In today’s rapidly changing world of capitalism, data transmission and team collaboration are becoming more and more important. Organizations, in their turn, have to take all of the appropriate measures in response. Fortunately, there are some tools that are created in order to help in the improvement of such indicators. One of such instruments is SharePoint. Most probably, you already know what SharePoint is, or at least, have heard of it, but let us still start with basics.

• What is SharePoint?

Actually, if you want to work as a developer or if you just want to implement SharePoint within your organization, the first question you might be asked is ‘What exactly is a SharePoint?’ SharePoint is a tool used by numerous organizations in order to improve team productivity and increase team collaboration by creating their intranet portal and automatization business processes. In this case, by mentioning ‘organization’ all the businesses are included – from a tiny family business to a large international corporation.

• Why do they use SharePoint?

There are a couple of main reasons for the software’s popularity. The first of them is using the software to create websites, which are afterward used as a place for storage, organizing, accessing, and sharing corporate information from any device properly. Moreover, SharePoint is a quite broad enterprise information portal: it may be configured not only on Internet websites but also on Intranet and Extranet.

One more common reason is ease of usage. Lots of corporations treat SharePoint as a busy browser-based collaboration and document management platform. Obviously, the bigger the enterprise is, the more information is in storage and usage. That is why SharePoint has numerous filters and features, which are beneficial in the information search process.

• Advantages of SharePoint

–       Variety of websites to create

In fact, it is possible to create any type of site for any purpose: a project management site, information-storage site, or communication-based one. There is no reason for going deeply into this creation process, let us just remember that it is a perfect opportunity for any purpose.

–       Create sites quickly and increase team’s collaboration level

Indeed, in SharePoint, it is possible to create a website even within a minute. This actually might be the site for any purpose of departure. So, you can quickly build a website and share it with anyone from your organization or with external users as well, which increases team collaboration and involvement as well.

–       Business processes automation

Probably, the most significant advantage of using SharePoint is the automation of business-related processes by using Workflows/ Microsoft Flows. Furthermore, Microsoft flow has been named as the power of automation, which means that you can make your business as automated as you want by using these workflows. You can trigger emails, send relevant notifications, and even build separate applications using PowerApps.

–       Quick but strong search process

You will be able to search not only documents uploaded, but any other type of relevant information, people, communications, and everything else within your organization through SharePoint Enterprise Search.

–       Easy but well-protected access

There are two basic ways of accessing SharePoint: ‘SharePoint Online’ and ‘SharePoint On-Premises’. The only thing you need for access is a web browser with an internet connection. There is no need to install any applications in your local system. It may seem that SharePoint is insecure, however, that’s far from true – it is one of the most protected and secure corporate software in the world.

• What is SharePoint Governance and SharePoint Governance Plan?

In practice, at the moment when any SharePoint project is about to start, you will definitely hear about an important stage of building a SharePoint Governance plan, which is a core of success. In short, Governance Plan is a corporate playbook for delivering the SharePoint business service to the people. The issue is that not so many people know exactly what SharePoint Governance is and how to build a plan in the most effective way.

Basically, it is a guideline that is focused on administrative and maintenance aspects of a corporate environment. It also defines people responsible for this or that area of a system and establishes rules for appropriate SharePoint usage. It may also be classified as a so-called ‘mission-critical application’ as soon as it has a great amount of corporate data, which is aimed to be highly protected as well as the people and technologies of an organization.

In order to be more specific and efficient, below are listed 7 general aspects of any SharePoint Governance plan. It is worth mentioning that most of them may seem rather superficial, but all of them are crucially important. Furthermore, they are mostly related to each other, and in the case of operating together, the governance plan will certainly become up a notch.

–       First of all, site hierarchy guidelines have to be established in order to prescribe a specific way of how sites and subsites should be structured. That also has to be done as soon as numerous people are involved in this complex process

–       Security and permission regulations is a core part usually aimed at access provision and security control purposes

–       Navigation convention is responsible for the way sites’ and subsites’ navigation is structured

–       External sharing recommendations responsible for sharing information with 3rd parties

–       Branding guidelines help to customize the appearance of sites in any appropriate way

–       Onboarding regulations is all about the process of how users are brought and trained

–       Escalation guidelines are established in order to resolve and handle all potential users’ requests and issues.

Moreover, in case a company is aimed at app development business processes, there are numerous DBAs (database administration), network & enterprise architects, system administrators, and so on. So, the SharePoint governance plan is certainly more than just a vision, goals, and objectives – it’s a precise action strategy and a separate line of policies.

• KWizCom Corporation

It is impossible to have a SharePoint-related paper and not to mention KWizCom Corporation, which is a leading provider of SharePoint web parts in the world. It also provides numerous add-ons and applications for Microsoft Office 365, such as Forms, Workflows, or Calendar. For instance, KWizCom Forms is a SharePoint application that turns your existing version of SharePoint list forms into rich, dynamic, and enhanced web forms. Generally, it helps to empower your business and eliminate the “Forms experts” bottleneck within any organization.

Moreover, they have a popular SharePoint blog post on various topics related to PowerApps, Microsoft Teams, SharePoint Governance, Forms, Calendar and so forth.

In a brief conclusion, SharePoint is an innovative web-based platform that not only helps in the storage of any documentation and enhances collaboration within the any-size organization but also improves efficiency indicators by automation of business-related processes.