharePoint (or SkyDrive) and still co-author?
• A) No. Co-authoring requires the file to stay in SharePoint (or SkyDrive).
• Q)Does upgrading to SP2013 really help?
• A)Yes. It improves the co-authoring experience but the unsupported features differences in behavior between client and browser still applies.
• Q)What are the unsupported features in Excel web app?
• A)Here is the list. Please note Microsoft is not using the word “Unsupported”, they’re saying features that differ in the browser, client and then in the description they say it doesn’t work in the browser.

See more information about the early bird registration in the ad below.