There is just a thin line between love and hate. Translating the saying into the software language, it’s not hard to understand that a reliable solution that satisfies the needs of employees today can be easily rejected tomorrow as soon as serious troubles occur. SharePoint is that kind of software that is constantly living in this love-or-hate reality refilled with both users’ recognition and hostility. Even when implemented according to a well-elaborated plan, a SharePoint solution can lose its popularity when a bad experience comes to the fore.
Instead of waiting for the tragic end, let’s see which core SharePoint problems can cause users’ dissatisfaction and how a thought-out maintenance can help to save the platform’s reputation.
Face of a bad experience
SharePoint is largely used by companies representing a wide range of industries from manufacturing to healthcare. However, by the end of the deployment stage, users often face 3 major problems:
Poor UI. Boring, plain, unattractive, unfriendly – unpleasant adjectives siege the system’s interface. The debate on the SharePoint’s better appearance never ends, neither do users’ irritation nor the public wish to see the solutions’ stylish look. The poor UI’s danger is in its ability to plant the seeds of chronic disaffection that will be very hard to eradicate even if the system shows its great performance.
Insufficient functionality. Usually a SharePoint solution comes to an organization to solve particular tasks (e.g. to ensure workflow or document management). However, a bit later, employees may need new features to cover their current tasks or just want their portal to afford wider functionality, so they require the solution to be adopted for collaboration, social activities, etc. If the new features are not provided on time, users’ dissatisfaction isn’t long in coming.
Scarce information. If isolated from other enterprise solutions, SharePoint can hardly satisfy users’ constant need in information replenishment. A simple example: employees involved into a procurement workflow managed in SharePoint should be provided with a direct access to their ERP system. With no integration, they will definitely continue working in an ERP and abandon SharePoint as switching between different platforms only takes time and adds confusion.
The list of these most common problems can be extended with other numerous issues that arise after the platform’s implementation. A piece of good news: all of them can be solved.
Timely assistance as the alternative to the platform’s deterioration
Just as physicians recommend to responsibly care of our bodies before serious diseases appear, SharePoint also needs timely improvements before it becomes a source of annoying troubles. That’s why even if you are only at the starting line of a project and addressing your requirements to SharePoint developers, we recommend to think of maintenance services based on the following principles:
Solving, not accumulating. The common habit of accumulating user requests and fixing all the troubles at once will not work out for SharePoint. Both minor configuration issues that can impact users’ activities and acute performance problems (e.g. slowly uploading pages) should be solved immediately. If no…can you hear the annoyed users sighing deeply right now?
Ensuring post-deployment maintenance. Frequently, companies want SharePoint maintenance services to be provided right after the solution’s implementation. Standard packages (covering a period from several months up to a year) enable employees to get used to a new system and address their questions to developers. However, the practice shows that sometimes the number of issues doesn’t decrease but even grows by the end of the fixed period. If the system is left with no assistance, troubles can come quickly. A continuous maintenance is the only remedy that helps to deal with performance issues, necessary upgrades, redesign and much more.
Respecting timeframe. Making their requests to a maintenance team, users should not wait for a SharePoint administrator’s good mood to see the change. Improvements are to be made as quickly as possible. We advise to establish a timeframe of 1-2 days for fixing problems and 1-2 weeks for delivering improvements.
Thinking of users’ comfort. The platform itself allows to handle multiple issues without disrupting users’ activities. First of all, the SharePoint’s modular character allows to carry out pointed works on particular sites or site collections without affecting the entire system. Secondly, both latest versions of SharePoint (2013 and 2016) are created according to the client-side object model (CSOM), which means that there is no server code to deal with. All the necessary improvements can be made via JavaScript and CSS files upgrades, which allows to avoid prolonged interruptions in the system’s operation.
Yes, It Does
This is the answer on the question put in the headline. The system does require careful assistance even in the post-deployment period. SharePoint maintenance is a much larger notion than a simple troubleshooting and it goes far beyond fixing performance issues. Quality and continuous maintenance focused on the system’s UI and UX improvement is about ensuring users’ satisfaction and longevity of your SharePoint-based solution.
by Sergei Golubenko via Everyone's Blog Posts - SharePoint Community
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