We look back at how IT leaders and their teams inspired us to make ShareGate an even more robust Microsoft 365 management solution. A recap of delicious insights from the Microsoft MVP and expert community. Plus, what’s in store for ShareGate in 2023!
We couldn’t be more excited for 2023. But before we get ahead of ourselves, we wanted to reflect on the past 12 months. When taking stock of 2022, we couldn’t believe how much has happened since last January. Like, a lot.
So, as we tie the final bows on a loaded year, let’s revisit all the exciting updates and how IT teams have used ShareGate to more easily manage, secure, and migrate Microsoft 365.
We’ll hark back to how you conquered your biggest challenges and highlight the best advice from our friends in the Microsoft community. And because we already know you’re on the nice list, we’ll give you a sneak peek at what’s on our roadmap.
This is ShareGate’s year in review!
A look back at 2022:
Big changes and fresh features
We accomplished many goals we set for ourselves with regard to helping IT teams move from reactive to proactive management and making Microsoft 365 the collaboration tool it should be. Here are a few examples of how we focused on helping you find the best ways to manage your environments.
A new ShareGate experience
Earlier in the year, we unified our products, formerly known as ShareGate Desktop and ShareGate Apricot. As one, ShareGate allows you to do more from one easy platform, as your go-to Microsoft 365 management solution for SharePoint and Teams. Tackle the complex world of Microsoft 365, whether your day-to-day involves migration and content management, reporting, automation, permissions management, or provisioning.
Managing Microsoft 365
We launched several new features to make ShareGate an even more robust OOB management solution for Microsoft 365.
- Provisioning – Give IT the ability to create customizable Teams templates so that end users can create the teams they need following your policies.
- Use the templates to enforce purpose tags and sensitivity tags and add a naming convention.
- The ShareGate end-user app – Provide end users with their own workspace where they can easily see the teams they own and are a part of as well as create teams with your templates.
- Cloud copy – Move teams or channels within or across tenants all on the web.
- You can merge existing teams and keep copies up to date via incremental copy.
- Communication sites management – Get visibility into your SharePoint communication sites as well as your Microsoft 365 Groups and Teams through the ShareGate Manage page.
We were so excited about these new features that we threw a live launch event, RISE UP, to celebrate and show them off. You can watch RISE UP on demand anytime to get all the details.
Unified navigation
We rolled out unified navigation to make our features easily accessible from ShareGate Home and ShareGate Management, allowing you to quickly jump to locations such as policies and the migration tool.
Migrating Planner plans
With no easy option available to flexibly move Planner plans, we developed easy migration solutions with release 17.0. With this version, you get more flexibility with your Planner migrations – even when they aren’t associated with a team in Microsoft Teams.
Whether you’re migrating tenant-to-tenant or within the same tenant, you can easily move the exact plans you want, right where your users need them. Meaning you don’t need to start a Teams migration or use PowerShell! Check out our article summarizing the features.
Staying on top of externally shared links and guest access
We brought ShareGate’s external sharing review full circle by giving you the governance tools that provide full visibility into what’s happening and help you stay in control. With this milestone, we wanted to help you feel confident about turning on external sharing and guest access. Allowing your users the freedom to share documents or to add guests to their team is a lot easier knowing your sensitive information is kept secure. Check out our article about ShareGate’s external sharing review.
Bringing advice from the experts directly to you
For as long as we’ve been helping IT teams achieve more with the Microsoft productivity suite, we’ve had help and support from a passionate community of experts. We know we’re good at what we do, but these folks are the real pros when it comes to Microsoft products and best practices. We’re thankful to them for always being more than willing to lend a hand or share their thoughts and knowledge with individuals like you, who are trying to make the best out of Microsoft technologies.
- Pass the Mic [on-demand webinars]:
- SharePoint management: The breakdown with Drew Madelung, Microsoft MVP
- Bridging the gap: Harmonize your SharePoint sites with Teams with Susan Hanley, Microsoft MVP
- Future-proof your Microsoft 365 and Teams provisioning strategy with Richard Harbridge, Microsoft MVP
- Rising Up: Each interview tackles a specific topic and helps you optimize the way you work.
- The evolution of IT: Learn what three MVPs say IT leaders can do to bring the best out of their teams in 2023.
- ESPC 2022 recap: Best practices to create great user experiences and improve productivity in Microsoft 365, according to Microsoft MVPs and industry experts.
How you freed up IT time
Our Product and Engineering teams work hard to create an easier, faster way to ensure you have everything you need to succeed in your Microsoft 365 environment. Our proudest moments are seeing our clients redefine modern Microsoft 365 management using the features we’ve been adding to help free up IT’s time.
What our clients are saying
Vera Van Es
“The most important thing that ShareGate does is help us keep our environment up-to-date. Our users are happy, our access is secure, and we’re achieving that with a lot less frustration.”
Fonctional Microsoft 365 Administrator, Arkin
“It wasn’t until I opened ShareGate and clicked on the ‘Manage’ button…There were 107 teams that didn’t have owners. And I was like, ‘Oh, that’s a thing. I need to deal with that.’ And then really easily on the dashboard, I could see who they are, where they are…and even better is the automation.”
Astrid Gibbon
Communications Systems Manager, Oxford Instruments
“We tried scripting our own app to identify unused sites. But after a month working with our external consultant, ShareGate’s management tool came out and did the work for us. Now, it just sends us an email every week. It’s a huge time savings.”
Jacob Maegaard Siggaard
Principal IT Application Specialist, SimCorp
Our client data has shown us that after ShareGate’s automated inactivity detection feature uncovered unused teams, 70% of all inactive teams were kept or removed by the owners, rather than IT. The feature is not only a great way to keep your Microsoft 365 environment clutter-free and secure, but it also offers huge time savings.
What’s on our roadmap for 2023
As we’re preparing for the new year, we’ll share more of what features we’ll be working on for you. Features that help to make your experience with Microsoft and its associated apps, whether it’s Teams or SharePoint, much smoother. And that means more updates on our provisioning feature, including potentially adding filters. Plus, a more enhanced end-user experience with the ShareGate end-user app is in the works.
Safe to say, we had a huge year here at ShareGate—we couldn’t have done it without you! Let’s make next year even better: empowering your end users to do their best work in Microsoft 365, and keeping your tenant efficient, organized, and secure.
If you haven’t used ShareGate yet, what are you waiting for? Request a live 1-on-1 demo with our expert team to learn more about how ShareGate can help!
