One of the biggest causes of frustration in today's businesses is a lack of internal document organization. While precise guidelines and processes should exist for onboarding, security protocols, and department-specific policies, many companies still lack appropriate levels of documentation that could save tons of hours and frustration. 

It's reported that only about 4% of companies commit to consistent process documentation—another 50% state that they do so, but only on occasion. 

Unfortunately, that "occasion" is all too often an emergency—the exact time when this level of documentation comes in handy. Extremes aside, some predictable negative impacts of poor process organization include decreased productivity, performance lags, and compliance issues depending on your industry.   

Indeed, plenty of alternatives can get the job done, but these might not be appropriate for SMBs because they may not have the level of security you should expect from these types of applications. It's essential to have this security because, in its absence, the same data you were trying to organize may end up compromised by unauthorized entities—which could throw your business into an emergency. 

But what is SharePoint exactly? And why should you consider SharePoint for your business? Follow along as we explore some of SharePoint's pitfalls and virtues as one of the most popular documentation and collaboration tools in the market.

What is SharePoint, and what can your business do with it?

In simple terms, SharePoint is a sort of "internal Wikipedia" that lets your company organize your documents, files, and messaging into a series of interlinked pages, similar to how the world's most giant encyclopedia connects ideas and topics.

For example, you might make a page for your HR team that describes the employee onboarding process just like a Word document might, but your SharePoint page can also include links to your contract templates within OneDrive, display messages related to new hires from Teams, and link to a separate set of pages that make up your Employee handbook for easy reference.

At a more expert level, SharePoint is used to create custom applications that can, among other things, help increase productivity in your teams; the program is used by over 250,000 companies at a global scale, including 85% of fortune 500 companies. 

Although SharePoint comes included with Microsoft 365, you can take advantage of it as a standalone application, although that is not typical.

Some additional features include: 

• Create SharePoint Team Site — A team site is a perfect place to share content, files, and other resources with your teams, and creating it takes little to no time. 

• Custom Intranet Site Branding — While you could go with your site's default look and settings, you might consider indulging in the options you have for customizing it. There are various templates to choose from, but if desired, you could utilize SharePoint's scripting capabilities to be even more precise in your styling changes. 

• Configure Sharing Permissions — The security of your organization's sensitive and proprietary information hinges on having the proper documents accessible to the right people. To make this easy, SharePoint enables you to configure sharing permissions with only relevant collaborators, whether they be your vendors, clients, or contractors.     

• Connect SharePoint with Microsoft Teams — Alone, Microsoft Teams is already a powerful collaboration tool in business, but its value compounds when utilized in tandem with SharePoint. When combined, your teams will be able to share and talk about shared information and applications—all while chatting in real-time.

• Planner Integration — Having a diverse set of tools for your business is good; having several connected devices is even better. With Planner integration, your business can keep workflow tasks and their relevant documents in the same place. If you already have a plan with Planner, you can easily insert it into SharePoint using the Planner web part. So next time your business is onboarding a new team member, and you need them to complete a task, they'll be able to quickly find the information they need to get it done—all without leaving your SharePoint application.

Adopting SharePoint for your business

Despite Sharepoint being designed to assist your company with document organization, management, and collaboration, the robustness of the application may come off as overwhelming to you and your team. 

Such complexity shouldn't deter you from taking advantage of the application's benefits, which is why Commprise is here to make the process of adopting SharePoint a breeze. 

With our Managed IT Services, your business will be able to keep to its day-to-day tasks and get SharePoint working in your favor, all without skipping a beat in your workflow.