Microsoft Software and Solutions

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 the advent of Office 365, now Microsoft 365.

SharePoint Online, and the on-premises version SharePoint Server, 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 SharePoint Online: 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 Server are massive upgrades from previous versions: noticeable improvements to AI (Copilot), social computing (Teams, Engage, Loop and more), mobile computing (responsive design with "modern" pages and a dedicated mobile app), better Office integration, Teams, cloud and hybrid integration, search and more. SharePoint Online also comes with federated search that allows the user to search out files and content from across all Microsoft 365 apps (including SharePoint, Teams, OneDrive, etc.).

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 a more feature and functionally rich version than SharePoint Server). 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 365 toolset
• Social – enhanced social networking via Engage and Teams and Loop
  
• 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
• Governance requires careful planning and implementation with process and roles that are independent of the technology
• Custom or third-party web parts and applications can really enhance the experience but can be costly
• Change management is the key to success

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

First and foremost, SharePoint is an intranet platform. Though Microsoft states that SharePoint is "primarily sold as a document management and storage system" it is an information sharing platform and for "implementing internal applications, and for implementing business processes."

SharePoint is the know market leader for powering intranets: about 90% of the Fortune 1000 use SharePoint in some shape or form (with many using it to power their Intranet home page).

There are in fact two versions of SharePoint: the on-premises version, SharePoint Server, 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).

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.

Features include:

1. Cloud / Hybrid - Hybrid enables you to integrate your on-premises farm with the cloud, at your own pace.
2. Durable Links - Resource-based URLs now retain links when documents are renamed or moved in SharePoint.
3. Video recording, storage, and screen recording - an all-in-one video solution using Stream, including video editing.
4. Large files - now supports uploading and downloading files larger than 2,047 MBs
5. Mobile - an improved mobile navigation experience, including a very fast and easy to use app.
6. Search - SharePoint Search integrated the FAST Search engine, with more features, and indexes up to 500 million documents (per app).
7. Sharing - better user sharing options, including a Shared folder, and invitation email notifications.
8. Microsoft Teams - full integration with Microsoft Teams (all Teams files are stored in SharePoint).

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 90% 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 features major upgrades to the user experience design and mobile access, including a new dedicated SharePoint app. 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.

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