In this blog we will explore the SharePoint spaces, it’s history & roadmap and how to enable SharePoint spaces in a SharePoint online site.

What’s SharePoint Spaces

As per the Microsoft documentation, SharePoint spaces is defined as:

“SharePoint spaces is a web-based, immersive platform, which lets you create and share, secure and extensible mixed reality experiences. Add a new dimension to your intranet by using 2D and 3D web parts to create your mixed reality vision.”

SharePoint Spaces allows users to easily build mixed reality experiences that interact with content stored in SharePoint Online.

SharePoint spaces empower creators to build immersive mix reality experiences with point-and-click simplicity. You can get started with smart templates to create a mixed reality environment complete with beautiful surroundings, ambient sounds, rich textures, and lighting. You then add content, which can include files you already have in SharePoint, allowing you to repurpose your existing data, documents, and images.

History & Roadmap

• Microsoft announced SharePoint Spaces first time during its annual SharePoint Virtual Summit held in May 2018.
• Microsoft announced SharePoint spaces public preview in April 2020, Roadmap.
• Microsoft added 360° tour web part in SharePoint spaces which allows creation of immersive virtual tours for SharePoint sites, Roadmap.
• Microsoft added touch device support in SharePoint spaces which enables users to interact with a space using touch interactions in addition to the mouse and keyboard-based interactions, Roadmap.
• Microsoft announced General Availability of SharePoint spaces, Roadmap.

That’s it for SharePoint spaces introduction and history. Let’s see how you can enable SharePoint spaces in your SharePoint online site to get started with it.

Enable SharePoint spaces in a site

SharePoint spaces are not enabled by default in SharePoint online site. To use SharePoint spaces, we need to enable a site feature named “Spaces”.

You can activate this feature using any one of the methods given below:

Manually:

You can activate Spaces feature from user interface by navigating to Manage site features page.

Hit (URL: https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/siteName/_layouts/ManageFeatures.aspx) in browser tab by replacing tenant and siteName or follow below steps:

1. Go to SharePoint site where you want to build a space
2. Click on Settings (gear icon), select Site information and then select View all site settings.
3. On the Site settings page, select Manage site features under Site Actions.
4. Scroll down the page to Spaces feature and click on Activate button.
5. Wait till the page refreshes and confirm that feature is activated successfully.

Using PnP PowerShell:

You can easily activate features in SharePoint online using PnP PowerShell. To activate a site feature using PnP PowerShell you will need the GUID of feature. Check how you can quickly get the GUID of a site feature. GUID of Spaces feature is 2ac9c540-6db4-4155-892c-3273957f1926.

Use below command to activate Spaces feature:

Enable-PnPFeature -Identity 2ac9c540-6db4-4155-892c-3273957f1926 -Scope Web

You can find the detailed example of how to activate a site feature in SharePoint Online using PnP PowerShell here.

To get an idea about what you can do using SharePoint spaces, check out some of the awesome samples here.

See also

• SharePoint spaces to be available by default in New menu
• Introducing Embed web part in SharePoint spaces

Tech giant Microsoft is introducing Embed web part in SharePoint spaces which will allow users to show SharePoint pages or HTML page embed content as an interactable overlay on a SharePoint space. Space viewers will see a thumbnail image in the 3D space that can be viewed as a fully functional HTML overlay when selected by the user. Space viewers that are using a mixed reality headset will only see the thumbnail when selecting the web part unless they return to the browser to interact with the embedded content.

This new feature release will allow users to add content such as:

• Microsoft Forms
• The PowerPoint embed viewer
• SharePoint Pages
• Power Apps

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 70732.

Release Timeline

• Targeted release (selected users and entire organization): Roll out will begin in early November and expect to be complete by mid-November.
• Standard release: Roll out will begin in mid-November and expect to be complete by late November.

How this will affect your organization

SharePoint spaces authors will see a new embed web part available in the spaces web part toolbox while designing a SharePoint space.

SharePoint spaces authors will see embed web part as shown in below image:

What you need to do to prepare

You might want to notify your users about this new capability and update your training documentation as appropriate.

Learn more

• SharePoint spaces
• SharePoint spaces to be available by default in New menu

Microsoft released the preview version of the Loop app on March 22. The app works well for collaboration with people from the same Microsoft 365 tenant but fails utterly once external people are involved. Some other teething problems are evident, but there's enough in the Loop app for people to make their minds up if this will make collaboration smarter within their organization.

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