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Microsoft Axes SharePoint Events as COVID-19 Precaution

Multiple SharePoint-related events this year have been cancelled, postponed or made virtual as a consequence of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Mark Kashman and Chris McNulty, both senior product managers on the Microsoft SharePoint team, described the changes in an announcement on Tuesday. In essence, all of the Microsoft Ignite Tour events have been cancelled, but Kashman promised that "a lot of that content will be coming on demand." Many SharePoint Saturday events are postponed.

The Microsoft Business Applications Summit of May 6 to 7 is going virtual, while the SharePoint Conference 2020 event, originally scheduled for May 19, has been pushed out to March 2021.

Lots of Microsoft-related events have been altered because of the pandemic, including the Microsoft Build developer event, which is going virtual, and the Microsoft Inspire partner conference, which has been cancelled. For an ongoing and changing list, see RCP's 2020 Microsoft Conference Calendar.

Crisis Management Apps and Sites
In other SharePoint news, Kashman and McNulty shared advice on how to create a Crisis Communication App using a Power Platform template, plus how to create a SharePoint Online Communications Site designed to show emergency info.

The Communications Site template came about because of a call from an internal Microsoft team to put up a SharePoint site as a response to the COVID-19 situation, Kashman explained. It took about 20 minutes to get a framework for layering up content. From that, Microsoft got the idea to create a crisis management site, which is now available in the Microsoft SharePoint Look Book, Kashman added.

McNulty explained that the Look Book has expanded to become more than just a book of SharePoint site examples. It has expanded into an initiative to take printed online templates into something that can be provisioned using the SharePoint Provisioning Service, he explained. The SharePoint Provisioning Service also offers templates to provision a trial site, which can added to an existing SharePoint Online tenancy, as well.

About the Author

Kurt Mackie is senior news producer for 1105 Media's Converge360 group.

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