Hi,
We would like to use SharePoint Online for a public facing website (we are using the intranet side already which works well) but have noticed a lot of issues trying to get it to work the way we want to. I have seen on the web that there are quite a few limitations from various blogs/forums with suggested work-arounds but none of them have worked thus far.
Basically I need to make a call on whether or not SP Online will be able to meet the requirements or if we'll have to look at an alternative solution.
E.g. 1) Document Libraries
1.1) I've created a document library and exposed it through an app part on a public page. This seems to work fine for the most part when using PDF files but any Word/Excel documents want to open in OWA or, if forced, in the client application which then starts prompting for credentials. The requirement here is to have various documents available to the public to download and fill in. Is it possible to force all files within a document library, when clicked, to prompt to download/save the file?
1.2) When clicking on the name of the document library that is displayed in the app part, it wants to open the document library itself which then redirects to the login page. The issue with this is that if a user goes down a level into a folder in the document library, they have to use the browser back button to go back up a level. Most users will click on the title though which doesn't lend well to a good user experience. Is there any way to prevent this and have the title link to the page with the app part or have some form of folder navigation present?
E.g. 2) Calendars
1.1) I have found a "work around" in changing the content type to Event for this to somewhat work but we need a calendar to be filterable by a certain category which doesn't seem possible when adding the calendar app part to a public page. If it is possible to display a view selector on the public page, that would suffice but it seems that adding the part to the page limits it to a pre-defined view.
1.2) I also tried displaying it as a "list" instead of a calendar view but when trying to open a single item to see its contents, we are again redirected to the login screen. Is there any way around this?
1.3) Using the same list approach at least shows the column titles but when trying to open the filter drop down I get "Cannot show the value of the filter. The field may not be filterable, or the number of items returned exceeds the list view threshold enforced by the administrator" which doesn't happen when logged in. Is this also by design or is it fixable somehow?
1.4) The same issue applies for the title of the calendar whereby clicking on it directs the user to a login screen.
I've tried numerous attempts at getting the above to work but basically if SP Online public facing websites are not meant to be more than simple content pages/brochure type sites then we'll have to use an alternative solution. If anyone else has encountered the same types of issues or figured out workarounds for them, I'd love to hear what they are!
Kind regards,
Rick