SharePoint OverviewUNIXBusinessApplication

SharePoint is the #1 ranked solution in top Enterprise Content Management tools, top Web Content Management tools, top Corporate Portals, and top Enterprise Intranet tools. PeerSpot users give SharePoint an average rating of 8.4 out of 10. SharePoint is most commonly compared to Citrix ShareFile: SharePoint vs Citrix ShareFile. SharePoint is popular among the large enterprise segment, accounting for 62% of users researching this solution on PeerSpot. The top industry researching this solution are professionals from a computer software company, accounting for 14% of all views.
SharePoint Buyer's Guide

Download the SharePoint Buyer's Guide including reviews and more. Updated: May 2023

What is SharePoint?

SharePoint is a Microsoft-based platform for building web applications. It covers a widerange of capabilities and while it is appropriate for experienced webdevelopers, even non-technical minded users can easily navigate through thesystem and execute functions such as collaborating data, managing documents andfiles, creating websites, managing social networking solutions, and automatingworkflow.

Major areas that SharePoint deals with are websites,communities, content, search, insights, and composites. The purpose is to give usersthe ability to create or develop these key business components on their owneven without technical knowledge of, for example, how to build a website or howto integrate coding. Configuring SharePoint into a business's system is meantto cut out all of the complicated steps, and pave the way for easierimplementation all around.

SharePoint was previously known as SharePoint 2007, SharePoint 2010.

SharePoint Customers

Toyota, Aeroports de Paris, ASBBank Ltd., Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals, CambridgeshireConstabulary, D&M Group, NPL Construction Company, and The Regional Municipality of Niagara.

SharePoint Video

SharePoint Pricing Advice

What users are saying about SharePoint pricing:
  • "Any extended support from Microsoft is expensive."
  • "It is pretty reasonable. It is $5 per month per user. We have 12 users now, so it is about $60 per month."
  • SharePoint Reviews

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    PeerSpot user
    Enterprise Architect at CDPL
    Real User
    Top 5Leaderboard
    Offers great OCR capabilities, metadata storage and proficient archiving
    Pros and Cons
    • "Ability to store files of any type."
    • "The solution lacks collaboration features."

    What is our primary use case?

    We work with the on-premise version of this product at our client's site. The solution is used in specific industries like banks and insurance companies where a local solution is needed to satisfy document storing requirements. 

    How has it helped my organization?

    The organization where the sharepoint solutions are deployed have benefited immensely in terms of the document managment system requirements. Storing all their digital assets in document format. Scanned documents and later use it for reference and legal and regulatory requirements.

    Other features being the collaboration, web content management, workflows, analytics available within the product has helped the organization in not going in for separate products. Cost is a big factor when it comes to IT implementations and products usage.

    What is most valuable?

    SharePoint has many good features. You can store files of any type, whether office-related documents, videos or MP4 recordings. Metadata can also be stored which makes searching, categorizing and grouping of documents easier. At the same time, the database doesn't take a huge amount of space because documents are on a storage device, unlike other solutions. You can also create forms, have workflows, approvals, scan and upload documents. The solution also has OCR capabilities which are key for the banking and insurance industries. It also has a good forms feature and approval. The DocuWare archive fits very well with that. The solution is cost-effective and has a perpetual license per environment. The product fits neatly within small and medium enterprise banks. It's very cost-effective.

    What needs improvement?

    The solution lacks collaboration features so that I am unable to collaboratively create and work on a document with others. The second element that is lacking is compliance or records management so that certain documents, of a legal nature, for example, are only accessible to certain users. I would really like to see that kind of feature.

    From a compliance perspective like GDPR  and if the document or data contains personally identifiable data PII data, the SharePoint feature for records management should allow to identify the data being PII data and also provide feature for GDPR wherein the customer is asked for confirmation if needs to be stored and how the data and documents will be used and for what purpose.

    If the customer does not confirm should not allow storage of documents and data that contains personal information should not be stored without customers consent. It should allow for archiving feature post the period for which the customer has given the consent for the data and document to be stored  is over should allow to delete the data and document.

    Looking for GDPR and other compliance features built into the product as a workflow

    Buyer's Guide
    SharePoint
    May 2023
    Learn what your peers think about SharePoint. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2023.
    708,544 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I've been using this solution for 21 years. From its 1st version in 2001 till date. We have moved to the cloud version and offering of SharePoint i.e. 0365/SharePoint Online as well.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    For a company like ours with around 25,000 users, this product is good and quite stable. We need to explore what happens when the data increases beyond 1 million or 10 million records. At that point, we may need to look again at scalability and what the product can support. They have support for vertical or horizontal scaling. They have a feature where you can increase server hardware, but that needs to be checked. We have two people assisting with maintenance. 

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    The solution has a good ability to scale up in terms of number of documents and number of users.

    How are customer service and support?

    Microsoft has the best customer service and support both on web, online, on calls, emails and if you are one of those partners it becomes all the way easy to get the support needed.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Positive

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    Some of our client were first time users of SharePoint so going from no prior system for document storage, collaboration, content management, workflows, application development platform was a boon.

    For all of our client who have moved from one version to another version of the product, they always found the product improved in terms of features and functionality and performance.

    How was the initial setup?

    They have good documentation for deployment so it was quite straightforward. I was involved along with the vendor, setting up the environment, setting up the product, the infrastructure and configuration. We had some minor issues but deployment was quite seamless. It took two or three hours, we had one infrastructure and one technical person working on it, that was enough for us. 

    What about the implementation team?

    This was implemented using Vendor as well as an in-house team with the client. A kind of hybrid development team created for application development, product deployment and configuration.

    What was our ROI?

    I should say if an organization has decided to go for the flagship Microsoft product i.e. Sharepoint, then they should start thinking ahead and plan a roadmap of moving their department applications to Sharepoint and also use the other pillars/features to their advantage the ROI and TCO will be shorten and the organization will gain immensely from early usage of the product for all their development needs.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    The license is a one-time cost when you purchase the solution, but there is an annual support fee.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    I have worked with products similar to SharePoint such as Documentum, and others. They are heavily loaded with a lot of features, which small and medium enterprise banks, catering to anywhere up to 20,000 users, may not require. 

    What other advice do I have?

    I rate this solution nine out of 10. 

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    On-premises

    If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

    Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Gold Partner
    PeerSpot user
    Mir Nayeem Ul Haq - PeerSpot reviewer
    Mir Nayeem Ul HaqFounder & CEO at Vaadi Outsourcing
    Top 5Real User

    I believe that this is a fair and accurate review of Sharepoint. The solution does have some great features, however, it does lack in the area of collaboration and compliance. I would recommend that potential users of the solution take these points into consideration when making their decision.

    IT business analysis, development and governance at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
    Real User
    Top 20
    Stable and scalable collaboration system; good for document and file sharing, and offers fast issue resolution from its support team
    Pros and Cons
    • "No code and low code, scalable, and stable collaboration platform. Straightforward to set up. Its support system is good and offers fast issue resolution."
    • "Integration needs to be more straightforward, particularly with Azure. SharePoint also needs a more comprehensive introductory course for users."

    What is our primary use case?

    Our primary use case for SharePoint is for document sharing and file sharing in projects where participants are from different organizations. It is a very good tool for users or participants of teams from different tenants inside the organization.

    What is most valuable?

    What I like most about SharePoint would depend on what the task is, e.g. if it's just simple document sharing then the document library is fine. The most exciting feature of the platform is that it's a no code or low code development platform. There's also Power Apps and Power Automate.

    What needs improvement?

    Despite the enthusiasm and very good promises offered by SharePoint, the usage of the power platform is limited, so that's an area for improvement, but I would suggest this just as a team feature.

    It's hard to highlight other areas for improvement, but a better approach towards licensing power platform components for guest users would be great. SharePoint licensing costs could be lowered to introduce it to the outside guests of a tenant, then to supply them with power apps and power automate features.

    A more straightforward integration with Azure, including better licensing in terms of using Azure components and functions, is also another area for improvement in SharePoint.

    My advice for Microsoft, and this is something I'd like to see in the next release of  SharePoint, is for them to constantly improve training material. Currently, the training material is organized in a way where a new feature appears and is enforced, then they develop the training material for that new feature. What happens is that the total product or solution, e.g. SharePoint, then lacks overall introduction in terms of training. There should be a balance between the introduction of the tool and the introduction of the new feature. They should have comprehensive introductory courses for both Office 365 and SharePoint, instead of needing to Google for particular situations. I'm trying to get the knowledge bit by bit, so I'm losing the idea of the whole product, e.g. SharePoint is losing its essence. To get onboarded to any new product, it's important to get a good introduction into that product.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I've been using SharePoint since 2006, so I've seen its "many flavors".

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    I find SharePoint to be stable. No complaints there.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    I have no complaints about the scalability of SharePoint.

    How are customer service and support?

    The support system for SharePoint works pretty well. We had a complicated situation about the reasoning why tenants and users are limited in terms of functionality, and the escalation and resolving of that issue, of that situation, went pretty fast, even for experimental features. It was quite straightforward to get access to experimental features, or find out why this access is limited, then fix it. I'm happy with the technical support for SharePoint.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup of SharePoint is very straightforward. Microsoft did a very good job with onboarding new users of their platform, e.g. the Office 365 platform. There were a lot of good improvements for administrators of tenants of different parts of Office 365, including SharePoint.

    What about the implementation team?

    We implemented SharePoint through our in-house team, because we are a technology company, so we didn't need to use external experts or specialists for the deployment of the platform.

    What other advice do I have?

    I'm using SharePoint as part of Office 365, using it as a part of Teams and under the hood of Teams, so yes, I'm still using SharePoint.

    SharePoint is deployed on public cloud. We have some projects where SharePoint 2019 is deployed as a server, but those are based on an integrations app, but mostly it's on Office 365, e.g. SharePoint Online. Microsoft is the cloud provider we're using for the platform.

    I want to highlight that some organic growth was missed with Teams, because there's still complicated switching between tenants, e.g. Teams and SharePoint users. In this case, Teams users may work in different organizations, or are guests of different tenants and different organizations. Switching between tenants, or the ability to streamline and organize identity management logging into the system, e.g. to the cloud, to Office 365 with one ID or organization ID should provide options to do work with many organizations at the same time.

    Currently, there is still the need to switch from one organization to another, to get the full toolsets of a particular tenant, so for users, that's quite annoying. For one organization that fits, and that works fine for an organization with guest users, but when we have multi-tenant situations, when people are collaborating on different projects, and when initiated or hosted by different organizations, switching from one organization to another should be improved.

    We have 40 to 50 users of SharePoint, and they are involved in various projects run by customers. We also add users from other organizations, so the total collaboration space may include 200 to 300 users.

    My advice to people thinking about using SharePoint, the very important lessons I learned during years of using the tool, is for them not to fight with it, e.g. they should not start to use it based on what they initially wished to use it for. It's best to first spend more time in getting a better understanding of the tool and its relevant capabilities. Learn SharePoint first. Spend time learning it.

    I would give SharePoint a rating of nine out of ten.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    Public Cloud

    If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

    Other
    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    Buyer's Guide
    SharePoint
    May 2023
    Learn what your peers think about SharePoint. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2023.
    708,544 professionals have used our research since 2012.
    President at Prescient Digital Media
    Consultant
    Top 5Leaderboard
    Plan, plan, plan. Over-budget.

    There are in fact two versions of SharePoint: the on-premises version, SharePoint 2019, and SharePoint Online, which comes bundled in Microsoft 365 (the Cloud). Though those with Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) automatically have the latest features in SharePoint Online; those with on-premises SharePoint, have to wait for the next release to get the latest and greatest.

    SharePoint’s greatest strength is it’s an all-in-one approach – it’s a portal, a content management system, a search engine, a social collaboration platform, a web development platform, and so much more. Its greatest weakness is that it’s an all-in-one solution – everything and the kitchen sink; a jack-of-all-trades, a master of none. Some argue that SharePoint is a “mile wide, but a foot deep.” It offers so much, but some features are seen as still ‘developing’ or even sub-par. But there are a lot of tools and features, and with each release, it gets better and better (though more complex).

    “With Microsoft 365, Microsoft currently offers the most powerful communication and collaboration suite on the market. And the latest announcements from the Microsoft Ignite conference across the main workloads like SharePoint, Teams and Powell Apps prove that they continue to move forward fast in order to stay ahead of the game,” says Antoine Faisandier, CEO of Powell Software, a Digital Workplace software that extends and enhances the Office 365 capabilities.

    It’s important to note that SharePoint is still a technology. It doesn’t include all of the people, process and planning that is required to make any intranet technology work. Intranet technology will fail without careful planning, process and committed people. Most of the key ingredients of a successful intranet in the digital workplace are based on people, and process; technology is merely an enabler.

    Among the latest features, building upon earlier versions of SharePoint:

    1. Delve / My Profile (About Me) - My Sites disappears in favor of a new profile, About Me, that also uses the Delve inference engine.
    2. Cloud / Hybrid - Hybrid enables you to integrate your on-premises farm with the cloud, at your own pace.
    3. Durable Links - Resource-based URLs now retain links when documents are renamed or moved in SharePoint.
    4. Image and video previews - Preview images and videos in SharePoint Server 2016 document libraries.
    5. Large files - now supports uploading and downloading files larger than 2,047 MBs
    6. Mobile - an improved mobile navigation experience.
    7. Search - SharePoint Search has now fully integrated the FAST Search engine, with more features, and indexes up to 500 milliion documents (per app).
    8. Sharing - better user sharing options, including a Shared folder, and invitation email notifications.
    9. Microsoft Teams - online communication platform for team or project sites, akin to an enhanced Team Site, but with chat, presence, inline calling and messaging, and integration with Outlook and Calendar and most other apps. It now includes voice mail.


    We are Intranet consultants (www.PrescientDigital.com) and and principally use Microsoft 365 - SharePoint Online for Enterprise Content Management; improving the way our organization functions in terms of employee collaboration and knowledge sharing specifically via document management, and social collaboration (discussion groups, profiles and blogging being the most used social tools). Increasingly we use Teams, and use it with external clients that can be invited to a specific Team (project site).

    Web content management and social media tools (e.g. wikis) are not best-of-breed, and usability is an issue with many features. We also encountered many, many problems with deployment -- customization and implementation requires more work than you expect. Additionally, like most organizations, a customized user experience can break (particularly specific webparts) with every SharePoint patch and upgrade. However, we found no issues with stability or scalability. 

    80% of our clients use SharePoint, and probably some 85% of the Fortune 1000 use SharePoint in some shape or form. We are first and foremost SharePoint intranet consultants, so we build and design other intranets, and need to deeply understand the ins and outs of SharePoint. 

    The initial setup of SharePoint is very easy - out-of-the-box deployment is simple, fast and a novice could manage a deployment. Customization requires a lot of work, particularly using SPFx (hiring an outside expert is strongly recommended).

    A note of caution: planning is everything. The intranet is more about people and process, and any intranet requires a through plan -- for information architecture, content management, design, and change management -- plan, plan, plan. And plan to run over-budget (unless you hire very strong outside experts to develop and run your plan and budget) for customization activities. 

    SharePoint 2019
    SharePoint 2019

    SharePoint features major upgrades to the user experience design and mobile access, including a new dedicated SharePoint app. The UX for SharePoint 2019 is noticeably superior to previous versions of SP. It’s very clean and modern, with a major emphasis on images, and video. The new "modern UX" is fully responsive, and has it's own dedicated mobile app.

    “SharePoint 2019 has the most UX (improvements) than we’ve ever delivered before in a SharePoint release,” Hani Loza, of the Microsoft SharePoint team, on www.IntranetBlog.com.

    Among the new UX features, particularly noticeable in the new SharePoint Communications Sites, are drag-and-drop web parts for image galleries, slideshows, hero slideshow, and video.

    Continue reading: The New SharePoint: SharePoint 2019

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    it_user635955 - PeerSpot reviewer
    it_user635955Project Manager at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
    Consultant

    Err...what's Centralpoint? :D Is that an actual enterprise solution?

    See all 2 comments
    President at Prescient Digital Media
    Consultant
    Top 5Leaderboard
    SharePoint for Intranets

    SharePoint is appreciated for its simplicity of use out-of-the-box, though derided for problems (and the expenses) customizing the user experience (design, navigation and information architecture).

    SharePoint is replete with functionality and applications, and is the most comprehensive intranet development platform on the market. It is, unfortunately, expensive, and most of the feature set that we use, and that our clients use, fall short of expectations, and often below best-of-breed. SharePoint isn’t a niche product that is supposed to be superb at web content management, or social networking; it’s a broad solution, one that has something for everybody; a solution that can please some, but not all.

    SharePoint’s greatest strength is that it’s an all-in-one solution – it’s a portal, a content management system, a search engine, a social collaboration platform, a web development platform, and so much more. Its greatest weakness is that it’s an all-in-one solution – everything and the kitchen sink; a jack-of-all-trades, a master of none. Some argue that SharePoint is a “mile wide, but a foot deep.” It offers so much, but many features are seen as sub-par. 

    SharePoint is part enterprise content management (ECM) solution, part portal solution, part web development platform, part social media platform. It offers many, many solutions and functions – often too much for most organizations – but it is Microsoft’s hope that it will become everything to everybody including the de facto platform for the company intranet, website(s) and extranet(s). In sum total, it is an amazingly powerful solution, but often fails to live up to expectations.

    SharePoint 2013 was a fair solution, with an abundance of time, patience… and money, it could work; SharePoint 2016, is even better, but still requires a lot of care, and investment.

    The latest, SharePoint 2019 (and SharePoint Online in Office 365), further improves upon previous versions, notably the mobile experience and the user experience. 

    SharePoint has a new mobile app, so you can access your intranet using a phone app, instead of using the browser. Outside of the app, SharePoint has a new, clean mobile experience – greatly enhanced over the mobile experience in SharePoint 2016.

    Another big, major improvement to SharePoint is the new user experience (UX) design and general usability of SharePoint. It is noticeably superior to previous versions of SP. It’s very clean and modern, with a major emphasis on images, and video.

    “SharePoint 2019 has the most UX (improvements) than we’ve ever delivered before in a SharePoint release,” Hani Loza, of the Microsoft SharePoint team.

    Among the new UX features, particularly noticeable in the new SharePoint Communications Sites, are drag-and-drop web parts for image galleries, slideshows, hero slideshow, and video.

    Microsoft has released a new video function and portal, called Stream. Using Microsoft Stream, videos will play automatically in a page, and it includes auto transcription, face detection, and enhanced sharing and tagging. The Stream team say “audio transcriptions and face detection make finding relevant content easy—even for specific words or people shown on screen, whether in a single video or across all your company’s videos.”

    From a governance perspective, SharePoint is good, when compared to other platforms. It is not perfect, but no solution is.

    Like the content of your website or intranet, planning and governance is technology agnostic; whether it’s SharePoint or another portal or content management platform, the necessity for and the approach to governance is the same. In short, governance lives and dies with its owners, and the rules they put in place, regardless of the technology. Governance is largely applicable to any technology platform and as such is generic to start.

    When building a governance model for SharePoint, the major components should include:

    • The umbrella ownership model – Centralized? Decentralized? Collaborative?
    • Defined ownership structure (names and titles)
    • Roles and responsibilities (jobs and duties)
    • Decision making process (who is responsible for what and when)
    • Authorization (who is responsible for what and when)
    • Policy (what is allowed, and what is not allowed)

    While governance is generic in nature, regardless of the software and hardware, there are some components of SharePoint that require specific consideration. Site Collections and Team Sites are so easy to deploy, and it is so easy for even the most neophyte web users to create a site (e.g. Team Sites, My Sites, Publishing Sites, etc.), SharePoint sites can easily grow at exponential rates and amount to tens-of-thousands in a short period of time. ‘Baking’ in rules and inheritance to site collections is critical to ensuring a consistent, uniform user experience.

    These issues and others are discussed in-depth including, SharePoint governance, and some of the specific, requisite steps and policies for implementing intranet and in the SharePoint Governance white paper.

    To learn about the specifics of intranet design with SharePoint, see the Intranet Design white paper.

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    it_user9216 - PeerSpot reviewer
    it_user9216Head of Consulting & Solutions EMEA at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
    Consultant

    I would add education about what is governance and what needs to be governed.

    PeerSpot user
    CEO l Founder at a manufacturing company with 11-50 employees
    Real User
    Top 10Leaderboard
    Content and knowledge management system that's good for small-scale implementation, but needs improvement in stability, SSO integration, and document management
    Pros and Cons
    • "What I like about SharePoint is that they keep up with a lot of updates, and they bring out new features. I also like that the system is integrated with the Microsoft 365 suite of apps."
    • "Document management and the ability to easily integrate single sign-on (SSO) are areas for improvement in SharePoint."

    What is our primary use case?

    SharePoint allows us to access and to search for what we have in our repositories.

    What is most valuable?

    What I like about SharePoint is that they keep up with a lot of updates, and they bring out new features. I also like that the system is integrated with the Microsoft 365 suite of apps.

    What needs improvement?

    Document management and the ability to easily integrate single sign-on (SSO) are areas for improvement in SharePoint.

    Integrating SharePoint with other software is what I'd like to see in its next release.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I've used SharePoint in the last 12 months. We use it internally in our organization.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    The stability of SharePoint needs improvement, because once you start to get a large amount of data, it becomes very unwieldy, and it takes a long time to index. There are much better products for content management and knowledge management, when compared to SharePoint.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    SharePoint is not as scalable, particularly when implementing larger projects. It's good for small-scale implementation.

    How are customer service and support?

    I haven't personally contacted the technical support for SharePoint. It's our support team who contacts them.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    I used HPE Content Manager, formerly TRIM software, which used to be owned by TRIM here in Australia. We used TRIM a lot, then it was bought out by HPE, HPE has now been bought out by Microsoft.

    Our organization chose SharePoint because they wanted to become accredited with Microsoft. They saw that Microsoft was the industry leader, so everyone wanted Microsoft. They saw Microsoft as the way forward, at the time.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup for SharePoint was complex. Anything from Microsoft is complex.

    What about the implementation team?

    We implemented SharePoint in-house. We had a team that had experience with SharePoint when we decided to use it as our content management system. We had the skills from implementation and from attending numerous Microsoft training courses.

    What was our ROI?

    SharePoint is probably cheaper than dedicated, larger, and more useful content management systems, so you could get a return on investment from it, as long as you keep your infrastructure and everything up to date, and move to the new version when you have to.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    You have to pay for a license to use SharePoint, and any extended support from Microsoft is expensive. For example: if you have SharePoint 2013 and it reaches its end of life and goes out of support, you can migrate to SharePoint online, and that's a benefit, but you'll have to pay for extended support.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    I evaluated Lotus Notes and HPE Content Manager.

    What other advice do I have?

    In terms of what features I found valuable in SharePoint, I haven't found many. I had come from IBM and was very entrenched with Lotus Notes and the Lotus Notes environment. I love Lotus Notes. When IBM sold Lotus, we started to move away from Notes, and I didn't like it, and then I was made redundant. Now I've been outside of IBM, having to use Microsoft, and I hate it.

    My advice to people looking into using SharePoint for the first time is for them to 
    look at how much data they have, and also look at the volume their data and data holdings are going to grow to. They should look at how long it would take to get to that point, then look at their ROI, and whether they would need to upgrade to another product in the near future. I'd say "Yes. Go for it.", but they should also look at the future, and how it would be long term.

    I'm rating SharePoint a seven. Yes, it's good for organizations to start on knowledge management, but you'd have to look at how quickly you think your data will grow, and how soon it would take to get to that point, because it can become unwieldy.

    Our company is a consulting partner of Microsoft. We're a service integrator that works in both the private and Australian Federal Government sectors.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    Private Cloud
    Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: partner
    PeerSpot user
    Mir Nayeem Ul Haq - PeerSpot reviewer
    Mir Nayeem Ul HaqFounder & CEO at Vaadi Outsourcing
    Top 5Real User

    I think that the author is spot-on in terms of the pros and cons of SharePoint. I would add that SharePoint can be challenging to learn and use, so it's important to have patience and to be willing to put in the time to learn the ropes. Additionally, I think that SharePoint's ability to integrate with other software could be improved.

    President at Prescient Digital Media
    Consultant
    Top 5Leaderboard
    The SharePoint Intranet – Pros and Cons

    SharePoint has conquered the enterprise intranet. Although the conquest is never as bloody nor expensive as more invasive conquests, such as the Mongols under Genghis Khan, intranet citizens are not always thrilled by the new system and structure under Gates Khan.

    SharePoint is present in about 90% of the Fortune 100; and plays a prominent intranet role in about 70% of knowledge worker intranets (either powering the main intranet portal, or delivering associated collaboration sites and/or document repositories). This in spite of its history.

    SharePoint 2007 was a dog; SharePoint 2010 was a dressed-up dog; but SharePoint 2013 represented a leap forward to a more user-friendly, true web platform. SharePoint 2016 saw improvements, but perhaps the most significant advances have come in the last couple of years with the release and evolution of SharePoint online (and eventually SharePoint 2019) with the advent of Office 365.

    SharePoint Online, and the on-premises version SharePoint 2019 (though the Online version is constantly being updated and improved upon) represent considerable improvement to a a very usable, complex digital workplace solution. SharePoint Online Modern Experience has become a truly mobile friendly solution, with a number of improvements to collaboration (particularly Teams and a dedicated mobile app) and for hybrid cloud scenarios.

    There are a lot of reasons to buy into or upgrade to Online or 2019: the latest iteration of Microsoft’s portal-web development platform represents a massive, multi-million dollar upgrade on the previous versions of SharePoint (a version that was typically oversold given its underwhelming if not frustrating performance and lack of execution). SharePoint Online and 2019 are massive upgrade from 2013: noticeable improvements to social computing (social networking via Delve and Teams), mobile computing (responsive design with "modern" pages and a dedicated mobile app), better Office integration, Teams, cloud and hybrid integration, search and more.

    But it’s not all good news, and it’s not a solution that fits every organization.

    Here at Prescient Digital Media, we upgraded move to SharePoint Online in Office 365 (which is more feature and functionally rich than SharePoint 2019). Though some problems persist, the bugs and challenges are not as persistent as versions 2013 and 2016. There are some obvious improvements (pros) and some persistent issues (cons): 

    • Cloud – you no longer need to worry about patches, maintenance and security; Microsoft takes care of this for you
    • Mobile – enhanced mobile access experience with completely responsive sites and apps, and dedicated single sign-on apps for each of the tools in the Office 365 toolset
    • Social – enhanced social networking via Delve, Teams and Yammer
    • Web CMS – enhanced publishing and management interface (employing the ‘ribbon’ from Office)
    • Branding – the new "modern pages" are slick and responsive; it can be more challenging to implement new custom designs using the new modern pages versus classic, and MS has openly cautioned against customizing the home page
    • Search – search is much improved with the full integration with the FAST search engine, but requires some configuration work

    There are far more pros than cons, but there should be at the price MS charges. SharePoint is very good for a small to medium-size intranet in a .NET environment that requires a web development platform focused on enterprise content management. In some scenarios, SharePoint can excel as a large enterprise intranet, but it can cause headaches if its overly customized .But it is not cheap, typically requires a lot of work and customization, and doesn’t always work as promised.

    Speaking of conquest, the Chinese learned Mongol lessons the hard way, and built the Great Wall. Although a firewall is requisite with any intranet, not just a SharePoint intranet, walls kill collaboration and employee knowledge management. More salient, key lessons can be drawn from implementing and working with SharePoint:

    • Licensing represents a fraction of the cost
    • Planning and governance are mission critical – mission critical
    • Custom or third-party web parts and applications can really enhance the experience
    • Social collaboration doesn’t just happen, it’s earned
    • Change management is the key to success

    For more information see the SharePoint For Communicators white paper, at www.PrescientDigital.com.

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    it_user635955 - PeerSpot reviewer
    it_user635955Project Manager at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
    Consultant

    Scored quite high when we evaluated it on compliance and compatibility with required ECM features (Gartner ECM assessment criteria used in our assessment), i.e. scored in the range of 92% to 96%. Among the criteria evaluated were library services, record services, content creation and capture, metadata management, workflow and BPM, navigation and search, security and access control, and architecture and integration functionalities.

    See all 9 comments
    IT Manager at The Ventoulis Institute for Local Journalism
    Real User
    Top 20Leaderboard
    Scales very well, makes us more organized, and provides the ability to share and precisely administer files
    Pros and Cons
    • "For SharePoint, I believe the most valuable feature is the customization and allowing you to share and edit files and documents. Being able to share externally and the precise administration of the files in terms of giving permissions and controlling who has access to what is a very good feature."
    • "It has worked very well for me. It seems like they've improved everything. I don't have any cons about it as such, but I don't think they have a talk-to-text, speech-to-text, or speech-to-type. That would be cool for accessibility."

    What is our primary use case?

    We just started using it. We use it for collaborating and sharing documents and files internally and externally. We also create sites for each department, and we also create directories. It's basically for collaboration and sharing files. If we need to send something to the entire organization, we send it to SharePoint. So, everybody has access to it.

    How has it helped my organization?

    It allowed us to be more productive in terms of being more organized. Everyone seems to think the organizational thing is the best part of it.

    What is most valuable?

    For SharePoint, I believe the most valuable feature is the customization and allowing you to share and edit files and documents. Being able to share externally and the precise administration of the files in terms of giving permissions and controlling who has access to what is a very good feature.

    What needs improvement?

    It has worked very well for me. It seems like they've improved everything. I don't have any cons about it as such, but I don't think they have a talk-to-text, speech-to-text, or speech-to-type. That would be cool for accessibility.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using this solution for the past five years. This is a new organization, and in this organization, we've been using it for the past month.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    It is very stable. I haven't had any outages or any issues.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    Its scalability is very good. We can add as many users as we want. It is designed for high scalability.

    We have about 12 employees. We have two HR people, two marketing people, one chief product officer, the CEO, and the head of technology. So, it is a mixture of different departments. It is not that expensive. Right now, it is only $5 per user per month. So, we are definitely going to grow.

    How are customer service and support?

    Anytime I had a technical issue, their technical support has been pretty good. I haven't had too many technical issues though, but if I do, I just research it.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    We've always used Microsoft here, so we didn't use any other solution.

    How was the initial setup?

    It was straightforward. We have 12 employees, so it didn't take long at all. 

    It was basically just giving them a computer and them signing into their accounts. It is included actually in our subscription, so we didn't have to install or do anything. It was there. I, as the IT manager, did have to create the site though and then add the members of the groups and stuff like that.

    What about the implementation team?

    I did it myself. For its deployment and maintenance, only one person is required. I take care of its deployment and maintenance.

    What was our ROI?

    We haven't even been open for a month yet, so we have not really got an ROI.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    It is pretty reasonable. It is $5 per month per user. We have 12 users now, so it is about $60 per month.  

    There are no additional costs.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    From my past experience with Microsoft, I didn't have to evaluate other options.

    What other advice do I have?

    I would say definitely go with it. I haven't had any issues with it for years, so go with it. SharePoint has always been good. Microsoft has always been great.

    I'll rate it a 10 out of 10.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    Private Cloud

    If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

    Other
    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    Cesar Danecke - PeerSpot reviewer
    IT Supervisor at HORSCH BRASIL
    Real User
    Top 5Leaderboard
    Enables us to share information more securely
    Pros and Cons
    • "The online editing capabilities, file sharing, auditing, information security, ease of solution management, and the easy user adaptation to the platform are the most valuable features."
    • "The way to change the version of the files in SharePoint should be improved. The method of synchronizing files from local to the cloud can also use improvement."

    What is our primary use case?

    Our primary use case is for file sharing. SharePoint is implemented in our environment for files and user sharing. We also use it for simultaneous editions.

    How has it helped my organization?

    We had all the group files registered in SharePoint, including all local files. It was possible to share the information more securely. 

    What is most valuable?

    The online editing capabilities, file sharing, auditing, information security, ease of solution management, and the easy user adaptation to the platform are the most valuable features. 

    What needs improvement?

    The way to change the version of the files in SharePoint should be improved. The method of synchronizing files from local to the cloud can also use improvement. 

    I would also like to see improvements in the interface, speed to load the page, mark favorite directories, synchronize the most recent, and the least accessed files automatically do the archiving. I would like to have an option at the first sync to choose more locations on your computer.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    We have been using this solution for more than five years.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    The stability of SharePoint is very good, amazing.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    SharePoint is easy and has new features now. Scalability with SharePoint is good and easy for us at work. To maintain the product, we do not need a large amount of professionals, we currently have three professionals to administer the platform.

    How are customer service and support?

    Technical support with SharePoint is very good, very easy and includes support for multiple languages. It can be opened by several channels.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Positive

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    What motivated us to switch solutions was the easy solution management, space scalability, additional features, easy synchronization, data security, and sharing control.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial configuration of SharePoint was very easy. The configuration, training, and communication with the users took less than two months.

    What about the implementation team?

    Internal deployment of the system was conducted through a Microsoft partner and was very easy. We had our internal professionals deploy the system together.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    With regards to licensing, it depends a lot on what you need to do, there are many plans, and options to choose from, you need to plan and enjoy 100% of what the product offers, so you can decide if the value is right.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    I used several products, but sharepoint brought them all together. I used windows file server, linux, file versioners, website to share documents.

    What other advice do I have?

    Compared with other products, SharePoint is very good. We do not have other products that are as good as SharePoint.

    SharePoint is definitely richer in features with functionality which helps us to get our work done. I would rate SharePoint a 10 out of 10.

    The solution is integrated with the entire Microsoft platform, from e-mail to Azure computing, so the solution as a whole is easy to manage and has a central administration that facilitates the view of the entire environment.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    Public Cloud
    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free SharePoint Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
    Updated: May 2023
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free SharePoint Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.