Atlasify an existing workspace

Pre-existing SharePoint Team sites or M365 Group-based workloads can now be “Atlasified” directly from the ConneX card for the workspace, meaning that Atlas content types, page templates and the header and footer (including global navigation, launchpad, Atlas tools) will be applied to the selected workspace. Atlas metadata can be added with the option to also apply metadata to documents within the default document library so the content within will be searchable in Atlas.

As out-of-the-box SharePoint Communication sites do not show in ConneX, a script can be run to perform the Atlasification process, but this cannot be triggered from the ConneX card UI.

There is a limit of 30,000 items per library that can be Atlasified using the standard process, and the process will only target the default library. An additional script can be run to deal with custom document libraries, or any library with over 30,000 items, up to a limit of 250,000 items. If you need to do this, do not Atlasify the document library when Atlasifying the workspace.

In this article:

• Permissions required to Atlasify a site
• Considerations & Impacts
• Expected time to execute
• Full list of actions performed by the Atlasification process
• Atlasify a workspace from ConneX
  • Workspace metadata and options
• Monitoring
  
  

Permissions required to Atlasify a site

You need to be a Site Owner of the workspace to be Atlasified OR a member of the "Atlas ConneX Enterprise Admins" group, and the site needs to be writable, e.g. not part of a "Locked" or "Read Only" Site Policy which would be controlled by your M365 Administrators.

There is a setting on the API to turn off Atlasification for Site Owners and only allow ConneX Enterprise Admins to do it, but we don't have an interface available yet for customers to set this.

Considerations & Impacts of Atlasifying a Site

Atlasification is an evolving feature. Any current known issues will be listed here and updated as needed.

• Custom metadata columns and content types in the library will be retained in the backend, but the documents will be swapped over to an Atlas content type which does not include them by default. You can therefore add custom columns to the library view after Atlasification and the original values for each document will still be there.
• Document Libraries or Lists with more than 30,000 items will cause the process to fail. Such workspaces must be Atlasified without these items. You can check how many items you have in each library beforehand from the Site contents.
• Documents will become available through Atlas search as soon as the Atlasification is complete if you Atlasify the document library. Otherwise they will not be available.
• If you Atlasify a workspace the process cannot be reversed.
  
  

Expected time to execute - UI vs script

Atlasifying a site through ConneX UI will be influenced by how many documents are in the library. If the document library is not Atlasified as part of this process, it should take under an hour. The more documents are inside the document library, the longer the Atlasification will take

Atlasifying through scripts may take longer depending on the number of documents in the document library. With a limit of 250,000 items it can take up to 50 hours. This also may be impacted by SharePoint and Azure throttling, as such we advise not to Atlasify more than 10 workspaces at any one time.

Full list of actions performed by the Atlasification process

Please ensure you review this list before starting so you are sure exactly what will happen to the workspace being Atlasified. This is accurate as of April 2023 (Atlas 4.2 version):

• OOTB default Document library Atlasified - the URL needs to be as it was out of the box - "Shared%20Documents"
  • Any existing folder-level column default value settings will be removed 
  • File Item content type added to library and existing documents/content swapped over to it
    • Custom columns and content types are retained in the backend but not used
  • Workspace default tags applied to all documents with new File Item content type
  • Standard default Atlas views created inside library to show metadata
  • Major & Minor versioning switched off for the process (you will need to alter again afterwards if needed)
  • Any folder structures contained within the template chosen will be created as part of provisioning process

• OOTB page library Atlasified
  • Atlas page content types added
  • Search listing pages are created
  • Any existing pages from the template will also be copied across as part of provisioning process
  • No existing pages in the non-Altasified workspace are modified, unless it has exactly the same name as the Atlas pages (such as ‘Documents’, or, ‘All Workspaces’), but this does not impact the homepage
  • Home page doesn’t come across from the template
  • Existing home page is not modified
  • Site navigation replaced from the template
  • Default Atlas content types added to site (FAQs, Spotlights, Knowledge page, etc)
  • Workspace default tags added to existing content in OOTB default page library
    
    

Atlasify a workspace from ConneX

To start the Atlasification process for a Team site, click the vertical ellipsis (3 dots) in the top right of the ConneX card and click Atlasify:

First, select a template from the available Knowledge workspace templates. This can be the default Atlas Knowledge Workspace (based on an M365 Group), or any custom ConneX Studio template based on the Knowledge Workspace. Note - you cannot Atlasify directly to a Teams-based workspace.

For this example we will just use the default Atlas Knowledge Workspace (Group):

The first decision to make is whether to Atlasify existing documents:

• If you choose Yes, any documents in the default document library will be updated to use the Atlas "File Item" content type. This will also apply the default metadata you choose next.
• If you choose No, documents in the workspace will not have their content type updated or Atlas metadata added, which means they will not appear in Atlas searches.

Once you click Yes or No the form will update and scroll down. Workspace essential metadata will be skipped as it is not possible to update the title, URL or description at this time.

Whether or not you want to Atlasify the documents, you'll still need to set the configuration and default Atlas metadata for the workspace itself.

Workspace metadata and options

1. First, choose whether to apply tagging controls:

• If you choose Yes, all metadata fields will be limited to single values chosen below in order to restrict the metadata that will be visible and usable in this workspace.
• If you choose No, metadata restrictions will not be applied and any tags can be applied to the content in this workspace.

2. Second, set the default metadata values for the workspace. General metadata applies to all Atlas content types, while Specific metadata applies only to specific content types:

3. After setting the default metadata, click Next:

4. Workspace security settings cannot be edited at this time.

5. Under Workspace connections, choose whether this workspace should be available from Add It:

6. Finally, click View summary to verify your choices. From the summary screen, click Confirm to begin the Atlasification process. You will see the following message:

Monitoring

Once you have submitted your request, you can see the current status on the ConneX card. While the process is taking place you will see your workspace is Provisioning with a blue dot:

Once completed the message will disappear from the card and the workspace will be ready to use.

If the process failed for some reason, you will see a red dot with the message "Failed". If this happens please contact our support team.