New to Office 365 SharePoint – Open This Link On A Phone

I found a new update on Office 365 today! This comes as a surprise since it wasn’t mentioned anywhere else yet, even in the message center (see my other post on 2 other recent Office 365 updates, one of which I have not seen yet). I’ve confirmed this update is available in another tenant, not just ours.

This update provides you a QR code to scan with your phone, and in turn access the document. Check it out:

Click the … for a document, and to the right of the link should be a wee little phone icon (I’m surprised I noticed it this morning):

After that gets clicked, a new window opens (which to me looks a little crude):

Then I scan that with my phone and it actually works!

So, cool that there’s a nice new feature, sad that they didn’t warn us earlier?

But why?

The topic came up over on Fabian Williams blog, and it came up with my colleagues when I first found this. Fabian points out two great reasons for the QR code. Another way I think I would use this is to scan it with my iPad and load the doc on there, prior to walking into a meeting or something. Much faster than navigating to it on the iPad, or emailing myself a link.

Also, this is available on the SharePoint Online public web site as well, which has more of a use case than on a private site I would imagine. Giving your potential customers an easy way to get to your files! Pretty sweet.