Microsoft SharePoint is the ultimate superhero for businesses, offering robust collaboration and document management solutions, making it a vital tool for SMBs who are looking to boost productivity and streamline their operations. SharePoint has the potential to significantly enhance collaboration, document management, and project management, providing a central platform for storing and sharing information.
However, research by AIIM reveals that 40% of organisations report unsuccessful SharePoint implementations. This often occurs because many organisations begin using SharePoint without a clear roadmap, leading to major speedbumps in their journey to SharePoint success. Having a clear roadmap is crucial and can significantly increase the chances of a successful implementation.
Mastering SharePoint: Essential Strategies for SMBs
In our work with SMBs, we often find they need help to effectively implement and maintain the SharePoint platform, particularly when it comes to SharePoint Online, the cloud-based version of the application. We regularly see a ‘technology first approach’ where businesses implement the technology and then gather the requirements and needs for the technology later. Unfortunately, this approach often leads to poorly executed SharePoint deployments, with users struggling to find information and ultimately losing interest in using the platform altogether. Small businesses looking to create a seamless user experience and achieve high adoption rates should clearly define their goals and requirements upfront, select the appropriate migration strategy for their needs, and provide comprehensive training for end users. For SMBs with limited IT expertise, we work as an extension of your existing team to achieve optimal user adoption and maximum ROI.
Set Clear SharePoint Goals and Requirements
Some businesses fall into the trap of activating SharePoint with little guidance, allowing individual project teams and departments to implement individual sites without proper planning. While this may seem like a time-saving approach, it often leads to a disjointed user experience and inefficient resource use.
Before implementing SharePoint, businesses should identify specific problems that SharePoint will address. Clearly outlining goals and deliverables helps ensure the implementation aligns with business needs and expectations.
Our experienced engineers can help your team:
- Define Organisational Goals and User Needs: Identify the specific business problems SharePoint will solve and outline the desired outcomes.
- Align Technical Requirements: Align your technical needs with SharePoint’s features and capabilities, ensuring the platform is configured correctly.
- Setup Correct Configurations and Security: Implement the necessary configurations for Microsoft Copilot to automate workflows in SharePoint.
- Create Governance Policies: Establish policies for user permissions, content creation, version control, and security measures.
- Adhere to Compliance Regulations: Ensure your SharePoint implementation supports best practices for data management and compliance with relevant security and regulations.
SharePoint Migration: Moving Your Digital Office
Think of SharePoint migration as relocating your entire digital office to a new location. You’re transferring all your files, information, and applications from various computers and programs into SharePoint, which becomes the new central hub for everything. It might sound straightforward, like shifting items from one place to another, but it involves careful planning and execution to ensure everything works seamlessly in its new digital home.
Whether you are implementing SharePoint for the first time, migrating SharePoint from on-premises to the cloud, or need a system upgrade, a comprehensive migration strategy is essential to enable a smooth transition. Several tools are available, including the free SharePoint Migration Tool (SPMT), which can move files, folders, lists, and sites to SharePoint Online. However, this tool is only compatible with some legacy versions of SharePoint. Third-party migration tools like ShareGate, AvePoint, and Metalogix offer more advanced features and support. Alternatively, teams can create new sites and only move documents if outdated SharePoint legacy sites have too many issues to function correctly.
Sounds complex, right?
It doesn’t have to be. Whether you are an enterprise or SMB, we can help you migrate to SharePoint Online. We ensure that all your data, workflow, and features are moved seamlessly.
Our Migration Services Include:
Assessment of Your Current Environment: We review your current data locations, usage, and access requirements to understand what content needs to be migrated and what can be archived or deleted to save time and storage space. We analyse data in your old system and define a new structure to enhance search through metadata tagging. By bridging your on-premises and cloud applications, we keep your data safe, allowing you to benefit from both environments.
Planning and Timeline Development: We create a high-level timeline, outline potential risks, set cutover dates (the dates when the old system will be completely replaced by SharePoint), and address issues such as legal holds or eDiscovery.
Engagement with All Stakeholders: Our team involves key stakeholders to prioritise issues, track action items, and ensure proper communication throughout the migration process. We conduct test migrations and review the results with business owners before full implementation.
Boost Adoption with Training and Education
A significant challenge for SMBs is that their staff are hesitant to adopt and leverage SharePoint to its full advantage. This is usually due to a bad taste left in their mouths from previous poor experiences with past companies or implementations or a lack of training on its capabilities.
Overcoming this starts with education, first training, and second.
By education, we mean an overview of SharePoint’s modern capabilities. SharePoint has evolved hugely in look, feel, features, and capabilities over the past ten years. A high-level SharePoint demo will quickly alleviate any lingering concerns from past SharePoint traumas. For instance, the modern SharePoint offers improved user interface, advanced collaboration tools, and enhanced security features, all of which contribute to a more efficient and user-friendly platform.
From here, it is essential (yes, even for the technically savvy) to implement thorough user training.
Training is pivotal for successful SharePoint adoption within organisations. Comprehensive training empowers your team with the knowledge and skills necessary to navigate and utilise SharePoint’s features, leading to increased productivity and improved efficiency. Here are the key reasons why training and education are essential:
User Adoption and Engagement: Training is crucial for user adoption. Involving users in the training process ensures that the platform meets their needs and that they understand its benefits. This engagement can significantly increase user buy-in and reduce resistance to change.
Enhanced Productivity and Efficiency: Proper SharePoint training equips users to use the platform’s tools and capabilities effectively, streamlining workflows and fostering better collaboration. This leads to higher productivity and more efficient business processes.
Maximising ROI: Organisations can maximise their return on investment (ROI) in SharePoint by ensuring employees are proficient in using it. Training helps users understand how to leverage SharePoint to improve collaboration, document management, and business process automation, driving more value from the investment.
Compliance and Security: SharePoint training should include best practices for data security, governance, and compliance. Educating users on these aspects helps mitigate the risk of data breaches and ensures adherence to industry regulations and internal policies.
Tailor your Workflows for SharePoint Success
A cool trick, especially for people still resisting SharePoint adoption, is to utilise Microsoft Teams as an entry point. Many users, especially those who use SharePoint strictly for document management, often criticise its structure and unfriendly navigation. However, with the Teams application introduced in 2017, users are engaging with SharePoint without realising it. Teams provides a much cleaner user interface, but every time you create a Team, a SharePoint site is created. This workaround offers a different and often more user-friendly entry point into SharePoint.
For users who find navigating SharePoint sites challenging and prefer accessing documents as they did via file shares or network drives, syncing SharePoint libraries with Windows Explorer can be a game-changer.
While there are certain limitations, this method provides users with a familiar environment and allows them to use some SharePoint document management features from the synchronised libraries in Windows Explorer.
At Lindentech, we are committed to helping your team leverage SharePoint to its full potential through comprehensive education and training, ensuring a smooth and successful adoption process.
Book a complimentary consultation with us today and start your journey to a more efficient and collaborative digital workspace. This opportunity will help you identify optimisation opportunities and tailor SharePoint solutions to meet your specific business needs.
