10 Key Features That Make SharePoint the Ideal Platform for Teamwork
One of the distinguishing characteristics of a successful organization is their ability to collaborate effectively. Some problems are too complex for an individual to handle alone but collaboration pools the skills, knowledge, and information of a group of people to make better decisions or produce better results. But the right technology can be applied as a collaboration tool to enhance sharing, discovery, and communication within a business or organization. An effective collaboration tool can gather the best knowledge, skills, and talent from an organization together to reach a goal that would be unattainable if these abilities were used independently.
As one of the most well-known technology collaboration solutions, much has been said about Microsoft SharePoint. SharePoint comes recommended as one of the best collaboration tools available as it addresses the 10 requirements of a collaboration tool with each of its features.
Collaboration Requirements
1. Shared Access to Content
Users need to be able add, edit, search and receive alerts when documents are changed or added.
SharePoint Solution - SharePoint CMS - Through a single point of control, SharePoint CMS allows users to manage content among team members.
2. Version Control
As content changes, earlier versions need to be saved in case of error or data loss.
SharePoint Solution - SharePoint DMS - By using a central location to store and work on documents, redundancy is reduced and different versions created by different users are saved.
3. Task Management
Tasks that require a sequence of connected steps must be managed and tracked.
SharePoint Solution - SharePoint Workflow - Track and manage the workflow of users to ensure projects are going smoothly and users remain on task.
4. Notifications
Users must be kept apprised of changes in content as well as receive notice of upcoming events.
SharePoint Solution - SharePoint Alerts Alerts enhance communications and promote collaboration by alerting users to content changes and upcoming meetings, deadlines, and important information.
5. Business Metrics
Users must easily be able to analyze business metrics to identify causes of issues and areas of importance to improve decision-making.
SharePoint Solution - SharePoint Dashboard & BI - Allows users to monitor business metrics and customize a dashboard to make essential tools readily accessible to manage content and users.
6. Event Planning
Users remain focused and teams are more cohesive when all users are aware of upcoming events.
SharePoint Solution - SharePoint Events Calendar - Users are kept apprised of upcoming events, meetings, deadlines, milestones and other important dates to remember.
7. Social Engagement
Communication must be made fluid among users by having a way to easily share information and collaborate.
SharePoint Solution - SharePoint Discussion Board - A central location where users can log on and respond to each others messages.
8. Information Flow Control
Essential business and organizational information must be able to flow easily among disparate organization functions.
SharePoint Solution - SharePoint ERP - All aspects of an organization, from accounting, to sales, to services, can be integrated to fluidly transfer essential information across the enterprise.
9. Searchable Information
Users have a way that facilitates searching for information easily from any part of the organization.
SharePoint Solution - SharePoint Enterprise Search - Users can use a simple query or advanced operators to easily search for files across the organization. Snippets from the resulting files are shown with search terms highlighted and searches can be sorted by relevance, correct misspellings, and collapse duplicate items.
10. Legacy Information Integration
Key organizational data must be able to be easily integrated and surfaced from back-end server applications to the new applications.
SharePoint Solution - SharePoint Business Data Catalog - Allows users to move key data to SharePoint from various business applications, including user profiles, customer data, and custom applications.
There are many other collaboration-rich features that can be enabled with SharePoint, many of them available with the free Microsoft SharePoint Server and Microsoft SharePoint Foundation add-on. Not all of these features are necessary for every organization, however, and unnecessary complexity often leads to inefficiency. SharePoint requires some organization-specific customization to better realize its full potential as a collaboration suite.This is why AllianceTek assesses each organization independently before developing a customized SharePoint solution that best integrates with the organizations unique needs and methodologies.
Source: http://www.alliancetek.com/downloads/article/Collaboration-Tool-Ready.pdf
One of the distinguishing characteristics of a successful organization is their ability to collaborate effectively. Some problems are too complex for an individual to handle alone but collaboration pools the skills, knowledge, and information of a group of people to make better decisions or produce better results. But the right technology can be applied as a collaboration tool to enhance sharing, discovery, and communication within a business or organization. An effective collaboration tool can gather the best knowledge, skills, and talent from an organization together to reach a goal that would be unattainable if these abilities were used independently.
As one of the most well-known technology collaboration solutions, much has been said about Microsoft SharePoint. SharePoint comes recommended as one of the best collaboration tools available as it addresses the 10 requirements of a collaboration tool with each of its features.
Collaboration Requirements
1. Shared Access to Content
Users need to be able add, edit, search and receive alerts when documents are changed or added.
SharePoint Solution - SharePoint CMS - Through a single point of control, SharePoint CMS allows users to manage content among team members.
2. Version Control
As content changes, earlier versions need to be saved in case of error or data loss.
SharePoint Solution - SharePoint DMS - By using a central location to store and work on documents, redundancy is reduced and different versions created by different users are saved.
3. Task Management
Tasks that require a sequence of connected steps must be managed and tracked.
SharePoint Solution - SharePoint Workflow - Track and manage the workflow of users to ensure projects are going smoothly and users remain on task.
4. Notifications
Users must be kept apprised of changes in content as well as receive notice of upcoming events.
SharePoint Solution - SharePoint Alerts Alerts enhance communications and promote collaboration by alerting users to content changes and upcoming meetings, deadlines, and important information.
5. Business Metrics
Users must easily be able to analyze business metrics to identify causes of issues and areas of importance to improve decision-making.
SharePoint Solution - SharePoint Dashboard & BI - Allows users to monitor business metrics and customize a dashboard to make essential tools readily accessible to manage content and users.
6. Event Planning
Users remain focused and teams are more cohesive when all users are aware of upcoming events.
SharePoint Solution - SharePoint Events Calendar - Users are kept apprised of upcoming events, meetings, deadlines, milestones and other important dates to remember.
7. Social Engagement
Communication must be made fluid among users by having a way to easily share information and collaborate.
SharePoint Solution - SharePoint Discussion Board - A central location where users can log on and respond to each others messages.
8. Information Flow Control
Essential business and organizational information must be able to flow easily among disparate organization functions.
SharePoint Solution - SharePoint ERP - All aspects of an organization, from accounting, to sales, to services, can be integrated to fluidly transfer essential information across the enterprise.
9. Searchable Information
Users have a way that facilitates searching for information easily from any part of the organization.
SharePoint Solution - SharePoint Enterprise Search - Users can use a simple query or advanced operators to easily search for files across the organization. Snippets from the resulting files are shown with search terms highlighted and searches can be sorted by relevance, correct misspellings, and collapse duplicate items.
10. Legacy Information Integration
Key organizational data must be able to be easily integrated and surfaced from back-end server applications to the new applications.
SharePoint Solution - SharePoint Business Data Catalog - Allows users to move key data to SharePoint from various business applications, including user profiles, customer data, and custom applications.
There are many other collaboration-rich features that can be enabled with SharePoint, many of them available with the free Microsoft SharePoint Server and Microsoft SharePoint Foundation add-on. Not all of these features are necessary for every organization, however, and unnecessary complexity often leads to inefficiency. SharePoint requires some organization-specific customization to better realize its full potential as a collaboration suite.This is why AllianceTek assesses each organization independently before developing a customized SharePoint solution that best integrates with the organizations unique needs and methodologies.
Source: http://www.alliancetek.com/downloads/article/Collaboration-Tool-Ready.pdf