SharePoint Use Cases
As you’ve no doubt noticed, there are several ways to increase productivity, promote collaboration, and streamline the documentation of internal files and processes.
Still, there are four primary use cases for SharePoint that you’ll probably find most relevant when considering its adoption for your own company, which we’ll highlight below.
Company Intranets
As an intranet platform, Microsoft SharePoint excels. Its out-of-the-box functionalities include a branded homepage, project and task scheduling, flexible content sharing options, modern team and communication sites, social features, and mobile access.
Internal training documentation
Transitions are always complicated to handle in business but worse when your team has to search for the relevant documentation for daily operation.
Whether trying to onboard a new employee, find your IT security protocols to deal with a disruptive emergency, or are simply looking to train yourself to reach that next promotion, SharePoint makes it easy to find and access the information you need.
Collaborate with clients on joint files and projects
In the same way that you can collaborate with your team on individual files, you can create collaborative projects and invite clients or contractors to collaborate in real-time, if desired. This eliminates the need for joint projects to be in-person endeavors and helps avoid email tennis.
Integration with Microsoft 365 Applications
If your company uses Microsoft Outlook, Onenote, or Teams, you’ll be able to work on SharePoint pages and files without the need to use a separate application window.
In this way, SharePoint helps to centralize your workflow by decreasing the number of applications you have to jump back and forth.
SharePoint licensing explored
Almost all Microsoft 365 business licenses include a subscription to SharePoint Cloud services.
If your compliance or IT infrastructure needs lead you to purchase SharePoint as a standalone product, there are two primary licensing options:
- SharePoint Online — This is licensed out on a per-user basis and comes in two versions: Plan 1 and Plan 2. Both can be purchased as a standalone product or included in your Microsoft 365 plan.
- On-Premises — With this option, your intranet sites get licensed with a Server/Cal (Client Access License) model. However, since most businesses get the program as part of their Microsoft Office 365 package, they tend not to use on-premise versions in favor of the cloud.
Next-level documentation and collaboration
SharePoint is a unique tool that has been in use for years by companies of all sizes.
Instead of relying on legacy systems to share, organize, and update company files, many businesses embrace SharePoint as a tried and true alternative that has only grown in popularity the longer it’s been around.
In summary:
- What is SharePoint? A robust cloud tool that enables your company to streamline business documentation and process management. It allows your business to create websites and automate tedious tasks that disrupt your workflows.
- What are some benefits of SharePoint? — It’s cost-effective, has a built-in search engine, streamlines collaboration within and outside of your organization, simplifies document management, automates tedious tasks, and has subtle social media functionalities. It also comes with built-in cybersecurity and compliance precautions.
- Challenges of using Microsoft SharePoint — User adoption is quite complex, bulk migration of files into SharePoint as links and documents can get broken, and ongoing management overhead as you’ll need someone on your IT team and a designated “designer” to maintain and expand the site.
- SharePoint use-cases — SharePoint is the perfect tool for internal training documentation and project collaboration with external parties. It’s also available on mobile. When you combine it with other Microsoft 365 applications, you get a product that’s greater than the sum of its parts.
Adopting SharePoint for your business
Despite Sharepoint being designed to assist your company with document organization, management, and collaboration, the robustness of the application may come off as overwhelming to you and your team.
Such complexity shouldn’t deter you from taking advantage of the application’s benefits, which is why Commprise is here to make the process of adopting SharePoint a breeze.
With our Managed IT Services, your business will be able to keep to its day-to-day tasks and get SharePoint working in your favor, all without skipping a beat in your workflow.