SharePoint Reviews

• Documents storage
• Collaboration features (lists, discussion boards)
• Surveys
• .NET extensibility
• Workflows

Mostly, because it facilitates collaboration and the ability to create custom workflows.

For the past few years, we've been mapping some of our manual procedures into SharePoint, through the use of lists, workflows, centralized documents, etc. This has allowed our organization to start moving away from manual and non-standard practices, to more repeatable procedures.

Flexibility and extensibility, above everything, could be improved. Extending the functionality of SharePoint is painful, at the bare minimum. Complex .NET coding, testing, debugging is necessary to extend the native functionalities. Even with the new "apps" concept in SharePoint 2013, the difficulties in expanding it are present.

I’ve been using SharePoint for the last three years.

We have had difficulty with stability. The configuration and administration of SharePoint is complex. This resulted in incidents when changes to other products were made, like Active Directory or Exchange. Time consuming maintenance tasks are necessary, otherwise your SharePoint instance will become unstable.

We have had scalability issues. I cannot speak about horizontal scalability, but the mapping of environments (Dev, QA, Production) is difficult. There's no logical segmentation that allows the creation of several environments to facilitate development and testing tasks. Additional instances of SharePoint are necessary.

Support is deficient. We depend on local vendors to get access to support and most of the issues we presented took more time to resolve that we wanted. It is not a platform for running business-critical applications.

We did not have a previous solution.

Initial setup was complex. The multi-step installation process is complex and has too many dependencies on other Microsoft products, such as Exchange and SQL Server.

I cannot speak about this as our product comes in an MSDN package.

Unfortunately there were no alternatives; I didn't choose this product.

Look for other options from different providers.

Documentation management is the most valuable feature for me. As a technical writer, the ability to add, edit, manage and move documents is a daily task and SharePoint allows me to do that effectively.

The search function is imperative in this product and used frequently to locate and update information for our global and diverse teams.

SharePoint has allowed our organization to effectively share important information across lines of business globally. I am able to deliver effective information to all of our internal orgs immediately and can receive feedback for updates in real time.

I’ve personally experienced some difficulties in creating new pages, as this tool isn’t a web designer’s dream. Providing a list of existing pages that are named the same or similar to the new pages one might create would be helpful. Being able to toggle into those pages without exiting your original page would also be beneficial. I’ve also noticed limitations with copying and pasting fonts and images.

I have used it for seven months.

I did not encounter any stability issues.

I did not encounter any scalability issues.

Our company has used other solutions to meet various needs. We are still in the process of converting into using SharePoint for our knowledge base, etc.

Before choosing this product, I also evaluated Confluence and ZenDesk.

Create a structure for organizational pages from the beginning and document that for anyone who wants to create new pages/structures within it. One confusing thing I see often are existing pages that are “named” the same as ones that I need to create, and the existing page doesn’t have any of the information I’m trying to share.

Some valuable features are:

• The SharePoint document management is second to none. This was one of our main reasons to upgrade from SharePoint 2010 to 2013.
• SharePoint 2013 had a better and cleaner user interface that has appealed to more users.
• The improved out-of-the-box Search functionality, was also a driving factor in migrating to SharePoint 2013.

With the cleaner and friendlier user interface, we have managed to assign access requests back to the users. While our support desk dealt with these requests previously, we have now managed to easily train managers in each team/department to provide access requests easily, thus reducing the load on our support desk.

The areas in which this product can improve are:

• The user experience can be simplified a bit more.
• The performance and customizability can also be improved.

I have used this product for 12 months.

There were no major stability issues as such, but the user profile service stopped unexpectedly on a few occasions.

No issues were experienced in regards to the scalability.

Being a Microsoft product that is widely used around the world, the technical support is easily available.

The only problem is when there is any customization done to the default SharePoint tool.

We used the older version, Microsoft SharePoint 2010.

Our reason to upgrade was Microsoft decided to stop its support for SharePoint 2010 aand also because our license was soon going to expire.

For someone who had not set up SharePoint previously, the initial setup was somewhat complicating. However, it became very straightforward thereafter.

The pricing and licensing is one of the most crucial parts of using Microsoft SharePoint.

Confluence by Atlassian was the only other option that was considered.

In the end, we chose the Microsoft SharePoint solution because we have a Microsoft Gold membership; so the pricing and licensing was greatly reduced for us.

Try and stick to a vanilla installation/setup as much as possible. When branding your instance of SharePoint, also try not to implement too much of custom codes. The more custom codes you implement, the less maintainable and less migratable SharePoint becomes.

Team place where sharing of documents and co-editing occurs.

Ease of access to shared documents.

Co-editing of documents. This enables teams to work on the same document and the work gets done faster.

Search integration across SharePoint, Yammer, Teams, and OneDrive.

It's good but we are not using a lot of load in the system.

It's the look and feel and maybe the integration with the Office platform.

Basically, it's just for internet and communication. It's not a busy implementation.

We need the storage of the files, the documents right now are in the database. Maybe SharePoint has to improve the capability to store the information in file systems. In theory right now, it could do that. But, I understand that some functions are lost when you store the information in a file system, so maybe that's a way SharePoint can improve.

It is very stable. But, I think it depends on the infrastructure. 

It's scalable because you can add more and more SharePoint's installations and maybe you can divide the content and everything, so it's scalable.

We have not yet had a need to contact tech support.

My primary use case is largely content management. The product is good.

• Information is much more readily available. 
• There is more functionality available.
• It allows for simultaneous users to be on it.

A combination of:

• Auditing
• Logging
• Collaboration.

It has been very useful and easy to use.

It should have more user-friendly customization, as it still requires developers to get engaged and build sites.

I would like it to be more compliant with global regulations. There are certain features which could be included that currently are not there, such as compliance and record management capabilities.

It is very stability. I don't foresee any issues.

I have not faced scalability issues.

I would rate Microsoft technical support as a six out of 10. They are just okay.

Previously, we were using file share. We switched because SharePoint made things easier with the increased functionality for building the portals, microsites, and total integration with Microsoft categories.

The initial setup was fairly complex, but that may just be our environment. A fair amount of design and consolidation needed to go into it.

With this product, have a decent skill set in-house. 

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: support.

Our primary use is document sharing.

It has improve our organization by speeding up document sharing.

Its most valuable feature is the document library.

Replication needs improvement.

• Mostly the documentation management features.
• Managing information such as events and announcements, document libraries, picture libraries, using calendars, lists and custom lists.
• Sharing files, document storage and retrieval, the check-in and check-out functionality, version history, custom properties, customized views, customizable workflows.
• Collaborative team sites for sharing and managing information.
• Search features, including advanced content processing, managed metadata, and continuous crawls.
• Security features, including permissions and document/page/site control.

We are now able to organize and control our documentation easily. Versioning, check in, check out and setting permissions for pages and sites enable us to manage our document and picture libraries without a fuss. We can now easily find documents within sites and pages, as long as documents are named and tagged appropriately. We can now create more complex workflows using SharePoint Designer, which is easy to use. However some improvements to SharePoint's workflow functionality could prove useful.

Approved and updated templates and documentation are now available on SharePoint. This ensures consistency and standardization across the organization. Documents and templates are centralized in this one repository, and only selected individuals are permitted to edit documents within the organization’s main documentation library.

There is transparency to the organization; whereas, previously there was none. Knowledge sharing and collaboration is more prevalent; therefore, communication has increased. We use the SharePoint home page to make company announcements, such as employee birthdays, anniversaries ,and upcoming events. We have also recently started using SharePoint to automate some of our manual processes.

SharePoint Designer enables creating workflows easily. However, they produce errors at times. There seems to be glitches which require workarounds to sort out. It is an amazing feature to have because workflows can fully automate processes that would otherwise be manual.

SharePoint Foundation was found to be adequate to our prior business needs and has been used company-wide for the last two years. However, due to its limitations in features, a decision was recently made to move away from Foundation to either Standard Edition or Enterprise Edition.

We have not experienced any serious issues regarding stability, except for the minor glitches with workflows. As previously mentioned, we are still on the Foundation version. However, I believe if SharePoint has been properly set up on a stable server, using proper governance and a strong infrastructure, we should not experience major issues with stability.

We have not yet encountered any scalability issues. SharePoint 2013 is reportedly scalable. As long as the solution has been properly configured, our organization should not experience any foreseeable issues.

We have not engaged with technical support from Microsoft at this time. We deal directly with in-house technical support. We will definitely be using external technical support from Microsoft when moving over to the Standard or Enterprise Edition.

We were previously using a network drive that we accessed directly from our laptops and desktops. There was simply no control of information and documentation; and loss of information occurred. There were inadequate, non-existent, or deep folder structures, messy content structures, and a lack of document management and control. Versioning was done manually. Important documentation with sensitive information was being stored on local drives. Updated templates and documentation were not being used.

There was a fair amount of research, investigation and infrastructure planning involved prior to its implementation and setup. SharePoint was a new initiative that was attempted by our in-house team. Initial setup was not so straightforward. It was a bit complex, as it is with most new products; but we did eventually get it up and running.

Our technical team is now up-to-speed, and the current process moves smoothly. With that said, it is useful to have prior technical knowledge and experience in SharePoint in order to facilitate a smooth setup and integration process.

Pricing and licensing options are structured according to the size of the organization. Good business leaders make the best decisions and choose the best fit for their organizations based not only on its business needs, resources and budgets; but also based on what people at their organization need and will use. Make sure that all areas of the organization buy-into it. Don't invest in a solution that you have not properly investigated first. Weigh out all your options first.

The SharePoint project had already been initiated before I joined the organization. However, since we are only on Foundation, the organization has embarked on a comparison between SharePoint and Confluence. After proper investigation and research, it was decided that both solutions were useful in their own right. Confluence is a collaborative working tool; and SharePoint offered a documentation management solution.

SharePoint and Confluence integrate well with each other. Confluence also connects with SharePoint. The business leaders and decision makers of our organization decided to test the SharePoint solution using Foundation 2013. Based on user feedback and interaction with SharePoint Foundation, they have recently decided to go with the Enterprise version.

I advise organizations or business leaders to fully investigate and research SharePoint, as well as all the features that are available for each edition. Based on your business needs, it might or might not be the right fit for your company. Properly weigh out your options and make the right decision for your organization, based on what your organization’s needs; how people work; or ideally should work.

Indecisiveness from a management and leadership perspective on what tool to use reflects poorly on the rest of the organization. Therefore, people feel discouraged.

SharePoint is a great document management tool. It works for me and fits the specific needs of my job. However, while it works for me, it is not being used in the same way by the rest of the organization, or sometimes not at all. There must be buy-in. It is best to survey whether people in your organization find this tool useful, and help them understand how it could best be used. It is also in the best interests of the organization to consult with a SharePoint Expert before, while, and after implementing SharePoint. Many organizations implement the best tools without helping their people realize the full potential of their use. Therefore, people become wary of new technology. They don't welcome the change and fail to engage with the new product.