SharePoint Reviews

Depending on the customer’s needs, one or more features become more relevant and important. If I were to generalize and extract the most common features that the customers have used, I would say:

• Web\document content management
• Integration with the Office suite
• Collaboration over the content, sites, BI, search, and workflows
• One or two-way integration with other enterprise applications

I see the strength of SharePoint working as an extendable framework/platform for customers of various sizes, on premise as well as on the cloud, but not as an independent niche product/solution around a specific feature.

Our Intranet is built using SocialXtend, a SharePoint based product.

It has transformed the way we do our daily tasks and the way the departments collaborate over projects, opportunities, and other operational activities.

Knowledge sharing and access to information has been highly simplified.

Almost all of the areas of the product have room for improvement; some more than others.

• At a high level, mobile, custom development/testing frameworks, BCS, external services integration, and BI may need to catch up more as compared to the other feature sets.
• SharePoint is a combination of multiple products working together. It has come a long way, and the improvements are being pushed at a much faster pace than they used to be earlier. This fail-fast approach of adding features quickly instead of a longer release cycle is a much better way to develop a product in my opinion.

I have been using SharePoint since 2001 in multiple capacities, such as a solution host, or as a full-fledged enterprise solution for on premise, as well as on the cloud.

My personal observation is that if the implementations are done in the right way by following the recommended best practices and guidelines, the product works just fine.

To be clear, I am referring to all the underlying products (IIS, SQL Server) as well as to the O/S.

There have been genuine issues. However, we have used SharePoint and CU to address them.

We have not had scalability issues in SharePoint 2010 and onwards.

Technical support is good.

We used solutions from the Java world. Those, as well as this one, are based on the customers' needs.

For simple farms, things are pretty straightforward. But for complex farms, I have not yet had that experience.

To be fair, it’s not SharePoint all the time. It’s a combination of other environmental factors and third-party products as well.

Synergy with other applications in the MS Office suite. For example, with a single click from the MS Lync client, you can create an email in the Outlook client and vice-versa, amongst many other similar integrations between applications that previously did not speak to one another.

Collaboration became a lot easier. Meetings happened more frequently between colleagues across different locations sitting at their desks and not in special video conference rooms.

Better mobile optimization and a similar experience level across device types (desktop, tablet and phones). For most applications, MS SharePoint included, users are treated to different experiences across devices. For example, Excel works slightly differently (has fewer features/capabilities) on mobile when compared to the desktop experience. It would be nice to close this gap as much as possible, such that a user may have no qualms transiting between devices.

I have been using SharePoint for over four years.

We did not have any stability issues.

We did not have any scalability issues. It is as easy as adding new licenses for new users.

Technical support was not as good as expected. Sometimes request took upwards of three business days.

We used several single purpose software tools for each area of our need. We switched to MS SharePoint/Office 365 for a number of reasons, including: the seamless integration between the many apps in the suite; colleagues (users) are familiar with the MS office interface from Excel, Outlook, Word and PowerPoint and that shortens the learning curve considerably.

Setup was straightforward.

For non-profits, seek out non-profit licensing.

We evaluated eleven others.

It’s the best in the class, but make sure your existing solution doesn't already meet your needs before making the decision to go the MS SharePoint route.

The ability to create workflows.

Using the workflow as an example, it has helped to transform the conventional paperwork processes into digitized and faster processes.

Document libraries. At the moment, they still lack the flexibility you get in conventional Windows file systems. However, it has lots of features that make it a good replacement.

I have used SharePoint for two years.

The fact that it relies on the Internet and runs in a browser means it is bound to have performance issues.

I didn't encounter any issues with scalability. What I do know is that, when this is required, you will need the right skilled IT specialist to make the change. Often the right skilled specialists are not easy to find.

Microsoft provides both online and phone support. Phone support depends on the plan you are subscribed to.

We did not have a previous solution.

The initial setup is a simple process. However, planning requires more time in order to gather user requirements.

Setup an initial trial account with a pilot group to ascertain what is best for your environment.

We didn’t look at other options.

If your users are already familiar with an existing Windows product such as Office applications, you won't regret jumping in.

I have found team sites offer much value to our organization. As a consulting company, it allows multiple consultants to collaborate on a team project for a customer.

We use SharePoint for companywide document management.

Although workflow is limited in SharePoint, we have used it for many onboarding processes, PTO requests, etc.

SharePoint has streamlined many processes and provided additional organization for our company. It has become a central location for both documents and productivity.

I would love to see a more robust workflow. There are 3rd party products such as Nintex and K2 that can be used, however I would like to see it built-in.

I’ve used SharePoint for 2 years.

Stability issues have been found with the database. From the infrastructure side, most people use dedicated databases for SharePoint so a simple reboot usually fixes the communication issues.

SharePoint is extremely scalable but requires planning ahead of time. You must answer some questions about your environment to determine how many servers and what SharePoint function(s) they will serve to meet the demands of your organization.

I have never used Microsoft technical support for SharePoint in particular, but Microsoft support is very good.

We used to use simple file shares and emails.

SharePoint can be very complex to setup initially (both infrastructure and back end design and implementation). The more scalable the environment, the more complex the setup will be. Generally speaking, a 3rd party consultant will be needed to implement the solution.

There are two options with SharePoint. They have an on premises and a cloud solution.

We did not look at alternatives.

Hire and communicate with a 3rd party consultant.

Collaboration with other Microsoft products has made SharePoint a real tool for us. You can use a personal OneDrive storage to share your own documents with others, but also use SharePoint sites to manage projects with external users.

All attachments are put under SharePoint. So, no more of network sharing is required to store documents. Document versioning is also a useful feature for our organization.

No need to worry any more about emails with attachments and obsolete versions with those attachments. People can edit an online version at the same time. You don’t have to save and send anything anymore.

Though Office 365 Groups is only partly based on SharePoint Online, it gives a great option to share team information with inside and outside users.

SharePoint Online is excellent as is, but licensing for the on-premises version is expensive.

I have been using this product for eight years.

I have not encountered any stability issues. It is an excellent product if you don’t have to customize it too much.

I have not encountered any scalability issues.

I would rate the technical support level 9/10.

I did not use any other solutions prior to SharePoint and I would not change to another product either.

Setup is very straightforward when you know the architecture.

I didn’t evaluate other products.

Keep it simple. Make use of this product without huge amounts of custom applications and scripting.

• Enhanced communications
• The ability to set up sites to share data/information in a one-stop shopping method. Including:

  
  

  • User-friendly interface to share files
  • Ability to have calendaring specific to the function/department addressed by the site
  • The important links facility, which provides easy access to frequently used items
  • Workflow, which allows us to define processes and make it easier for the user to perform a task. The workflow provides a consistent framework for performing the task, as well as providing behind-the-scenes flow, thus removing the manual process of determining where the flow goes next. This also removes the human error portion of that flow.

As the employees are spread around the country and the world, this allows us to communicate more effectively by providing an easier interface with the information (files, calendars, links and news) all in one spot. It allows us to collaborate more effectively as people can access this information according to their time availability. The one-stop shopping is critical, as everyone is looking at one version of the truth and therefore are on the same page.

This product has allowed us to coordinate the efforts of individual groups, as well as different groups that need to interact for specific projects/processes. Before this, there was a lot of emails being exchanged and certainly there were times that some of the people that needed to know where inadvertently left off of an email or two.

Not so much an improvement as a caveat: Due to the flexibility and power of the product, out of the box it can be daunting to use. Without some consulting work from a SharePoint expert, the product would not be quite as user friendly.

I have used it for two years.

At first, we encountered stability issues, but they have been ironed out and – knock on wood – we have been stable for a while. I believe our issue might have been related to sizing the resources properly, as we started small with the intention of growing as we developed more uses for the product.

At the end of the day, I would say we have not encountered any scalability issues. We have added more sites and continue to add them as people realize the power and effectiveness of the product. There are times, though relatively infrequent, where it seems to bog down a little but it does not have a major impact on productivity.

I believe most of our external support comes from a consultant and from a user point of view, I am satisfied as I have yet to have a question/issue that could not be resolved and I have not had many questions or issues.

We did not previously use a different solution.

Here again, from a user’s view, I would say initial setup was complex as to obtain the most benefit, you needed to understand what you were looking for and how best to fit it into the scheme of SharePoint. It seemed that there was often more than one way to solve the need and trying to map the need with the best approach took some time.

I am unable to comment as I am not involved with the details of this.

Before choosing this product, I did not evaluate other options. We chose SharePoint as we had business partners that were already using it, we had exposure to the product that way and liked what we saw.

Make sure you find the right consultant.

Make sure you invest the proper amount of time to plan the implementation. This is not something like Excel, where you can install, train and use. To get the most out of it, you need a game plan for what you will use it for and how to design/customize it to your needs.

Project management activities.

A central repository for artifacts, and planning for corporate projects.

Libraries, lists, and reporting.

Better wiki offerings.