Are you sharing files between your team? Collaborating with colleagues in different locations? Getting different versions of the same document mixed up and don’t know which one’s the latest? Sounds like it’s time to get a document management system.
Have you tried SharePoint Online?
There are different systems around and most have some pretty fancy features – more than what you need right now – and with fancy price tags to boot.
Do you have Microsoft Office 365 for your workplace email? If so, then chances are you already have access to SharePoint Online, which is a great system that will make your workplace more collaborative, by providing central access to your business content.
SharePoint Online teams up nicely with Microsoft Office 365 applications such as Word and Excel and it’s a great all-rounder as far as storage systems go.
How does SharePoint Online differ from a standard file share?
SharePoint Online eliminates the potential for mixing up different versions of the same document, with documents are accessible from one central place. Built-in ‘version control’ makes it easy as well to recover changes made from other co-workers (Figure 2).
Additionally, you can configure email alerts to be notified when someone adds/edits or deletes content.
Templated documents can be uploaded to streamline your business process. For example, why not give your sales team the ability to create a sales proposal directly from SharePoint Online? (See Figure 3.)
What else can SharePoint Online do?
SharePoint Online is far more than a typical program that you install on your computer. It’s a system that ties your projects and all your employees PCs and devices together onto a single, central platform.
SharePoint Online is also an intranet where your team all sign into the company intranet to read the latest news and company information, look up client history, the status of projects and more. Dashboards can be customised to suit your business and client base and access can be restricted depending on the role of team members.
SharePoint Online is a highly configurable platform for several different kinds of programs, rather than one thing only, or a one size fits all solution. This is what makes it so great.
Recently we finished up a project from a New Zealand state owned enterprise that employs over 1000 people around the country. SharePoint Online was tailored to provide their large contact centre an internal knowledge base.
So, what does it cost?
SharePoint Online is built into most Microsoft Office 365 plans and doesn’t come with any extra costs. There’s normally a little bit of training required to help get the most out of the product or your IT provider can help with the initial design and setup.
Cloud Edge partners with a great Wellington company that provides a range of pre-rolled templates for different business industries that can be applied to your SharePoint instance. Fill in the form below and we can get you started on a 30 day free trial of SharePoint Online with your own templates to make it all a breeze.
