SharePoint Reviews

• Ability to be used from a .NET programming environment

We were able to introduce a CMS, which had never been implemented before.

For sure, it should offer customisation of data grids, which is not possible, as it seems to use some proprietary OCX control.

I have used it for three years.

I have not encountered that many stability issues.

I have not encountered any scalability issues so far.

I did not previously use a different solution.

As with any other product, initial setup is a bit complex to understand how/what is happening, but with a good background and understanding, how it works it is very easy.

For simple solutions, I recommend this solution. But going large scale, you might consider going with an open-source solution.

Before choosing this product, I did not evaluate other options.

Look at alternatives, and understand your goals and possible future implementations.

The most valuable features to our organization are the ability to store and share documents across the entire corporation, and the ability to use workflows. Our organization has multiple locations and even multiple companies that need to share information both intra-company and within the corporation. The ability to create workflows that can assign tasks and route documents for review and approval allows for documentation automation and project management.

We used to use project folders to manage new product development. With SharePoint, it allowed us to store all of the related documentation in a single project folder. Another example would be when we have a product quality issue, a single form is filled out and routed to the various people in the organization for review and resolution to ensure the issue does not repeat itself. Several locations use the calendar feature to schedule PTO and at one plant, they use the calendars to schedule the dock doors for freight delivery and shipping.

The user profile synchronization feature is cumbersome to configure and at least initially had some stability issues. Since then, it has improved in stability, but is still not a straightforward installation.

We have used SharePoint in our organization for 10 years, beginning in late 2006 with SharePoint 2007.

There have been no stability issues other than with user profile synchronization. The only times we have had SharePoint offline in the last 10 years were when we had a server issue in 2010 and when we have taken it offline for maintenance.

I have not encountered any scalability issues, but our installation only supports a few thousand people.

I have little experience contacting Microsoft technical support in relation to SharePoint, as we have not experienced any issues that would require their intervention.

I did not previously use a different solution.

Initial setup can be daunting if you are not familiar with the product, especially if you are setting this up in a multiple-server environment, which would be the common scenario. There are three main servers in the configuration: the database server, the web application server and the web front end server. In larger installations, that number can grow, as you can have multiple front end servers and multiple servers handling the various application services.

As with any Microsoft product, the licensing can be complex. There are two versions of SharePoint: Enterprise and Standard. Standard does not require an additional user CAL for the SharePoint part of things, but has less features; the most important being able to use Office apps directly in the browser. SharePoint is tightly integrated with Microsoft Office, so this is a critical point.

We did evaluate using FileNet as an alternative. We chose SharePoint due to its tighter integration with Microsoft Office.

If you don’t have in-house expertise, you would be well advised to hire a competent consulting firm to help with the planning and installation. You will need to consider things such as in-house servers vs. a hosted solution, along with topology, backup and disaster recovery, security, and capacity plans. And that is just for hardware. You will also need to consider logical architecture: how you want to use social computing, document management, search and metadata structure, records management, and site security. That is just a portion of the details involved.

Beginning with SharePoint 2007, the product has steadily improved with a few minor exceptions.

• User permissions and document libraries
• Basic CMS capabilities with user-based permissions
• Ability to tie into other products to extend and scale the platform

We use SharePoint largely as an internal intranet; users are organized through AD and into their respective teams. Each team is responsible for their own websites and areas (including document repositories). Through this form of user organization, we can share resources with one another and in other areas, we can also set up public access so that everybody has access to everything.

On top of that, we can set up applications such as Power BI and web parts to handle data processing, telemetry/analytics, and even document processing. We have web forms that collect all manner of data, with workflows, to help with internal processes.

• Ease of use
• Out-of-the-box experience
• Learning curve

For the most part, the tool is useable, but there are many end users who still find it difficult overall. As a developer, I am able to find my way through the interfaces with time, but it takes too much time to learn these things and remember where they are. As an end user, I can understand why some people altogether give up in frustration.

I have used it for 10 years, through various versions.

I have not encountered any stability issues. SharePoint is a very stable platform, provided that it's installed on an equally stable server environment.

Occasionally, we come across strange server-level errors, but they are few and far between. Normal users almost never have problems, except for permission-based incidents.

I have not encountered any scalability issues. SharePoint is very scalable, provided that you have the resources to ensure its smooth operation.

For example, enabling Power BI is almost as easy as subscribing to the SaaS and flicking a switch. Similarly, other third-party vendor plugins are as easy as installing them and making the webpages and web parts available to the users. However, making sure that the platform itself is configured correctly and deploying the plugins correctly, is often where some things can fail. SharePoint itself scales well, it's just ensuring that all the additional resources are working cohesively.

N/A. I am not a system admin for our SharePoint instances, so I don't contact MS support for SharePoint issues.

To my knowledge, we have always used SharePoint. We have not switched away from SharePoint because of its AD integration; it makes automatic permissions that much easier.

N/A. I am not a system admin for SharePoint and was not involved in the deployment.

While a business owner of the platform, I can only comment on that the upgrade/migration from SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint 2013 was relatively smooth, albeit very slow.

The migration process took an entire weekend, and our instance is shy of 150GB total stored contents.

Pricing and licensing is a very subjective topic. Some companies have more resources than others, and some vendors are more flexible than others.

• Always find a solution that fits your needs the most; worry about the money later.
• Always make sure that this is a solution that your company can use and take care of; don't buy the latest and greatest tools because it's the hottest product in the market.

We are an academic institution, and so we have a EDU partnership for volume licensing and other enterprise purchasing agreements.

For this particular product (MS SharePoint), we are using the SharePoint Enterprise CAL license, for our on-premise solution. There are other departments that do the same thing with enterprise CAL, but our overarching relationship with Microsoft is through our central department.

N/A. This was a pre-existing solution that's been upgraded many times since its first roll out (2003 > 2007 > 2010 > 2013).

Make sure that you have the proper resources to ensure that the product is well maintained. This includes both technical resources and if necessary a governance group.

There is a steep learning curve for those not familiar with the way Microsoft works. They have a specific, albeit predictable, way of doing things. Ensure that your developers and system administrators are familiar with this "way". It seems arrogant and militant to state, but if your resources aren't willing to do things the Microsoft way, they should be taken off this project, else they will slow things down or outright make things worse.

The product itself is very robust and capable, but the success of the tool is largely dependent upon the team that deploys and maintains the product, as well as resources available to it.

Without proper resources, the product can flounder and fail.

We have taken advantage of the list features extensively and the ability to clone subsites.

The creation of lists and the ability to tie lists together is valuable. This has made my job and other different department’s jobs easier. We have many different lists defined on our server. We can use one of the list items on another list so that we have data integrity. That way everyone spells IBM the same, etc.

The ability to make templates of sites means thatt they can be easily recreated over and over.

An example of how we use the lists is what we call our parking portal. We have a list of pin numbers that parking has given to us to use in our underground parking lot. We have several different departments that use these numbers and they get charged when they use them. We have a separate list for reservations that we tie to the pin numbers. This is used to make sure that:

• The pins are only used once.
• The appropriate department gets charged for the parking pin used.

It does too many things and some of them seem impossible to set up.

One of the features that I could not get set up was the access interface. It had many steps and I just couldn’t get it to work. It should be easier to build access applications to do some of the things we want to get done.

We have used Microsoft SharePoint since 2007. We have upgraded to 2010 and then to 2013.

I have run into problems with Microsoft updates killing my test machine for two months...

I have not encountered any issues with scalability.

Technical support is 5 out of 10; it is complex and must all work.

We didn't have anything that did this before.

Initial setup was complex. You needed to understand the parts before you could set up the whole, and you needed to understand what parts you needed to get going.

Pricing seems fine. Licensing seems straightforward.

Nothing else did this at the time we started up.

Start out in the cloud and see if that will get you where you want to go.

This version is a lot easier to use than the predecessors but it is still not easy to setup and get running. I love the new features and look forward to working with Microsoft SharePoint O365 online.

• Enhanced communications
• The ability to set up sites to share data/information in a one-stop shopping method. Including:

  
  

  • User-friendly interface to share files
  • Ability to have calendaring specific to the function/department addressed by the site
  • The important links facility, which provides easy access to frequently used items
  • Workflow, which allows us to define processes and make it easier for the user to perform a task. The workflow provides a consistent framework for performing the task, as well as providing behind-the-scenes flow, thus removing the manual process of determining where the flow goes next. This also removes the human error portion of that flow.

As the employees are spread around the country and the world, this allows us to communicate more effectively by providing an easier interface with the information (files, calendars, links and news) all in one spot. It allows us to collaborate more effectively as people can access this information according to their time availability. The one-stop shopping is critical, as everyone is looking at one version of the truth and therefore are on the same page.

This product has allowed us to coordinate the efforts of individual groups, as well as different groups that need to interact for specific projects/processes. Before this, there was a lot of emails being exchanged and certainly there were times that some of the people that needed to know where inadvertently left off of an email or two.

Not so much an improvement as a caveat: Due to the flexibility and power of the product, out of the box it can be daunting to use. Without some consulting work from a SharePoint expert, the product would not be quite as user friendly.

I have used it for two years.

At first, we encountered stability issues, but they have been ironed out and – knock on wood – we have been stable for a while. I believe our issue might have been related to sizing the resources properly, as we started small with the intention of growing as we developed more uses for the product.

At the end of the day, I would say we have not encountered any scalability issues. We have added more sites and continue to add them as people realize the power and effectiveness of the product. There are times, though relatively infrequent, where it seems to bog down a little but it does not have a major impact on productivity.

I believe most of our external support comes from a consultant and from a user point of view, I am satisfied as I have yet to have a question/issue that could not be resolved and I have not had many questions or issues.

We did not previously use a different solution.

Here again, from a user’s view, I would say initial setup was complex as to obtain the most benefit, you needed to understand what you were looking for and how best to fit it into the scheme of SharePoint. It seemed that there was often more than one way to solve the need and trying to map the need with the best approach took some time.

I am unable to comment as I am not involved with the details of this.

Before choosing this product, I did not evaluate other options. We chose SharePoint as we had business partners that were already using it, we had exposure to the product that way and liked what we saw.

Make sure you find the right consultant.

Make sure you invest the proper amount of time to plan the implementation. This is not something like Excel, where you can install, train and use. To get the most out of it, you need a game plan for what you will use it for and how to design/customize it to your needs.

Integration with LDAP is valuable because:

• Access to all files is secured and controlled via the roles & permissions that are sitting in LDAP for each user. This saves time and effort in determining who should have access to what, how and where.
• Access level in terms of editing capabilities can be controlled easily, too.
• Advanced reporting: Tracking who accessed what, how and when, recording the details, including all successful access and all denied attempts.
• Made multiple-factor authentication possible· Password synchronization, password recovery, SSO (single sign-on)

It provides a common place to communicate and collaborate, common repository of documents, etc.

• Data and use analysis
• Load balancing
• Common theme
• Better editing tools: The editing tools are still not up to par with all the existing hi-tech & GUI editing tools:
  
  • To name a few: Real-time trapping, dynamic previews, auto-theme regeneration, animation features, 3D features, color grading & saturation, real-time snapshot replication & deduplication, multi-platform and software language adoptability, file-level security & encryption feature, content security capability
  • Hardware Limitations: Responsiveness to multi-gesture input devices (similar to the ones used in the Iron Man movies or the Minority Report), robotic assistance (thumb print, eye retina scan, voice recognition, etc.)
  • WCAG: auto-accessibility compliance capability & assistance

I have seen bits & pieces of these features from different software companies, but none have actually put them all together, yet.

One day – someday – with the fast developments in technology, the best is still to come.

I have used it for 14+ years.

I have not encountered any stability issues; very reliable.

I have encountered scalability issues, but only due to a physical server. With virtual server architecture, this can be resolved easily.

From Microsoft, technical support is very good – but rarely needed.

I previously used a different solution; switched because of ease of use and deployment.

Initial setup was straightforward; some steps are implied for an experienced IT tech.

We got this through the California Foundation for Community Colleges; a four-site license.

Before choosing this product, we evaluated an in-house solution.

Go for it. It works.

When an organization is using Microsoft products already, the integration with the Microsoft Office products and the ability to leverage web-based Office products can transform business processes. I think there is a great benefit in integrating collaboration, e-mail, document management, workflow, and content management in one product. When I have been in the role of Information Architect, I took advantage of site content, metadata, advanced searches (FAST), web parts and the free applications.

There are a large number of solid third-party vendors that develop web apps that are easy to integrate and configure.

In smaller organizations or organizations with limited budgets, I was able to leverage SharePoint to provide a lot of functionality around workflows, content and document management with very limited customized development.

When implemented correctly, SharePoint and Office 365 can provide knowledge workers with the information they need quickly and it can provide for team collaboration. I have used it to transform relationships between business units and to break down silos.

I would focus on improving:

• Integration with other enterprise products.
• Simpler API.
• Enhanced ability to report against structured and unstructured data in the environment.
• More flexible security or training: I have noticed in organizations I joined that they lock down SharePoint so much, there is very limited functionality. As a result, teams in the same organization move to other collaboration tools when they would not need to.
• Enhanced ability for users to back up and restore at various levels of the architecture.
• Have SharePoint and Office 365 expand so that additional third-party products for document management are not necessary.

I have used it for over 10 years.

Any issues regarding stability are generally caused by a lack of governance from planning of the underlying infrastructure through ongoing operations. With best practices in rolling out any application from an infrastructure planning and operations perspective, stability is not a significant issue.

Frankly, I would make a case for many organizations to go with the SaaS-based option. I investigated the security around Office 365 in the past and it was HIPAA and PSI compliant. When organizations host these types of solutions instead of leveraging commodity hardware and expertise in a SAAS environment, that is where the issues of stability and scalability come up.

Technical support is excellent.

I have used Google and still do today. It is less expensive as a personal solution to document management, archiving and collaboration. It also integrates with my personal Google e-mail solution.

Rolling out the enterprise version and ensuring integration with other products, budgeting for the hardware, and ensuring governance was not easy for SharePoint. However, I did leverage all of the plans and checklists that Microsoft provided, which made the process much simpler.

Office 365 was very simple to setup and I liked the ease of expanding storage when needed.

It really depends on the size of the organization. For small organizations, I would advise them on just purchasing Office 365 for what they need in the next year or two. They can always scale up. In larger organizations, I would love to have the enterprise version. However, not every organization can afford the cost.

I compared it against Google's solution.

I would advise others looking into implementing this product to consider Office 365 as a SaaS solution. I would also provide a governance plan and some common templates and training to get them started.

I would advise them to start with the teams that will leverage the product.

I would recommend finding ways to combine business process re-engineering with rolling out sites. This would be an easy win: combining process improvement with content management, document management, workflow and collaboration.

I would tell them to expect some amount of customization depending on what they wanted to leverage the product for.

As a portal, EDM platform for organizations, I think it is an excellent product. The limitations I have seen are the implementation and expectations of the technology, not the technology itself.

• DMS
• ECM
• Collaboration
• Portals
• Search
• BI
• Mobile support
• Business process management
• LOB integration

Global accessibility over O365 increased the collaboration within the organization.

I have used it for more than 11 years.

I have not encountered any stability issues, as such.

There were scalability issues with SP 2013, but MS made some improvements in SP 2016.

Technical support from MS is great, especially in the cloud area.

We were previously using a custom solution that was hard to maintain and there was also lack of user adoption. With SP, we were able to see great improvement in those areas.

Initial setup was straightforward.

Go for O365 plans that have different pricing as per business needs.

From the beginning, I was in favour of SharePoint. However, for customers, we have evaluated solutions such as Liferay, Sitecore, Drupal, etc.

For enterprise global collaboration, DMS, and ECM needs, this is the right platform.