The age of the mobile device is already here. As more business and organizations are beginning to support BYOD (bring your own device) initiatives, the growing numbers of end users are expecting access to SharePoint resources and tools using their mobile devices. With this positive trend, IT administrators and content managers should know and determine the logistics of making SharePoint for mobile access easy and practical. There are some steps that you may need to do in order to configure SharePoint to mobile devices. Below are some tips to make the steps easier for you as an IT administrator or content manager.

Licensing of the software. This is one of the first things that you should think of. SharePoint has a complex licensing model which is largely based on the concepts of user and access type. If your plan is to provide existing end users with remote access to SharePoint tools and resources using their mobile devices, you must follow Microsoft’s intranet licensing requirements. For the licensing purposes of SharePoint, Microsoft has defined intranet as a website hosting content, software or information that can be accessed inside the firewall for internal users only. It may seem that this definition only refers to on-premises SharePoint access. To understand it better, Microsoft stated that a SharePoint license is required for every running instance of the SharePoint Server. Managers, employees and on-site contractors must have a client access license. The CAL requirements will not change if the users access the intranet site remotely. In other words the Microsoft intranet software SharePoint permits users to remotely access the environment as long as they have a valid client access license.

Knowing how SharePoint 2013 with mobile devices. As an administrator or a content management manager, you may not have to do anything to support SharePoint for use in mobile devices assuming that these devices are updated and support HTML5. Although HTML5 is not a requirement, end users on the other hand will experience better browsing if it supports HTML5. SharePoint has the ability to check the browser the end user is using and it will provide a better and suitable browsing experience. The software also provides three different views for different content types and it automatically chooses the view that will best match the browser’s capabilities. It is essential to understand which views are supported across all mobile devices and what content types each of the view can display is one key for SharePoint in support of a BYOD environment.

The SharePoint’s full –screen user interface view. This is the first view of SharePoint can show. The full-screen view is the same as the SharePoint desktop UI. It uses the same navigation tools and similar look as the desktop version. The only difference is that the display is optimized for tablet use and viewing although it can be viewed using a smart phone. But take note that the full-screen UI view is not designed or optimized for the touch interface.

Classic view. This is a legacy view that was created for use on older smart phones that do not offer HTML5 compatible browsers. SharePoint can enable the classic view by default if it detects a mobile browser without HTML5 support. It is lightweight and the navigation controls are shown as hyperlinks. Despite the lightweight appearance, it can display team sites, document workspace, blank space and other sites for projects.

Contemporary view. If an end user connects from a mobile browser that has no support for HTML5, it will automatically switch to contemporary views. This view type is similar to the classic view but the difference is that the contemporary view uses clean formatting and not hyperlinks. It is also optimized for touch while the classic view is not.

As a conclusion, SharePoint provides a broad mobile experience even if users can have inconsistent mobile experiences; it will be a great change to be connected.