SharePoint: Not Your Average Collaboration Tool

Posted on the 19 February 2013 by Litcom

1. Improve team productivity with interactive collaborative tools

Connect people with the information and resources they need. Users can create team workspaces, coordinate calendars, organize documents, and receive important notifications and updates through communication features including announcements and alerts, as well as the new templates for creating blogs and wikis. While mobile, users can take advantage of convenient offline synchronization capabilities.

2. Easily manage documents and help ensure integrity of content

With enhanced document management capabilities including the option to activate required document checkout before editing, the ability to view revisions to documents and restore to previous versions, and the control to set document- and item-level security, Windows SharePoint Services can help ensure the integrity of documents stored on team sites.

3. Get users up to speed quickly

User interface improvements in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 include enhanced views and menus that simplify navigation within and among SharePoint sites. Integration with familiar productivity tools, including programs in the Microsoft Office system, makes it easy for users to get up to speed quickly. For example, users can create work spaces  post and edit documents, and view and update calendars on SharePoint sites, all while working within Microsoft Office system files and programs.

4. Deploy solutions tailored to your business processes

While standard work spaces in Windows SharePoint Services are easy to implement, organizations seeking a more customized deployment can get started quickly with application templates for addressing specific business processes or sets of tasks.

5. Build a collaboration environment quickly and easily 

Easy to manage and easy to scale, Windows SharePoint Services enables IT departments to deploy a collaborative environment with minimal administrative time and effort, from simple, single-server configurations to more robust enterprise configurations. Because deployment settings can be flexibly changed, less pre-planning time is required and companies can get started even faster.

6. Reduce the complexity of securing business information

Windows SharePoint Services provides IT with advanced administrative controls for increasing the security of information resources, while decreasing cost and complexity associated with site provisioning, site management, and support. Take advantage of better controls for site life-cycle management, site memberships and permissions, and storage limits.

7. Provide sophisticated controls for securing company resources

IT departments can now set permissions as deep down as the document or item level, and site managers, teams, and other work groups can initiate self-service collaborative workspaces and tasks within these preset parameters. New features enable IT to set top-down policies for better content recovery and users, groups, and team workspace site administration.

8. Take file sharing to a new level with robust storage capabilities

Windows SharePoint Services supplies workspaces with document storage and retrieval features, including check-in/check-out functionality, version history, custom metadata, and customizable views. New features in Windows SharePoint Services include enhanced recycle bin functionality for easier recovery of content and improved backup and restoration.

9. Easily scale your collaboration solution to meet business needs

Quickly and easily manage and configure Windows SharePoint Services using a Web browser or command-line utilities. Manage server farms, servers, and sites using the Microsoft .NET Framework, which enables a variety of custom and third-party administration solution offerings.

10. Provide a cost-effective foundation for building Web-based applications

Windows SharePoint Services exposes a common framework for document management and collaboration from which flexible and scalable Web applications and Internet sites, specific to the needs of the organization, can be built. Integration with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 expands these capabilities further to offer enterprise-wide functionality for records management, search, workflows, portals, personalized sites, and more.

(http://sharepoint.ulitzer.com/node/2539364)

The Litcom Approach

At Litcom, we know that an in-depth understanding of the intricacies of Microsoft SharePoint Server is only one of the keys to a successful implementation and improved communication within an organization. Our SharePoint implementation experience is the foundation for our work. We combine this knowledge with our understanding of the vital roles that project management, business analysis and training play. We bring this knowledge to all client engagements where they quickly recognize the benefits in working with our team of experts.

Let us help your organization avoid the pitfalls of a technology-only SharePoint rollout, preventing your SharePoint site(s) from becoming unused repositories of corporate information. Litcom can assist in implementing Microsoft technologies such as InfoPath or your existing Microsoft Office environment to enable your employees and business partners to develop a seamless workflow.

Want more information on SharePoint? Check out:

http://www.litcom.ca/2012/10/2172/

http://www.litcom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/SHAREPOINT-SOLUTIONS.pdf

Questions? contact us at info@litcom.ca