Microsoft has been continuously adding the latest services to Office 365. But this hasn’t stopped businesses from using SharePoint application as they still see intrinsic value in this popular web-based collaborative platform. Let’s explore the areas where businesses continue to see the value of SharePoint:
1. The making of a digital workplace:
If businesses are considering greater centralization for locating relevant files and documents, SharePoint is the way to go. It can include key documents such as quick IT how-to guides, HR policies, third-party links to suppliers, banking, employee benefits, outside vendors and several other digital files; periodic updates and reports, and interactive forms for handling time off requests, managing IT service requests and updating production stats. This makes SharePoint an ideal centralized repository for enterprise content. With SharePoint any digital workplace is powered with greater interaction, communication and retrieval of the necessary content at will.
2. Get data from forms:
Users find SharePoint tad easier than Microsoft introduced apps when it comes to capturing data from forms. There is no need to install any additional apps. Examples of such forms include IT requests, HR requests and new recruit forms.
3. Powerful search features:
The biggest challenge facing companies today is organizing their digital resources which, more often than not, is disjointed, complex and time-consuming. But SharePoint allows employees to tag and index files depending on content. This is what has made SharePoint irresistible at the enterprise level. A simple keyword search—use filters, if needed, to narrow down the search results that is based on author, content type and dates—helps locate any document easily stored in SharePoint.
4. Anywhere else to store all the legacy content?
Even though Office 365 has managed to replace a few SharePoint functionalities, it couldn’t address some of the features that SharePoint boasts of. Examples include contact lists, company announcement, HTML pages, key links and a host of content that cannot be maintained in any of the Microsoft services or apps. This is another upside of going for SharePoint.
5. Versioning functionality:
Content versioning is another striking feature of SharePoint. Business users, especially in the case of legal contracts, policies and key business documents, have to manage multiple versions of documents—tracking them becomes difficult. Thanks to SharePoint document libraries, it has now made short work of versioning multiple documents. This feature puts even Office 365 suite to shame.