What is SharePoint?

Sep 15
13:08

2017

Ritesh Mehta

Ritesh Mehta

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SharePoint is a web application that integrates with Microsoft Office. It is provided to companies that are searching for bigger control over the design or behavior of the platform.

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SharePoint is a web app which integrates with Microsoft Office. It was launched in 2013 and is primarily sold as a storage and document management system. However,What is SharePoint? Articles the product is extremely configurable and its use vary considerably between enterprises.

SHAREPOINT IS USED BY MAJORITY OF FORTUNE 500 COMPANIES
The SharePoint Server is provided to companies that are looking for greater control over the platform’s design or behavior. More than three quarters of more than Fortune 500 companies use it, however, they are not all using it for the same purposes. SharePoint is not a software program, but instead a platform for various kinds of programs. It isn’t something to purchase and install on one’s own desktop but instead a back-end system which ties all employees’ PCs and mobile devices, enabling all of them to communicate and synchronize their efforts. The main aim is to make possible for an organization with hundreds of employees all over the region to work with the same agility and coordination level as a company that has ten people working in one office.

SP is an industry leading platform for secure document management, intranets, collaboration and a whole lot more. More importantly, nowadays, SharePoint is not only for bigger corporations. Small firms could benefit for using the platform as well. It has lots of capabilities that are designed with security in mind.

SIX WAYS BUSINESSES USE SHAREPOINT TO KEEP ALL IN THE LOOP

1. INTRANET. This is the internally facing website everyone in the business could sign in to and look for news scheduled tasks, announcements, and access to various information. Dashboards could be customized through department and role and various access levels could be granted to ensure that everyone from interns to CFOs could get the information they have on anything from employee performance to customer history to the status of ongoing projects. Furthermore, SharePoint provides tools to set up employee social networking platforms as well as company wikis.

2. COLLABORATION. It’s easy for everyone to remain updated and coordinate their efforts on projects when talking on a dozen or so people working out of the same office building. The platform is designed to extend the ease of interaction beyond small groups in one location. One could sign in to SharePoint from any desktop or any mobile device. Moreover, it can be used to have constant access to information on client histories, project statutes, co-workers’ locations and schedules and anything that is related to the project.

3. EXTRANET. SharePoint could be used in setting up a website that one could share with exterior business partners. Regardless if the other business is part of the supply chain or just someone contracting with for a project, a company could provide them access to all information they might need for the company while giving them a place for uploading all information they may require about theirs.

4. DOCUMENTS. SharePoint provides businesses a shared space for storing documents so they will not be locked away on someone’s hard drive. The stored documents on SharePoint could be accessed by anyone in the organization, unless the administrator has limited access to a smaller group. This means no need to travel to several offices or wait for numerous emails to have the files needed for a task. SP furthermore enables a worker and his coworkers to simultaneously work on one document, tracking updates and saving previous versions. This avoids having to make various versions of the document through emailing it to all the people whose input are needed.

5. BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE. The extensive access that SharePoint provides to a business data also makes it possible to look for countless ways of using all the information for better decision making. SharePoint makes it easy to look through all the files of a company, but beyond that it could help discover language patterns. Moreover, it could display trends in time or relationships between various inputs with graspable charts and graphs. Once a new course of action is decide, SharePoint could also be instrumental in having all company-wide onboard with the implementation.

6. WEBSITES. SharePoint could be used for building and managing publicly facing website as well. As a web CMS, SP enables signing in and making changes to one’s pages. One could update information, create new pages and add graphics or text.

WHAT MAKES SHAREPOINT A VERY POWERFUL TOOL?
What makes SharePoint such a very powerful tool is that it does not only rely on all the functions and features it provides out-of-the-box. Implementations could be customized to simplify pretty much any business collaboration aspect one could think of.

Without doubt, with SharePoint, a business could have a mechanism for storing documents, tracking information and automating key work processes.