3 factors to consider for businesses using SharePoint

While SharePoint can be a godsend for many small businesses, lots of CEO’s and managing directors don’t fully understand it or put it to best use. Instead of using SharePoint to solve organisational headaches, many businesses are still relying on a spider web-style trail of spreadsheets and emails.

SharePoint can help manage the workflow of a variety of departments, but the ones where it can be most effective are often the ones whose staff cannot grasp the system and struggle with the technicalities. It’s worth making finding a solution for these people a priority, as without clear aims and focus any investment in SharePoint can be a wasted effort.

1.      Identify the problem

Even though it’s incredibly versatile, SharePoint isn’t an omnipotent fix for an entire office’s problems. Instead, it should be used to create solutions for specific areas that need improvement. As a first step to getting the most from SharePoint, a business must identify areas that have problems worth solving.

For projects, SharePoint should be used on areas that offer the biggest ROI and those that would benefit from automation. Look to implement the system in areas like:

• Project Management – collecting, collating and managing important documents such as project files or business notes. SharePoint excels at hosting and organising key documents.
• Finance – SharePoint is a great tool for managing expenses and other claim forms.
• Teamwork – For businesses, SharePoint can be used to create a shared workspace that helps maintain consistency, is easy to access and use and improves the experience for both staff and customers.
• Compliance – Workflow and document version control within SharePoint ensure that people adhere to procedures and best practices.

 2.      Plan the system before implementing

Due to the vast array of uses and applications SharePoint facilitates, it’s important to have a clear idea of what you’d like from it before you try to set it up. Make a sketch of the workflow, following the steps, gateways, data and documents as you go. There should be no guesswork in what you want from SharePoint.

Another key tip is looking at existing systems and repurposing them. If you’re trying to design a solution for handling customer enquiries or complaints, you could look at a system that is designed to manage non-conformity in manufacturing and find that the systems share 99% of the same DNA.

3.      Work with an experienced partner

Businesses that try to implement SharePoint without proper knowledge bring themselves headaches. It can also cause problems when they bring in actual SharePoint experts, who inevitably end up having to start from scratch rather than tackle poorly put together set-ups.

From the beginning, businesses should seek to work with a specialist SharePoint partner. Someone with experience of the system can work alongside company employees to build the perfect set-up. This eliminates the margin for error and ends up being both cost and time effective.

As we all know, SharePoint is designed to help businesses but can be extremely confusing for the uninitiated. If you work within a business or work with SharePoint and know some businesses that are floundering with the system, send them this article so they can have a read.

Properly implemented, SharePoint helps manage tasks and keep things running smoothly. A poor set-up can ruin the experience and cause users to curse the system. Make sure you take advantage of these tips and build the correct SharePoint solution.

 

 

 

by Tony Hughes via Everyone's Blog Posts - SharePoint Community

The ‘Three I’s’ of SharePoint

Every business can benefit from SharePoint. The utilitarian system has been adopted as the platform for hundreds of solutions for varying types of businesses, but is often misunderstood or misused. This is caused by a number of factors including sheer versatility of the system being overwhelming, which can make it hard to pin down relevant areas SharePoint can help with.

Even developers and SharePoint enthusiasts can confuse business owners by being too wrapped up in the technicalities and not taking time to de-mystify the system to non-tech orientated customers and clients. SharePoint is supposed to be about simplifying business life, not making it more complex.

In order to keep things simple, you first need to isolate the areas within the business that SharePoint may be implemented. HR, Quality control, office and document management, customer services, project management and more can all benefit from a well-executed system.

However, you need to also consider how to article the challenges faced within these business areas in order to formulate a clear and concise brief, with a project scope and specification that will highlight and plan the ways SharePoint can assist or even transform day-to-day operation.

Technology Services Group’s ‘Three I’s of SharePoint’ should be taken into consideration when constructing a brief.

Issues

Each department within a business has issues that need to be solved. An office carries with it a plethora of micro-management and preparation issues. Perhaps your office has an important document that needs prepared for meetings but is frequently misplaced or lost in a chain of emails. Alternatively it could be trying to ascertain which version of a business critical document is the latest one.  It could even be that software is only installed on a few PC’s but more people need its functionality.

Identifying these issues is a key part of SharePoint success.

Imagination

A good SharePoint solution means some creative thinking. Spend time looking at your business or your client’s business. Work out the solutions that are needed by thinking of how a perfect system would work – in an ideal world how would things run?

Look at other systems for inspiration and take what it needed. For example, you could use many of the same processes or workflows used by a customer complaints system in a quality control manufacturing application. The customer complaints system will record incidents and trigger events. The data can then be analysed or reported on automatically through its centralised location. In many respect, the ‘architecture’ of the system would essentially be the same as one needed for quality control.

Improvement

Any business must be continuously improved as it progresses. SharePoint should be used in conjunction with this growth and can support it via the likes of a site maintenance system that can help log tasks and allocate resources that continually changes as resources increase or change. The system could also be linked to training records to help notify and update staff with the latest techniques or health and safety guidelines.

These systems can be built without custom coding, using the standard features of SharePoint to deliver optimal solutions to corporate problems.

Ideally, you shouldn’t avoid custom code if it’s not needed as it’s time-consuming and inefficient – and can store up problems for the future. Lots of problems can be solved by SharePoint integration where the three I’s are considered. Design and deployed correctly it’s a great way to build efficient systems that can be flexibly used alongside ERP and CRM solutions but is sadly often misunderstood and misused. Take the right steps and create a useful, invaluable system.

by Tony Hughes via Everyone's Blog Posts - SharePoint Community