The harmon.ie Office 365 and SharePoint Mobile Client app for iOS allows users to easily connect to their SharePoint environments from their iPhones and iPads. After reviewing the app, I would give it a 4.5 out of 5.
Adding a SharePoint site to the app is very simple for the end users:
All that is required is the URL to the site and how the user is going to authenticate:
One of my favorite features of this app is support for browser-based (forms) authentication. This is one feature missing from many mobile clients that interact with SharePoint.
Once sites are added, navigating through the app is very simple and intuitive. Like most SharePoint client applications, this app allows users to navigate through the content structure of the sites based on their permissions. The only pitfall here is that administrators have less control over how the information is displayed versus what they can do in the web interface.
The app makes good use of mobile design in its navigation and breadcrumb structures. The flyout menus work well and keep the process simple for the end users.
One feature of the app that truly makes it stand out compared to others is the wrapper for the Office Web Apps. This lets users create and edit Office documents in the app using the web version of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote without leaving the app.
This app also includes a lightweight Yammer client, allowing SharePoint, Office 365 and Yammer users to easily see updates for each of these in a single place. This is a step above what Microsoft offers in the web interface, where you see Yammer and SharePoint activity updates in separate places.
Overall, the harmon.ie Office 365 and SharePoint Mobile Client app is presented very well. It is incredibly easy for end-users to get started and use. The app makes good use of the current SharePoint, Office 365, and Yammer offerings provided by Microsoft. My biggest complaint with the current Microsoft offerings is the lack of real integration between SharePoint and Yammer (see http://www.johnchapman.net/sharepoint-2013-service-pack-1-adds-half-baked-integration-office-365-yammer/). This app offers a good solution for bridging that gap by making it simpler for end-users to see activity updates for Yammer, SharePoint, and Office 365 in a single place.
For users of SharePoint, Office 365 and Yammer, I would highly recommend this app. The app doesn’t attempt to overcome the overall chunkiness of managing content in SharePoint, but it does make the best of what Microsoft currently has to offer on the platform. It does, however, attempt to bridge the gap between SharePoint and Yammer. This alone makes the app worthwhile as Microsoft continues to push these products together.
