As I stated earlier, SharePoint implementation is usually started by the infrastructure team and then it slowly trickles down into the business client population. In some cases, your business clients will have already heard about SharePoint in a simpler context when they are considering some large-scale, key line-of-business application, which is where the second use of SharePoint usually starts.
Without a clear business adoption strategy, it will be a very slow and arduous journey for the technical team to ensure that their SharePoint farm has the right amount of adoption and use. In my case, most of the SharePoint sites that were already created when I was introduced to SharePoint were simply collaboration sites with large document libraries with very complicated and convoluted folder structures. Some of the folder names were actually small sentences so that the team could understand exactly what types of documents were in the folder.
There were no metadata tags, no content types, just simply documents sitting in folders. The entire process of collaboration was the sharing of the actual documents. There was a single repository where everyone was able to share documents and that was the extent of the collaboration for the team. That is what the business client saw as the biggest value of SharePoint.
Even some of my technical counterparts started to argue that we could save a great deal of cost if we simply purchased file shares to handle the files and the folder structures. Many of the basic SharePoint features were simply not communicated properly to my business and to some extent even the technical team. They were sold on SharePoint as an amazing CMS tool with great possibilities to strengthen collaboration and innovation, yet the best we could come up with was file share.
During one of my first interviews within my business, I found out that the reason for some of the lengthy folder structures was to provide some level of structure for people to find certain files. The business was not even aware of the basic search capabilities of SharePoint , let alone following SharePoint best practices.
I needed to find a way to engage my business clients so that they could not only utilize SharePoint in a more efficient manner but to also educate them on some of the real strengths of the platform. Based on feedback from the above interviews with business clients, I realized that I would need to start all over with education.
Most of the sites were team collaboration sites with document libraries. So I decided to start with document libraries. I had one of my business clients agree to work with me and my team on restructuring their libraries in a manner that would allow them to minimize the folder structures while increasing the visibility of finding the right file that the user was looking for.
As we dug deeper into the structure of some of the sites, it became evident to me that the folder structures were actually data elements and groupings of the various types of files that the team was collaborating on. So I decided to start with a very basic—yet powerful—feature of SharePoint: Metadata tags. I have always felt that one of the most powerful ways of educating any client on a technology was to simply develop some sort of POC.
The issue with POCs is that they do have a cost impact. You have to be careful not to fully develop an application to only have the business decide it is not what they want. In my case, the cost was minimal, but the value was potentially huge. I decided to take multiple document libraries, each of which had 20 or more separate folders, and recreate it as one document library with metadata and content types. Rather than try to explain content types, it was easier to showcase how using a content type could not only add to the data structure but also allow them to properly govern the additional metadata associated with a file.
Many of the files contained important, highly useful information. The business decided to group the files using a very complicated folder structure. For example, they had a folder for each of their 15 brands, and within those folders, they had subfolders for marketing, finance, and other key categories; within those subfolders they had yet more subfolders.
This had allowed them to more easily find a particular file, or files, rather than having to open and view individual files. But because of this complicated folder structure, they now needed a business process to ensure every file was placed in the right folder. As they found out, the new business process was simply too difficult to manage, and many files ended up in the wrong place. This allowed me to incorporate and explain the use of metadata to the business.
I broke down the file structure into a few key content types, which we then used to include key data elements, along with important data validation. It was this simple approach of content types, metadata, and data validation that was the first major success in my journey to present to my business a better business case for SharePoint. I showcased to them the true value of metadata and content types by filtering and sorting their data. To my amazement, they were simply awed by some of the basic SharePoint features that they never even knew existed.
I then decided to include a custom filter page to really show them what could be done with some simple page creation, web parts, and filtering. I was very careful not to fully customize any of these pages. I wanted to only use OOTB web parts. That way they would have a better understanding of the basic SharePoint features before I moved forward to more complicated scenarios.
I wanted to hold off on the search engine until after I had better adoption of SharePoint basics. In my humble opinion, SharePoint workflows have been the single most important factor in my ability to educate my business clients and ensure the adoption and use of SharePoint within my organization. When it comes to SharePoint, the initial conversations that I have with my business clients are usually around their business processes. Business processes are key to using SharePoint to increase productivity and reduce costs, something any business client is eager to discuss.
Every business unit has processes, and most of these processes have checkpoints or points of approval, and this is where workflows come in handy, whether it be through the sending of an approval email or the creation of an approval task. Once I have convinced a business client of how workflows can improve their processes and reduce their costs, I then educate them on how they can use those same approval tasks to then create service-level agreements SLAs or key performance indicators KPIs.
How great would it be for a business unit to understand just how long it takes for a document to be reviewed and approved? They could then take that information and adopt a strategy to improve the overall process. That would then allow them to create KPIs to monitor and govern the process. This is usually the home run that convinces a business client of the true value they can achieve through the adoption and use of SharePoint.
Share SharePoint files or folders in Microsoft Edit and manage permissions for a SharePoint list or library. Set up your computer to sync SharePoint Server on-premises files.
Customize the navigation on your team site. Sync files with OneDrive in Windows. Get Started. SharePoint in Microsoft SharePoint Server SharePoint Online.
SharePoint Server and Need more help? Expand your skills. Get new features first. Was this information helpful? Yes No. Thank you! Any more feedback? The more you tell us the more we can help. Can you help us improve? Resolved my issue.
Clear instructions. Easy to follow. No jargon. Pictures helped. Didn't match my screen. Incorrect instructions. Too technical. Not enough information. Not enough pictures. Any additional feedback? SharePoint enables many ways to add metadata to files for sorting, organizing and keeping track of the content owned by businesses.
More importantly, as a platform, SharePoint can force tags onto content as business users upload them to collaboration spaces. They can also make end users provide metadata about documents as part of this process. Once the content and metadata is in the platform, SharePoint empowers organizations with workflow tools to automate:.
A majority of Fortune companies have relied on the SharePoint platform for more than a decade, and the SharePoint and ecosystem is a multi-billion dollar industry. Simply defined, a SharePoint farm is the collection of servers that work together to fill the SharePoint roles, to make SharePoint work. A fitting analogy for roles is a team working together toward a common goal yay collaboration!
For example: a restaurant crew. Eliminate the host and the patron never gets a seat. Lose the server and the patron never gets to place an order, eat, or even get a lousy glass of water.
You get the idea. Of course, one person could fill all of those roles — like in a small coffee shop where the person behind the counter takes your order, tells you to sit anywhere, and then butters and brings you your bagel.
Your farm servers work the same way, where a single server can play all the roles, or you can spread the roles out across multiple servers for better performance. In SharePoint, there are three roles formally defined in the SharePoint installation wizard alongside a few new roles in SharePoint Server SharePoint responds to this demand by featuring enhanced Team and Site Pages as well as making messaging and sharing information with teammates easier than ever. Pages work with modern web parts, allowing users to easily customize their page by embedding videos, incorporating feeds from Yammer, adding documents and including images.
Lists and libraries have a modern look and feel with faster interaction, easy column management, better displays for mobile browsers and informative insights. For example, if you are putting together a list on the total addressable market of different regions, the list may highlight the outliers at the top and bottom in different colors. There are also some cool new communication tools, like the Team News and Communication sites.
Communication sites are a place to share news, showcase a story, or broadcast a message to other people. Users can easily create communication sites for themselves from SharePoint Home without needing to contact IT.
Of course, allowing all users to easily create sites in an ungoverned fashion can also create sprawl and information issues. AvePoint, for example, uses this feature for its GTM Central site where we have consolidated all the collateral our sales teams need to effectively communicate and advise customers. It is a well-designed, one-stop-shop also containing features like an internal product release blog, event calendar, library of market research, and more.
AvePoint can easily feature the latest blogs or updated content in the site news, so our sales team is always up to date. And, with the upgraded experience, you are automatically notified if you are:. With three straightforward permission levels to choose from, SharePoint is a great on-premises alternative to companies seeking the effortless sharing taking place in cloud office solutions. It might seem obvious to say that empowering mobile workers is becoming more important than ever, but this trend has only been increasing over the past few years.
There are also improved sync clients for OneDrive for Business, ensuring users can access the documents they need from anywhere, on any device. This opens up solutions for organizations to sync files from Office and SharePoint on-premises to a laptop, pushing collaboration to the next level for office and mobile workers. The new platform can integrate with PowerApps and Flow, so creating custom workflows and adding new solutions to the environment is a cinch.
Flow and PowerApps now PowerPlatform empower end users to discover and implement customizations as they need them, whereas previously they needed to submit a ticket and wait for the customization to be coded.
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