Have you always wondered about “What is SharePoint? What are its benefits and how can it help my team?” Today’s blog is going to answer those exact questions. We will take you through the basics of what Sharepoint is, the benefits of using it, and how you can get started.
What is SharePoint?
Sharepoint is a digital cloud-based platform made for collaboration and project management. It's perfect for the social distanced age as it allows your team to still work together remotely and effectively. It allows you to manage all of your corporate content (financials, marketing materials, etc) so you can have everything in one easy to access location. It also lets you create websites, post company alerts to keep everyone in the loop, automate workflows, and build customized apps to help your team's productivity.
It offers all these tasks in one easy to use platform, making collaboration a dream.
What are the Benefits?
As mentioned before, SharePoint offers many great features, but how do they all come together to really benefit us? Here are a couple of key benefits of using SharePoint:
1. SharePoint is Secure
If you heard your documents were all going to be on one platform the first thing you might have thought of are security concerns. But with this being a Microsoft piece of software you already know the security is taken very seriously. They place a heavy emphasis on protecting their customer's information, which is why they spend 1 Billion USD annually just on security.
Some of the built-in security features include:
The ability to limit who outside your organization can see your content
Set limits on who in your organization can access certain things
Block or allow access to certain content just based on your team's location
2. SharePoint Excels Collaboration Amongst Team Members
Working remotely has its benefits but it certainly depletes one aspect in every business. Collaboration. When your team is not together there can be some concern on how they will be able to work together effectively and efficiently, however SharePoint provides a platform that simplifies collaboration. SharePoint puts all your documents into one place and lets them be accessed from any device at any time. As well, it shows real-time changes to documents and lets multiple people work on a document at one time, meaning your team can all be collaborating at the same time.
Team members can also set up group tasks, assign tasks to other members, and check off tasks as they are completed. This allows everyone to know exactly what their responsibilities are and what everyone else is completing.
3. SharePoint Helps Automate Pesky and Time-Consuming Tasks
Having to collect signatures from employees or get approval can be annoying, especially when you want to just get back to your task. Sharepoint makes it easy to collect signatures and approvals digitally, meaning you'll spend less time chasing after your boss in the office and more time checking off tasks.
As well, it automates other tasks such as tracking statuses on documents and enables notifications to see when something changes, etc. All these automations are called workflows and the most commonly used ones are:
Approval workflows
Status workflows
Notification workflows
Automation workflows
Custom workflows
Isn’t SharePoint Hard To Use?
This is the same question that is always asked by any project manager before adopting new software and with good reason too. No one wants to adopt and transfer their team to a new platform just to make your life harder. Just like with any project management platform, if you prepare your team on how to use the platform and take time to implement it properly, it will be smooth sailing from that point forward. Not to mention, Microsoft is known for continuously updating their products so they can be the best, meaning you will continue to get improved service and new features.
If you still have software questions or want to get in touch for more tips, please feel free to reach out to us at ISU Corp.
