SharePoint Online Performance: Troubleshooting and Reporting Issues


Introduction

There are many factors involved in SharePoint Online performance, including:

Because of this, not everyone experiences performance the same.


Assessing the issue

Before opening a ticket, assess the following:

  1. Are you experiencing the same performance across multiple sites (including OneDrive)?
  2. Are multiple people experiencing the same performance?
  3. Do you notice the same performance issues in different browsers? Chrome is the preferred default browser for SharePoint Online

If you answered “Yes” to the above, this is symptomatic of a system-wide issue. Please open a ticket.

Reported performance issues will only be escalated to Microsoft if they are determined to impact multiple sites and/or users. 


How to report issues

When reporting performance issues, please provide the following details:


Related Information

If performance seems to be an issue only on selected site(s), then it is possible site design is the culprit. Things like navigation, excessive unique permissions and even the number of columns in a view can have an impact on performance. See below for specific performance troubleshooting tips.

Troubleshooting Tips for Overall Performance

Here are some things you can do to improve your overall site performance: 

  1. Take regular benchmark measurements of your site so you know how it performs in good conditions. This will help determine if it’s a site issue or an infrastructure issue. 
  2. Do not use structural navigation for global navigation, especially if you have many subsites and user groups. Structural navigation is the default, but is not recommended by MS for SharePoint Online. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/enterprise/navigation-options-for-sharepoint-online . Talk to EASI for more details on this. 
  3. Minimize or reduce the amount of unique permissions on your site 
  4. Delete any unused sections of the site, or at least remove them from navigation 
  5. Remove RSS or embedded feeds from pages. The more of these you have on a page, the longer it will take to load—especially RSS feeds as the webpart does an authentication to make sure the viewer should see it. 
  6. Check which site features are enabled on the site collection. Features like Publishing, Records Management and Content Organizer rules have notoriously high overhead 

Troubleshooting Tips for Site Page Performance

Here are some tips for troubleshooting specific site page performance:

  • If you notice performance issues only with specific content on your site, consider the following: 
  • Minimize the number of images used and optimize them for web (eg. Reduce file size) 
  • On lists and libraries, do not use views containing more than 6-7 columns, particularly if they are look-up lists or “joins”. The threshold is 12 join operations per query/view, performance can be noticeably degraded after 6.  A join includes lookup, person/group, or workflow status columns. For more details on this, talk to EASI. 
  • Visiting complex pages will affect performance. Reduce or limit the amount of logic or custom scripting on a page. 
  • Webparts which aggregate or filter content add a bit of overhead because they are executing queries. In addition, because they are security trimming, complex permissions can also affect performance. 
  • Using the Content Query Web Part in Classic SharePoint pages is known to cause performance issues. Use Content Search instead. 

Troubleshooting Tips for User Specific Performance Issues

If performance issues seem to be limited to select users, consider the following: 

  • Check how many tabs they have open? Multiple tabs open may cause confusion because SharePoint thinks there are 2 sessions open. 
  • Check your computer’s performance by clicking on the bottom toolbar and opening task manager. If your CPU usage is very high it could be that other things (like updates) are running. 
  • Have the user access their OneDrive from the waffle and see if they are experiencing similar performance. If it’s a general SharePoint issue then OneDrive will also be affected. 
  • Is the user on wifi or wired network connection?