You can access your SharePoint Online site on a mobile device and enjoy the same productivity and collaboration benefits of your site, even when you are away from the office. Accessing the SharePoint Online site on a mobile device gives the flexibility of being able to access information on sites from anywhere, so that you can collaborate with colleagues, access shared documents, view updated site content, and otherwise stay connected with your work.
Note You can access a SharePoint Online site on a mobile device such as a PDA, Smartphone, mobile Internet device, or any other mobile phone that has a browser and connects to the Internet.
In this article
Open a site on a mobile device
You can access your site with a Windows phone by opening the phone’s web browser and entering the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) of your SharePoint site. If you are using a non-Windows phone, you can enter the URL in the browser or to see an optimized mobile view, you can just append /?Mobile=1 to the URL. For example, if your site is called http://fabrikam.com, then the mobile version of the URL would be http://fabrikam.com/?Mobile=1.
Note Your phone browser must be HTML 4.0-compliant in order to be able to display a site correctly. If you are unsure whether your phone browser is HTML 4.0 compliant, contact your mobile service provider.
A SharePoint Online site on a Windows Phone 7
You can open a site on a Windows Phone 7 in the same way you open the site from your PC, by just typing the URL in your browser. What you see on the phone is the actual view of the site and not a mobile version (though that is available). You can start working away on the site just like you would from your PC. You can perform most tasks on the site—create and edit items in a list, upload documents, change the site theme, create and edit site pages, add Web Parts, hyperlinks, images and other page elements—to name a few.
Sync to a site and work on Office documents
If you have a Windows 6.5 phone or above, you can use SharePoint Workspace Mobile 2010 to connect to your site and access Office documents. You can open documents in Word Mobile 2010, Excel Mobile 2010, or PowerPoint Mobile 2010, and edit documents.
With a Windows Phone 7, you can go to the Office Hub to sync your site. You can also download your Office documents from the site and store them offline. Once you make any updates to the document, you can always reconnect to the site and update the document version with your version, thus ensuring that everyone has access to the same version as you.
Here’s how you can sync to a site from a Windows Phone 7:
Note You may be asked to sign in with your Windows Live ID and password more than once during the entire process.
- Open the Office hub on the Windows Phone 7.
- In the Office hub, browse to SharePoint.
- Tap open URL.
- Type the URL of your site and press the forward arrow.
- Enter your Live ID username and password and Tap Sign in.
You can now take files offline, edit them, and save the changes back on the site to share the updated version with other users.
- Browse to a document library (such as Shared Documents) which contains the file that you want to take offline.
- Once you have identified the file in the library, keep pressing on the file name till a menu opens.
- Select any of the following options to take your file offline:
- download now Downloads the file on your phone and opens the file for you to view or edit. If you make changes and save the file, the file is automatically updated on the site.
- always keep offline Saves a copy of the document on your phone. You can then edit the document and manually reconnect to the site to upload your document.
A SharePoint Online site on a non-Windows phone
If you have used the mobile view of a site on a non-Windows phone, you would get a scaled-down version of a desktop browser view. For example, the following image compares the desktop and mobile versions of a site on a non-Windows phone:
Fig. 2 The desktop and mobile versions of a site on a non-Windows phone displaying side-by-side.
When you open the mobile version of a site, you see only some elements of a site that you would see in the desktop version, such as lists, libraries, search feature, and My Site. The user-interface is simple and intuitive enough for you to start using your site. However, there are some limitations of using the mobile version —you won’t be able to perform some tasks that you would typically perform in a site, such as upload files, edit items or pages, work with Web parts and other page elements, to name a few. Here are the tasks that you can typically perform on a mobile version:
- View items in lists and libraries
- Open Office documents from the site
Work with lists and libraries
You can perform some basic tasks in lists and libraries from a mobile device such as view items, add items to lists, apply filters to lists, switch views, and edit item properties.
There are two types of views that are available to use in a list or library on a mobile site: Simple View and Details View. By default, a list or a library always displays in a Simple View.
Simple View and Details View of the Announcements list displaying side-by-side
Configure lists and libraries to appear in a mobile view
Any default list or library is set to appear on the site in a mobile view. However, if you create a new list or a library on the site, you must configure the list or library to appear in a mobile view. A site owner or an administrator can also modify the Enable this view for mobile access setting to remove a specific list or library from the view. To add or remove a list or library from the mobile view, follow these steps:
Note The Enable this view for mobile access setting can be applied only to public views for a list or a library.
- Open the list or library you are interested in.
- On the ribbon, click the List tab (or Library tab if it is a library), and then under Manage Views, click Modify View.
- On the Edit page, scroll down to Mobile and click the plus sign to expand the section.
- To add a list to the mobile view, select the Enable this view for mobile access checkbox. If you want to remove from mobile view, clear the checkbox.
- Click OK.
Open Office documents on non-Windows phones
If you are using a non-Windows phone, you can simply click the document link from the site and view the contents of the document, using the Mobile Viewers for Microsoft Office. You can now catch up on a report or review an important presentation while you’re away from the office even if your mobile device doesn’t have Microsoft Office Mobile 2010 applications.
Note Mobile Viewers for Office are already available for use in the mobile version of a SharePoint 2010 site, so you do not have to do anything to be able to open and view documents on your browser.
The following devices provide support for the Mobile Viewers for Office:
- Windows Phone 7
- Windows Mobile 6.5
- Japan feature phones including docomo, SoftBank and KDDI by au phones
To view Word, Excel, or PowerPoint files, use your phone’s browser to navigate to your library.
View Word documents
Imagine that you are finishing up a report with a colleague before going out of town. While you’re on the commuter train you receive a message from your colleague, with a link to the finalized version of the report. You click the link, and the Word document opens in your phone’s browser.
By default the document displays in Text View. You can also switch to Image View for looking at graphics and pictures. To switch to Image View, click the Office button to open a menu of commands. From this menu, click Image View.
To page through the document use the navigation bar at the top of the screen:
Click the Office Button to open a menu of commands.
From this menu you can use the Find and Go to Page commands to jump to content you’re interested in, or you can navigate through the document visually by clicking Thumbnail Index.
View Excel workbooks
Imagine that your group is planning an event and is keeping track of possible venues in a spreadsheet. You’re returning from vacation, sitting in the airport and you want to check on the rating of a particular venue. You’ve saved the URL for your group’s spreadsheet and you open it in your mobile browser. The spreadsheet displays a small set of rows and columns, that makes it easy for you to search to find the information you need.
To find the venue you’re interested in, click the Office Button and then click Find.
Type part of the venue name and then click Find.
In the search results, the cell in which the venue occurs is displayed, along with adjacent cells:
Click the link to the cell, and Mobile Viewer for Excel displays that section of the spreadsheet:
If you want to scroll through the spreadsheet without losing column or row headings you can freeze a row or column in the display. To do this, first note the column or row number that you want to freeze. Then, do the following:
- Click the Office Button.
- Click Freeze Row or Column.
- Click Freeze Row or Freeze Column and click Next.
- Enter the row or column number that you want to freeze and click OK.
If you are viewing a workbook with more than one worksheet you can browse from one worksheet to another.
- Click the Office Button.
- Click Go to Sheet, and then click the name of the worksheet you want to view.
If the worksheet includes a chart, the Mobile Viewer for Excel provides a link for viewing it.
- Click the Office Button.
- Click View Charts in Current Sheet.
View PowerPoint presentations
The Mobile Viewer for Microsoft PowerPoint enables you to view presentations at your own pace by browsing through the slides or finding particular content.
A presentation always opens the Thumbnail Index.
Click on the slide title to open the slide. The presentation is now in Slide View.
Click Next Slide and Previous Slide to go through the slides one by one. Use the Find and Go to Slide commands to jump to content you’re interested in, or navigate through the presentation visually by clicking Thumbnail Index. To download a copy of the presentation, click Download a Copy, and the presentation is saved in a document library in your site.
To read text, open the presentation in Outline View:
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