It doesn’t really matter whether it’s a friend or a business; collaboration is always important.
To ensure that your team works effectively together, you need a secure document management system that makes storing and sharing documents easy and convenient.
Microsoft SharePoint is an online software platform used by companies around the world to collaborate on files at the same time. By using SharePoint, companies can manage permissions and processes for files, control who may access them, determine when files need to be deleted, and set up retention periods for important records.
With SharePoint 2016 integrated into Microsoft 365, you can easily get started building out an effective content management system and repository for your business’ internal documents. In this post, we’ll explore the benefits of using SharePoint in conjunction with Office 365.
The importance of SharePoint in the cloud
These solutions include enterprise-grade document management systems, content creation tools, social media marketing software, and video conferencing applications. They’re used by companies across industries for everything from team communication to project management to customer support.
It’s no surprise then that there are now more than 250,000 business owners worldwide using SharePoint. And according to a recent report from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), 85% of Fortune 500 companies rely on SharePoint for their internal operations.
SharePoint and business users
Businesses require an efficient set of processes for coordinating their daily operations. Think of all the different tasks a typical business has to perform everyday: recruitment, filing taxes, launching campaigns, auditing accounts and payrolls, etc. These often require a set of coordinated steps. To ensure these things happen as efficiently and seamlessly as possible, they must all take place within one central system. A good example of this would be SharePoint Online.
Some of the reasons companies choose to utilize SharePoint include:
Collaborate across teams
Regardless of where your team members are located, they can collaborate freely and easily by editing and sharing their files. They don’t need to be physically present for one another to communicate.
As we move into an age where people work from different locations and at different times, it becomes increasingly important for workers to be able to communicate, connect, and support each other quickly and efficiently. Collaborating remotely has become even easier thanks to new technologies – no longer are teams forced to rely solely on email and phone calls, but can instead use cloud-based software solutions that not only help them share content safely, securely, and privately, but also allow them to keep up with their colleagues’ work during face-to-face meetings.
Keep control of who has access to what files
With so much information going online, having a secure web presence becomes extremely important.
You can easily control who has access to which parts of SharePoint through Site Permissions. For instance, you could give your senior managers permission to view budget plans but not to edit them.
Manage your time effectively and efficiently
To help keep projects organized, you can use SharePoint to create site collections for each department or the entire company where the team members can share files and collaborate on documents.
Let’s say we had a special project for the marketing department. Instead of having them work from an outside agency, we could allow them to set up their own separate space on our main site. They would then be able to control who visits their space and change the design accordingly.
What is the relationship between Office 365 and SharePoint Online?
As an extension of Office 365, you may think of SharePoint as something that manages business content stored throughout the organization. For instance, you could use it to store documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and webpages within your team members’ workstations. It works together with Microsoft Team to help you manage communication between employees and collaborate on projects.
Here are some examples of how Office 365 includes features for SharePoint Online so it’s easier to collaborate.
Microsoft Teams
If every SharePoint teamsite had a Teams chatroom, then every Microsoft Teams chat session would have a SharePoint website. Confused? Don’t be. On Teams, your organization owns the space, not the other way around. You can set up channels within your organization and customize them however you like to make things really easy to find. And if you happen to share files between SharePoint and Teams, they get stored together automatically — no matter where you save them.
When users browse the SharePoint server from within Microsoft Teams, they see “Files” under the “Channels” section. There, they can view documents, create new ones, edit existing ones, etc.
Microsoft Office 365 applications
With Microsoft SharePoint, every company can easily access their documents from anywhere at any time. For example, they can use them for research purposes, create reports, print copies, send emails, collaborate on projects, manage budgets, and perform other tasks.
SharePoint enables you to manage permission levels for different types of users so that they can easily view and modify their own documents without having to ask anyone else for help. It also allows you to share content with others within specific groups.
Create workflow automations
With Power Automate, you can automate repetitive tasks using built-in components within Microsoft 365. Examples of these components include Outlook messages, Skype calls, task lists, and many others. You can use them for any type of business scenario.
Templates offer greater cohesion for your team because they can track new tasks and changes to existing ones. For instance, your accounting team can be notified when new customer contracts have been added to SharePoint. They can easily access these contracts and take appropriate actions.
SharePoint doesn’t stop at collaboration; if an organization wants to leverage the power of SharePoint effectively, they need to properly govern how users utilize it. By having full control over SharePoint activities, companies can ensure operations continue without interruption. Additionally, users activity is monitored so that any issues can be identified quickly. Properly managing SharePoint puts customer information securely online.
