Actually, the title should probably be slightly revised, to "Why you should care about Microsoft SharePoint". The short answer is that it can make a tremendous impact on your business, and a great ROI is pretty easy to attain since Microsoft is giving it away.

Yes, "It's free."

Microsoft describes SharePoint as "The Business Collaboration Platform for the Enterprise and the Web". It is somewhat surprising to me that the great marketing engine behind Microsoft can't do better than that. At least, at first glance, who cares about collaboration and even if I did, "Enterprise" refers to the really big corporations with more than 1,000 employees.

But if you look a little closer, you will discover that SharePoint is an amazing tool with lots of features and functionality that will help your small business:

• Collaboration is an umbrella term that is meant to cover the spectrum of publishing, sharing, finding, analyzing and managing information.
• Platform is meant to convey that SharePoint provides a solid base for all the out-of-box usage that never requires a developer.
• Enterprise, in this context, means every department of your company.
• Finally, Web can mean both your internal, private web site and, if you so choose, limited access for outsiders - either customers, vendors, or other business partners.

OK, so some of that might sound good. But what does it really mean? How does it work?

When you first launch SharePoint, you get a web page. It's not a web page on the Internet, it is still just on your server. But by being presented in a web page format, it makes it pretty easy to set it up so that you can access it remotely if you want, securely, from anywhere that an Internet connection is available.

What can you do with this web page? There is a great deal of useful functionality built in, and then from there you can add more of your own. Let's start with what is built in:

1. Document Management. Documents can be checked-in/out, with version control and content approval.
2. Content search. No need to search through whatever folder structure you have set up. The built-in search is much like Google - type in a keyword or two and get results in a hyperlink list.
3. Project management, with shared tasks and scheduled assignments, and can be integrated with Outlook Calendars and email.
4. Workflow. User defined ability to automate your business processes easily through built-in and custom workflows. Automate reminders and create alerts based upon pre-defined conditions.
5. Business Connectors. Pull data from your business applications directly into SharePoint, either as a list or in a dashboard.
6. Collaboration. You can easily create a collaborative website. Little technical skill is required to define access or update the content. Remote staff can collaborate on shared work using discussion boards and meeting workspaces.

With all that functionality, SharePoint can be the super glue that allows your business to combine, and report on, any number of data sources your business may have. It's a very powerful tool which can provide meaningful data to help drive critical-business decisions.

If you have questions about how SharePoint can be utilized in your business, call. We're passionate about helping your company prosper through the efficient use of technology, and Terry O'Rourke never gets tired of talking about it. You can reach him at 630-379-0330

^ top of page