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Hello, it's Matt, and welcome to Collaboration Coach.
In this video we're going to have a first look at SharePoint Spaces.
SharePoint Spaces has been in public preview for a few months now
and it allows us to add 3D content to our SharePoint sites
and I thought it was time we took a look to see how it's doing.
I'm going to show you how to switch it on; design and build a space,
and have a think about what the point of it really is.
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So what is Spaces?
A SharePoint space is a 3D environment that's embedded in the SharePoint page.
The space itself is a stage that you can add 3D content to,
and you can create, edit and view it in the browser or using a virtual reality headset.
The space is a page that you store in a pages library
and it can be published just like a normal page and it's available to everyone who has access to the site.
When you edit a Space you can add 3D web parts to the page
and you can mix content like images, text and files alongside 360 degree objects and videos
and even build 360 degree tours.
The Spaces feature is not turned on by default.
You need to be a SharePoint site owner to switch it on.
To do that, go to the settings wheel in the top right corner and choose "site information"
then scroll to the bottom of that window and choose the "view all site settings" link.
On the site settings page in the "site action" section choose "manage site features".
Scroll to the bottom of the features list and find Spaces and choose "activate".
Once SharePoint Spaces has been switched on,
you can go to the home page and choose the "new" button.
Now you should see a Space option in the list of new items.
Choose "Space", and the Space creation wizard starts.
You choose a Space name and you also choose the structure.
The structure is a list of templates that decide what the 3D space will look like
and you can see a simple picture of that structure in each thumbnail.
It doesn't really matter which one you choose because you can change it afterwards.
I'm going to call my Space "Hotel Tour", and choose the spiral structure.
Once you've chosen your name and structure, you press the "create" button
and the Space is ready to be designed.
You can now use your mouse or headset to move around the Space,
and you'll see the structure you chose and a background image.
You can press the "Space design" button now, and that will bring up a rail on the right hand side...
...that you can use to change the structure,
and you can do things like change the tone of the structure from light to dark.
You can also change the background image and there's a selection of outdoor scenes to choose from,
or you can choose an illustration or colour for the background
or upload your own 360 degree files.
You can also add sound.
A piece of audio can welcome visitors to your Space,
and you can also add an ambient sound like music or rain.
I've got an audio file that I recorded here that I'm going to upload as the welcome
and I'm going to set the ambient sound to "music".
The next step is to add some 3D content to the Space.
You do that by pressing this blue plus button, and that brings up a web part browser
and shows you all the 3D web parts that can be added to the space.
You can see here there are some text, image and even document library parts that you can add,
and you can do a search using the box at the top here which filters the list.
I'm going to start by adding a 3D object.
When I choose that, I have to place it in the Space,
and I do that by just clicking wherever I want it to go,
and when I do that it asks me to choose what type of object I'd like to add,
I get access to the 3D catalog, and this is hosted by Microsoft
and it's the same one as PowerPoint uses.
I can choose or search from a library of objects.
Some are animated like this T-Rex,
but I'm just going to search for a bed and place a bed in the Space.
Once it's there, you can change it's position and you can resize it with these blue handles.
There's also an edit button that gives you some more control over the object.
That opens this rail on the right hand side,
and you can see the properties for the object;
you can change it and add alternate text
so it's just like an image in a web page.
You can also add what happens when you click on the object in the page.
In the actions section down here you can add from a drop-down list of options.
By default it's "inspect".
Once you've added your object you can publish your page with the "publish" button,
and then it's available for everyone on the site to use.
You see I can click on the bed now and inspect it by spinning it around.
Let's go back in and add another 3D part to the Space.
I press the "edit" button again to start editing the Space.
I choose the blue plus button, and this time I choose "document library".
It prompts me to choose which folder I want to add and I've got one here called "Hotel Tour".
It places the folder in a 3D form in the Space
and I can move it and resize it just like I could with the bed.
If I publish the Space again...
...I can page through this carousel of documents in the folder with my mouse wheel
and I can click on one to choose it and I see the first page of the document,
and I can save it;
open it in the browser or close it down.
Okay, last example let's try adding a 360 degree tour of a hotel room.
I'm going to edit the Space again and then choose the 360 degree tour.
I place the tour marker on the Space and then it prompts me to go find my first 360 degree image.
And I've saved one in the site here.
So if you want to test this out you can find and download 360 degree images from your favourite search engine...
...which is what I did.
When I edit the properties of this object by pressing the pen,
I can open the tour builder which will allow me to configure what happens in the tour.
First of all, you can see I'm looking at the hotel room 360 degree image
and I can move around this room.
I'm pressing on the image here and then I choose "link to 360 degree image".
In the description I'll just type "Great views of the city",
and then below here I'll add another image - which will be my view of the city.
I've got one here of Tokyo.
I'll select it and that will leave a clickable marker in the hotel room image.
Now I'm going to publish this Space again and we'll see what it looks like.
So now when I hover over the marker I can see the description,
and when I click it, it takes me to the city view which is the 360 degree image that I uploaded...
...and I can move around that.
I can click the scene and choose backspace to go back to the hotel room.
If I edit the room again I can also add other annotations to this room,
like text, images, video and even documents.
So in our hotel room scenario you could have the room service menu,
or the tv guide
or video recommendations on where to go during your stay.
So I've got to admit I was skeptical of why you would need a 3D virtual environment like this in your intranet.
Spaces seemed to me like a bit of a folly when it was announced,
but as I've started to use it I can think of quite a few cases where it could be useful,
for example, onboarding new employees,
where knowledge of environments is really important,
like buildings or outdoor areas
- that could be shown in 3D videos so you could allow people to choose where they want to look,
- where they thought was interesting.
You need very little SharePoint experience so it's relatively easy to get started
and you don't need any specialist gear unless you want to create the 360 degree images yourself.
This is only my first look at the preview of Spaces
but now I'm really interested to see where Microsoft takes this.
I'm also interested to hear what you think and whether you think you can make use of it too.
So let us know in the comments.
So thank you so much for watching and I'll see you next time.
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