Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Reviews

I primarily use the solution for the portal.

The solution is pretty easy to use for the most part. 

I can't configure the current security I want. There are a lot of bots in it.

Sharepoint doesn't integrate well with Oracle, and we use a lot of Oracle products at our company. Therefore, it makes more sense for us to go to Oracle instead of continuing to use Sharepoint.

The solution is mostly stable, but from time to time it does crash. Our team is able to fix it when that happens.

We've never had to contact technical support. My company is in Iran and because of the sanctions, the technical support system is not available for us.

We're in the process of switching to Oracle right now. Soon we'll stop using Sharepoint, mostly because Oracle is easier to integrate for us.

The initial setup was very, very easy. It was not complex at all. 

Our original deployment took about six months. We needed about three people to handle it.

I handled the implementation for the company.

The solution is free. We don't have to pay for licensing.

We're using the public cloud deployment model.

I wouldn't recommend Sharepoint; I'm much more likely to recommend people use Oracle instead. It's more compatible and makes integration much easier because our company uses Oracle databases and APIs.

I'd rate the solution six out of ten.

We primarily use the solution as our intranet for document and information sharing.

Let me start saying that you have two way of implementing Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server, on-premises or in the cloud. If you choose the cloud, the most valuable aspect of the solution is the fact that it doesn't require coding. You just need to configure it. You don't need to code before getting something running. It makes it very fast.

It would be nice if you could use it out of the box or have something with more CRM-like functionality. If there could be some sort-of out of the box free option within SharePoint that would be nice.

It's not easy to manage projects on it. They should work to simplify this.

Sharepoint has a limitation for certain applications. There's a limit whereby you can only have an application that allows 5,000 items on a list. When you create a list that is bigger than this, SharePoint locks you from doing anything else. You can overcome this. The administrator can just increase the limit. Of course, this is not a good practice to have. If you want to try to understand how can you make the application that does not bypass this limit there is not a clear answer from Microsoft. 

This is the issue we are facing right now and we're trying to develop a solution or an algorithm that will work within the respected limits but it is not easy and Microsoft does not help. They don't have a clear explanation as to why this is, and they do not have a clear statement warning you about this. If they were just be transparent, we'd have our parameters defined and we'd be able to ensure applications adhered to them.

It's an enterprise-level solution, so the solution is very stable. We've never had issues.

You can scale the solution, you just need server space, or another server to expand to if you are using the on-premises version. 

Ours is on the cloud, so we don't have to worry about if we have enough server space or not. We haven't had issues with scalability. We don't need to expand at this time, however.

Technical support could be improved. They are not fast enough, especially when we'll go deeper in the product itself. More complex issues make it very tough to find someone that can help you. 

The initial setup isn't complex. The time it takes to deploy depends on the company. While cloud deployment is simpler, on-premises deployment is very different. You'll have a lot of work to do in that case, so it will take longer. 

We use the cloud version of SharePoint, which is pretty much out of the box with Office 365, so we had nothing to install. It was already ready to run and we only had to customize the look and feel. That's it. However, we have done an installation as part of a project for a customer where they had an on-premise SharePoint server.

As a user of the solution, we pay a fee. The amount depends on the kind of office license a user buys. The fees are paid yearly. We have an enterprise-level agreement with Microsoft at this time.

We use the cloud deployment model.

In terms of advice, I'd say that the deployment model you choose depends on how big the company is. For a small company, a hundred or so people, the best thing is the cloud option. That way, you don't have to worry about building your own infrastructure. For a bigger company, I would suggest to use on-premises deployment model because you can better manage it yourself.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

We primarily use the solution as a personalized interface for the corporate internet portal.

The workflow is very rudimentary. We use the intensive workflows. However, these need to be improved. Microsoft may be coming up with a new flow currently, but I'm not sure. I'm hoping Microsoft will have all emphasis on WorkflowMax because the one we currently have is very rudimentary.

The solution needs to be more collaborative. I believe they are just coming up with the themes for this right now. 

The solution is more or less stable. You need to manage it carefully. If it's managed then it remains stable.

The solution is scalable. You can do both horizontal and vertical scaling.

I'd rate the solution five out of ten. 

They're not as focused on ECM, and I try to think holistically, which is why I gave them such a rating. They're not made as an ECM solution, but I think more as an internet portal. They need to put more emphasis on the ECM part.

I am a consultant and this is one of the solutions that I implement for my clients.

I have worked on many projects in my career and the deployment model varies. For some customers, I have used SharePoint online, while others have been on-premises. In some cases, I have used a hybrid configuration where the customer is using it online as well as on-premises.

The most valuable feature of this solution is the Communication Site. In the most recent version, it is much more user-friendly, and any user can maintain it, including changing the content or other small tasks. In the older version, users were dependant on the developers. This dependency can now be avoided.

You can extend the features in this solution however you want.

Many of our customers would like to see an OCR feature, so it would be very good to have this in a future release. For example, you have invoices that have been scanned and uploaded into the SharePoint document library. If you are attaching the metadata along with the particular document then it is fine because you can search it well. However, if it is a PDF from an invoice that you scanned, then you will not be able to search for the details. You will only be able to search for it by name. Many of my customers are requesting a feature like this and will go ahead with the product once it is there.

Technical support for this solution can be improved.

Migrating a site to SharePoint online is not recommended, but it should be made smoother because customers demand it. There should be a good solution for this.

SharePoint would benefit from having more plugins available for it.

Microsoft Forms should have more features. The basics are there, but we need to be able to connect directly to the database. Line-level entry should also be there.

The stability of this solution for the end-user is fine. We are seeing some changes in the development side, but generally, it is stable.

This solution is scalable.

I have been in contact with technical support several times. Most recently was about eight months ago when I was having trouble migrating to the SharePoint online. Unfortunately, they didn't help me very much and I had to solve the problem myself.

We have FastTrack support tickets, and even with this, it took them too long to look at our issue. We had to first raise a normal support ticket before it was escalated to FastTrack. It was more than fifteen days, so I had to work on it myself. I was able to solve it by looking at the log, but it took time.

The initial setup of this solution is easy, but we have to set up the servers.

The deployment of a basic SharePoint site will take only a few minutes. If we need to do some customization then it will take longer and depend on the requirements.

Some of my customers have opted to purchase OpenText instead, because of the additional features that it has.

The suitability of this solution depends on the customer's requirements. If they have a basic requirement for document management, I feel that SharePoint is not very stable for this. However, the workflow is good and there are many other good things. It is a complete umbrella. If you have a good team then you can easily handle it.

Overall, it is a good product, and I recommend it.

The only complaint we have is about the lack of OCR capability. It is really difficult to convince a customer who wants a document management system that this solution is right for them.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

The most valuable features are:

• Document management
• Version control
• Workflows
• Templates for generating sites

This product has improved the way our organization functions in the following manner:

• We are provided with policies and procedures for administration.
• We can store all the documentation related to all IT projects.
• We have developed some workflows for automating licensing requests and other type of requests.

I think that it can be improved in terms of security, to manage roles and better performance.

We have used this product for at least five years.

I have not encountered any deployment issues.

I have not encountered any stability issues.

I have not encountered any scalability issues.

I would give the customer service a 7/10 rating.

I would give the technical support a 7/10 rating.

We previously used IBM Lotus Notes applications.

This tool was implemented by our in-house team.

Before choosing this product, we considered continuing with IBM Lotus Notes.

Try to define a simple structure in regards to the sites and try to organize it in a homogeneous way.

InfoPath and Nintex Workflow Engine are the features that are most important to me.

We used SharePoint to automate the documentation flow and develop SharePoint-based IT systems for licensing, managing documents, the help desk, and task libraries.

We used InfoPath forms to automate our organizational processes and forms, and managed the workflow for these forms using Nintex Workflow Engine. Using these features together, we converted our paper work to electronic digital data.

The Branding and User Interface Design and CK Editor should be improved, as well as the upgrade process.

There needs to be a clear and direct process for upgrade from one SharePoint version to another. The documentation available on TechNet is insufficient. We had to create a visual studio solution for the upgrade from SharePoint Server 2007 to the 2010 edition.

Multi-lingual support, including Arabic, is weak in the CK Editor. This is especially a problem when you copy Arabic from Microsoft Word. The format is not the same and we need to reformat the content every time.

There is also room for improvement in Branding and User Interface Design. One of our SharePoint environments is the internet-facing site: www.pcma.ps. There is not enough documentation or a direct process for redesigning the standard SharePoint interface.

I have been using SharePoint for six years.

For the most part, we did not have any stability issues.

We did not have any issues with scalability.

I would rate the level of technical support as moderate.

Before we moved to SharePoint, we used a locally developed .Net-based system which had lots of bugs, and lacked features when you compare it to SharePoint.

The initial setup was straightforward and easy.

The licensing model for SharePoint 2013 and 2016 is more efficient than the 2010 version because they removed the internet edition, which was the most expensive.

We went directly with SharePoint because it was the content management leader at the time.

I highly recommend it, but it is better to hire at least one SharePoint expert so that you will have a good implementation and internal support.

Document library is the most used part of the portal solution. With the optimized search service, we easily keep all company digital content on SharePoint Server.

Workflow management automation features can be implemented easily without need for software development using SharePoint Designer.

Enhanced user access management features fully integrated with Active Directory allowed us to gain the trust of the users and they use SharePoint to store and share all company digital content created by them.

The multi-language support allows collaboration using local languages in eight different countries.

Allowing information to be shared across the company using the document library on SharePoint improved the effectiveness of our operations and new projects.

Consolidating all company digital content on SharePoint allowed creating company know how, which is used to improve our operations and new projects.

Implementing business process automation using workflow management improved company efficiency, allowing process transparency and possibility for follow-up at each step of the processes.

Implementing business process automation using workflow management allowed us to stop using paper.

There is no feature to show the workflow progress graphically.

Although there are different templates for graphical design, when you need any customization, especially on the main page, you need software development.

The solution requires a lot of hardware capacity for high availability and performance.

There is only one licensing model for the on-premise option and the licensing cost is high.

When you create forms using InfoPath Forms and workflows using SharePoint Designer there is no easy way to move the workflow and the forms from development to test and from test to production environment. The only way is to do the same job twice(if you have development and production environment) or three times(if you have development, test and production environment).

We are using SharePoint Server for more than nine years; started with 2007 version and made the upgrade to 2013 version in 2013.

I have not encountered any stability issues, but proper capacity planning and management is essential.

I have not encountered any scalability issues; you can easily add features, hardware capacity, etc.

There is a lot of documentation. You can easily find information on the blogs. Microsoft provides support at affordable rates. The implementation project can be a challenge. In Turkey, we have problems finding good architects, not just for SharePoint but for any solution.

We didn’t previously use another solution.

The planning was a challenge because in Turkey we have problems finding good architects, not just for SharePoint but for any solution. We solved this by asking for support from Microsoft.

Doing proper requirement analysis is essential. At the moment, SharePoint provides a server/call-based licensing model for on-premise implementation, so the number of users is important. The cloud option can be considered if the number of users is below 100. There is a need for database server licenses, too. (We use Microsoft SQL Server.) In my opinion, there is no need for Software Assurance.

We didn’t evaluate other products because back in 2007, SharePoint Server was the only option.

If you already decided to implement SharePoint Server, plan at least two servers if you are implementing on premise (one for database, one for application services). Adding a third server for only the search service can prevent performance problems. Do Active Directory integration if you decide on the cloud option.

If you are at the research stage of your project, be aware that at the moment, there are a lot of alternate solutions that can provide needed features. After doing a business requirement analysis, do research for alternate solution, so you can have the solution you really need. You might be able to get it free of charge, because some open-source solutions can meet your needs too. Think about implementation consultancy and support if you decide to implement an open-source solution.

Don’t implement different products for different features because integration is a headache.

The solution meets all our needs, including workflow management automation.