Microsoft SharePoint Server Changelog

What's new in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2016 RC

Jan 20, 2016

The SharePoint Server 2016 RC showcases significant value for IT admins, developers and end users.
Enhanced IT:
SharePoint Server 2016 provides unprecedented deployment flexibility, whether you’re looking to deploy on-premises, in the cloud or in a hybrid scenario. As business needs and technological advancements converge, IT professionals have a unique opportunity to take advantage of new innovations in their organizations across on-premises and Office 365.
In addition, SharePoint Server 2016 helps provide enhanced data security and compliance by offering simplified configuration and administration for regulatory policies. SharePoint Server 2016 puts IT professionals in a better position to control access to company- and customer-sensitive data by making authorization and audit management more central, flexible and seamless.
Consistent development:
Optimize developer productivity with a unified development experience across server and cloud with modern APIs. SharePoint Server 2016 enables a broad ecosystem through a standardized set of APIs and experiences that span on-premises and the cloud.
As a developer, you now have new ways to create contextual solutions that span SharePoint Server 2016 and Office 365 from the web, mobile apps and Office. You have simpler and more robust APIs and tool improvements to make building solutions easier than ever before. And your solutions have the potential to reach a vast number of users across businesses, government organizations and schools, who spend hours every day using Office or Office 365.
Better user productivity:
SharePoint Server 2016 provides improved mobile access to content, people and applications along with touch-based experiences across devices and screen sizes. SharePoint Server 2016 also provides simpler and easier to use file storage and document collaboration. And, with seamless Hybrid integration to Office 365, users of SharePoint Server can now take advantage of new and improving productivity experiences like Delve, SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business.
Foundation for the future:
In today’s rapidly changing business and technology environment, responding quickly to changing business needs or to user demands can be challenging. Whether you choose to deploy SharePoint Online with Office 365 or SharePoint Server on-premises, you need software that helps you more easily take advantage of new technology or services quickly. We’ve designed SharePoint Server 2016 to position our on-premises customers to take advantage of innovations more quickly whether SharePoint is deployed on-premises, in the cloud or somewhere in between.
In addition to these updates, SharePoint Server 2016 RC also includes the Project Server 2016 RC.

New in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2016 Preview (Aug 26, 2015)

SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview provides a first look at a select set of new infrastructure investments that will help define the scope, scale and reliability of SharePoint Server 2016. Since we’re building SharePoint Server 2016 on the same core platform for SharePoint Online, you won’t be surprised to see similarities between the two. SharePoint Server 2016 unlocks new user experiences that are intuitive, yet familiar. For IT professionals, it delivers improved performance and scale with simplified management. And for developers, it offers an opportunity to build for cloud or on-premises.
Improved provisioning capabilities:
One of the more difficult challenges, beyond deploying software, is managing the IT infrastructure to support it. In many cases, IT investments directly impact the bottom line. SharePoint Server 2016 has been designed to reduce the emphasis on IT and streamline administrative tasks, so IT professionals can concentrate on core competencies and mitigate costs. Tasks that may have taken hours to complete in the past have become simple and efficient processes that allow IT to focus less on day-to-day management and more on innovation.
Improved provisioning capabilities help IT departments and hosting service providers maximize existing infrastructure investments while exploring new services, improved management and higher availability through an improved role-based installation architecture.
Mobile and touch:
Making decisions faster and keeping in contact are critical capabilities for increasing effectiveness in any organization. The ability for end users to access information while on the go is now a workplace necessity. In addition to a consistent cross-screen experience, SharePoint Server 2016 provides the latest technologies and standards for mobile push and information synchronization.
You need to be sure your software works on the devices your users prefer. With deep investment in HTML5, SharePoint Server 2016 provides IT professionals and designers with capabilities that enable device-specific targeting of content. This helps ensure that users have access to the information they need, regardless of the screen they choose to access it on.
SharePoint Server 2016 further empowers your workforce by delivering a consistent experience across screens, whether using a browser on the desktop, a mobile device, tablet or slate. Through this rich experience, users can easily transition from one client to another without having to sacrifice feature fidelity.
App Launcher:
The App Launcher provides a new navigation experience where all your apps are easily available from the top navigation bar. You can quickly launch your application, browse sites and access your personal files.
New and improved controls:
Based on our investments in SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business, SharePoint Server 2016 document libraries inherit the new, improved control surface for working with files and content, simplifying the user experience for file creation, sharing and management.
Simple and natural sharing:
SharePoint Server 2016 improves the sharing experience by making it more natural for users to share sites and files. Just click the Share button at the top right corner of every page, enter the names of people you want to share with, and press Enter. That’s it; you’re done! The people you just shared with will get an email invitation with a link to the site.
SharePoint still uses powerful concepts like permission levels, groups and inheritance to provide this experience, but you don’t have to understand those concepts anymore to accomplish everyday tasks like sharing a site.
Part of sharing is also understanding who can see something. If you want to find out who already has access to a particular site, simply go to the Settings menu in top right corner, click Shared with, and you’ll see the names and pictures of people who have access to the site.
Large file support:
The world of collaboration has changed, and text-based files are shifting to modern media, videos, audio and more. SharePoint Server 2016 provides support for uploading files up to 10GB.
Compliance tools:
Preventing data loss is non-negotiable, and overexposure to information can have legal and compliance implications. SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview provides a broad array of features and capabilities designed to make certain that sensitive information remains that way, and to ensure that the right people have access to the right information at the right time.
New In-Place Hold Policy and Document Deletion Centers, which allow you to manage time-based, organization-wide in-place hold policies to preserve items in SharePoint and OneDrive for Business for a fixed period of time, in addition to managing policies that can delete documents after a specified period of time.