I’m currently writing an article about building SharePoint 2013 mobile apps and things to take into consideration or think about before you begin.
I’d love input from my fellow community members, so if you have the time to answer 1 or more of the following questions, I’d greatly appreciate it! Â Please specify which question number you are answering.
- What are your favorite new mobile features that were introduced in SharePoint 2013, and why?
- Does your company or any of your clients currently use any 3rd party or open source mobile solutions? Â If so, which one(s) and what benefit do they provide or what problem do they solve?
- Do you think it’s better to build mobile apps for SharePoint, or just create a mobile browser version of your SharePoint site that works in all the major mobile browsers?
- How concerned is your company (or clients) about security surrounding mobile apps, such as, sensitive SharePoint documents falling into the wrong hands via mobile access; and what do you recommend they do to keep their content secure?
- Are there any other things your company or clients should consider before they start building mobile SharePoint apps?
Here are some things I can share about what we are hearing from customers:
Lots of companies are struggling with the fact that workers are going outside SharePoint to share documents because there isn’t a good mobile solution to SharePoint today. The use of these unsanctioned apps like Dropbox and YouSendIt (now Hightail) is causing angst for IT folks who are chartered with maintaining corporate governance. Getting this under control is a big deal because companies have already invested in SharePoint, which means getting the most of existing investments and it’s a huge security risk because documents are being stored all over the place – outside the confines of the company.  (This is where apps like harmon.ie become strategic for companies).
Also, the browser experience for SharePoint has never been easy for business users; on the mobile devices it is even harder to use. So folks are looking for easy to use apps that give a native experience, not only for accessing documents on SharePoint, but for actually editing the documents as well.
Which leads to the next point, which is almost everyone I talk to is evaluating or has selected an MDM or mobile VPN solution; getting the necessary security infrastructure in place is critical for using SharePoint apps. Some folks are there; others are working towards it. This is another element that dictates the pace at which organizations can actually take advantage of SharePoint from mobile devices.
Thank you everyone for the great responses, this will really help a lot 🙂
#1 – Device Channels (although they provide a solution only for publishing sites)
#2 – KWizcom’s SharePoint Mobile Extensions, this solution enables creating custom mobile pages that include the exact fields, buttons, menus and workflows.It works with any type of site, and requires no development skills.
#3 – The answers depends on many factors.
The Advantages of App- works faster, easily integrate with the device’s file system, camera etc., can work offline
The advantages of Web – much easier to update and deploy (no need to create multiple versions for various devices…), so much less expensive to maintain than an app.
and..there are the Hybrid solutions (such as Netflix’s), if you use Netflix on your iPad for example, you may notice the updates that they are doing from time to time in the UI, without you having to download and install a new version of the App!
Seems to me like this Hybrid solution takes the best of the 2 worlds.
#4 – as long as we don’t have any offline capabilities – we’re not worried.
#5 – Before you buy anything really understand the nature of the required mobile solution. If you require progressive UX, where the level of interaction is low (mainly viewing content), then I would use SP2013’s device channels which looks to me like an excellent solution.
And, before you decide to develop an App – you should be aware of the maintenance costs involved. Developing an app for a specific target device (like iPad for example) costs much less than developing an App for iOS and Android and Windows Phone…and even if you develop it just for Android, you will face various issues with different devices – so bottom line: Developing an App (and properly support and maintain it) will cost a lot more than what you plan.
1. Device Channel & Responsiveness.Â
2. Nope.Â
3. Depends if you have a lot of custom solutions. For a OOTB SP Site with little modification you can build a “mobile sp site”.. for a site with a lot of custom actions, workflows or specific actions  you can build a mobile app. For example, imagine you have a site where Construction Photos are posted, now imagine having a mobile up to take the photo and upload it there automatically.Â
4. Didn’t hear anything about it ,however we have monthly contests to catch persons at the office which don’t lock their PC session. Since we’re all in IT we know to have a password on our phones
5. Do they really need it?
Media Queries are a problem if you think of the best combination of UX and the accessing device. They are also a problem if you think about accessibility. To give you an example. Just because the screen resolution is 800px wide doesn’t mean that you access with a template. It can mean that someone visually impaired has reduced it’s screen size.
Device Channels combined with Media Queries are the best way to go. IMO. This is because you can create a unique user experience for every one of the three most common device class desktop, tablet and mobile. I’m into media queries for almost three years right after I read this article on a list apart. In fact I have seen more bad web sites and only a few good one. Currently working on a blog post about this topic.
Creating your own apps make sense if you have a specific use case that is special in your company and is hard to accomplish with the approaches above. If not then you might be fine with the available solutions on the market more or less.
