SharePoint Reviews

Lists, documents, wiki pages and being able to create sites/subsites are valuable features.

The fact that our operational process improvement initiatives continue to be assigned on a lower priority in our portfolio management, it has given rise to the use of SharePoint as a platform to run its day-to-day operational processes. Specifically, we moved away from using MS OneNote.

It has its limitations. We are unable to use this tool to "archive" data and run queries to generate hindsight information.

I have been using this solution since 2011.

I have not encountered any stability issues.

I did experience some scalability issues; this could be more because of trying to use SharePoint as a BI tool, which it is not designed for.

As it is internal, there is some knowledge that they are unaware of which makes it necessary for me to go check with third party sites (such as wikis) for answers.

Initially, we were MS OneNote.

All I did was request for a site to be created and then the rest of the configuration was up to me.

I am not involved with the purchasing decisions.

There are some features that I am looking for and that I am unable to find, for example creating nested IF functions.

The most valuable features are its ease of integration and customization.

• Produced workflows down to user / product level
• Easy KPI integration
• Use of standard reporting tools

The documentation can be improved, so it is easier to use for non-technical people. The documentation was clear only after full training was completed, not for starters.

I have used it for two years.

I have not encountered any stability issues, but prior infrastructure planning is a must. When systems are well defined, all setup and integration runs smoothly.

I have not encountered any scalability issues, but that requires the same conditions that ensure stability.

Technical support is perfect; nothing to complain about. Our market is special and they have minimal experience in special market segments, so they had a learning curve as well.

We previously used a solution called Hornbill (Supportworks); it was out of date and had less flexibility in customization and no access to the source code level.

Prior infrastructure planning is a must. When systems are well defined, all setup and integration runs smoothly.

• Look very well what your need is.
• Compare that with the budget.
• Do a full in-house inquiry to define:

  
  

  • What the real need is.
  • How to adjust internal procedures when needed, and if it is possible.
  • Whether the system can be adjusted to the company's needs.
• Make a clear time line.
• Make internal resources available.
• Do not make the error of fixing a time line and not allocating the resources accordingly.
• Make a clear plan of what you need.
• Do not plan for your current need; add some space for future expansion.
• Look into easy expansion; add licenses when needed.

Before choosing this product, we evaluated too many other options to list. We surveyed over 15 providers/solutions, and no one had a 100% fix for our company. We selected SharePoint based on flexibility, the best score, and that we were able to do our own changes. Some suppliers demanded that they do all the changes, so you would be locked to them if you need changes in the future; the system would become more expensive.

In addition to what I’ve already mentioned, if possible, have dedicated implementation staff. Or, get external staff involved after they have reviewed your company processes for optimization; they have a neutral view of the company and are not stuck in current processes the current users work with.

• Intranet and extranet: We set up a robust and easily maintained intranet and extranet.
• Ticketing and documentation management: We use the content management features and workflows to create ticketing and document management systems. We also make good use of the wikis.
• HR Requests: We built a system within SharePoint that allows you to create a ticket in HR. For example, terminations, job status changes, pay change, and name change. The user opens the form in SharePoint. Depending on what type of action is necessary, the user is given the exact items that need to be completed for the HR action to proceed. After the user completes and sends the form, it copies the department manager for approval. An email is then sent to the various departments to work on it. With terminations, for example, an email is sent to payroll for final pay, to benefits to get the separation paperwork activated, to IT for equipment pick-up, and to others who have a role when someone leaves the company. I know that we can purchase software to do this, but it would have been expensive. Building this within SharePoint took a few weeks and has received many kudos for helping HR actions.
• Moving from folders to storage: We are moving items from the thousands of Windows folders on storage servers to SharePoint for easy management and retrieval using a SharePoint search. All policies are now on SharePoint and are easy to find and view, even with a smartphone.
• Wikis: We are turning department standard operating procedures into wikis for easy management and documentation. We use security so that only those who need to see these documents can access and update them as needed on the fly.

Building workflow systems within SharePoint that allow for corporate tracking of work issues and work items. The intranet was an instant hit with everyone and wikis have been very popular.

Little quirks that make it difficult at times to fine-tune some items. The usual Microsoft items where 90% of the product is great, but that 10% makes little things difficult to work with. It is hard to pin down, but Microsoft has you do things their way, when their way is not the best for our needs.

• Developer code: Some areas of SharePoint require you to have a .NET developer code so that it works correctly.
• Numbering: We have production support tickets that we wanted to number in a certain way. However, SharePoint could not do it until we got our .NET developer to create a workaround for the numbering system.
• Sorting: We needed some sorting done, and this required coding. This additional coding is only about 10% of our projects, but it is still there. Thank goodness we can do that when we need to.

We have used SharePoint for approximately seven years and version 2013 for the last two years. It has been our intranet, extranet, and corporate website for the past year.

It is VERY stable if you follow the recommended settings and read the SharePoint blogs.

We have not encountered any scalability issues.

I would give technical support a rating of 3/5. We had some small issues and called MS tech support, but they were only able to help us 60% of the time before we fixed it ourselves.

We had no other solutions before this one.

With so much online help and blogs, setup was straightforward. We did use a third-party to assist us with best practices. Once the system was up, we were able to support ourselves with no issues.

We have an EA. It was easy to get pricing, but it is difficult to manage.

When trying to use it as an extranet, we found issues with how expensive it is per individual user. We have 15,000 contractors who serve as staff at various locations.

We decided on SharePoint early on.

Use a third-party expert who can help with the initial setup and development. You can then manage yourself once you are up and running.

• User permissions and document libraries
• Basic CMS capabilities with user-based permissions
• Ability to tie into other products to extend and scale the platform

We use SharePoint largely as an internal intranet; users are organized through AD and into their respective teams. Each team is responsible for their own websites and areas (including document repositories). Through this form of user organization, we can share resources with one another and in other areas, we can also set up public access so that everybody has access to everything.

On top of that, we can set up applications such as Power BI and web parts to handle data processing, telemetry/analytics, and even document processing. We have web forms that collect all manner of data, with workflows, to help with internal processes.

• Ease of use
• Out-of-the-box experience
• Learning curve

For the most part, the tool is useable, but there are many end users who still find it difficult overall. As a developer, I am able to find my way through the interfaces with time, but it takes too much time to learn these things and remember where they are. As an end user, I can understand why some people altogether give up in frustration.

I have used it for 10 years, through various versions.

I have not encountered any stability issues. SharePoint is a very stable platform, provided that it's installed on an equally stable server environment.

Occasionally, we come across strange server-level errors, but they are few and far between. Normal users almost never have problems, except for permission-based incidents.

I have not encountered any scalability issues. SharePoint is very scalable, provided that you have the resources to ensure its smooth operation.

For example, enabling Power BI is almost as easy as subscribing to the SaaS and flicking a switch. Similarly, other third-party vendor plugins are as easy as installing them and making the webpages and web parts available to the users. However, making sure that the platform itself is configured correctly and deploying the plugins correctly, is often where some things can fail. SharePoint itself scales well, it's just ensuring that all the additional resources are working cohesively.

N/A. I am not a system admin for our SharePoint instances, so I don't contact MS support for SharePoint issues.

To my knowledge, we have always used SharePoint. We have not switched away from SharePoint because of its AD integration; it makes automatic permissions that much easier.

N/A. I am not a system admin for SharePoint and was not involved in the deployment.

While a business owner of the platform, I can only comment on that the upgrade/migration from SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint 2013 was relatively smooth, albeit very slow.

The migration process took an entire weekend, and our instance is shy of 150GB total stored contents.

Pricing and licensing is a very subjective topic. Some companies have more resources than others, and some vendors are more flexible than others.

• Always find a solution that fits your needs the most; worry about the money later.
• Always make sure that this is a solution that your company can use and take care of; don't buy the latest and greatest tools because it's the hottest product in the market.

We are an academic institution, and so we have a EDU partnership for volume licensing and other enterprise purchasing agreements.

For this particular product (MS SharePoint), we are using the SharePoint Enterprise CAL license, for our on-premise solution. There are other departments that do the same thing with enterprise CAL, but our overarching relationship with Microsoft is through our central department.

N/A. This was a pre-existing solution that's been upgraded many times since its first roll out (2003 > 2007 > 2010 > 2013).

Make sure that you have the proper resources to ensure that the product is well maintained. This includes both technical resources and if necessary a governance group.

There is a steep learning curve for those not familiar with the way Microsoft works. They have a specific, albeit predictable, way of doing things. Ensure that your developers and system administrators are familiar with this "way". It seems arrogant and militant to state, but if your resources aren't willing to do things the Microsoft way, they should be taken off this project, else they will slow things down or outright make things worse.

The product itself is very robust and capable, but the success of the tool is largely dependent upon the team that deploys and maintains the product, as well as resources available to it.

Without proper resources, the product can flounder and fail.

The best feature that I found for SharePoint was having a main point of contact for everyone involved. Whether it be for the entire company or it for a specific department, this has made it easy to create a common place.

When I took over SharePoint 2007, it was fairly basic in its execution. It had sections for the various departments, but it wasn't common for users to actually use it. I ended up creating various lists and libraries to begin pulling processes into the system. It was fairly shoe horned, but it did the job.

In addition to this, without the use of an extension, I began using SharePoint to do more collaborative tasks and projects. There are extensions for SharePoint to increase its functionality, but using task management, was able to create sites and manage projects in that way.

SharePoint is extremely bare bones when purchased. To really bring it into a functional state, it will require decent configuration and extensions for what you need. It comes with the basics like site creation, lists, libraries, and things of this nature. However, if you need more functionality, you will need to either go to Microsoft for those additional functionalities or to a 3rd party that provides it. This is where the cost for SharePoint balloons.

Depending on the version, there are server requirements so if you're not up-to-date on software, this will also increase the price of the service. For the functionality you get at this price point, it leaves a lot to be desired.

3 years

Sharepoint was deployed prior to me coming on-board so I'm not familiar with it.

For the most part, SharePoint was stable based upon the set up that we have. When installing the R2 update, it did end up creating issues with the .NET code and eliminated some of the extensions. For example, the Excel extension that is used to view Excel spreadsheets within SharePoint was either damaged or deleted. This has caused issues with exporting to and from SharePoint and hasn't been corrected.

SharePoint is tied to Microsoft's CAL pricing model so depending on your agreement, can be in line or balloon the cost. This is primarily for an on-site solution. If you're using the cloud solution, then it's still on a per user basis, but may/may not be a better fit. Our company didn't have any issues with scaling within the existing software version, however, if we were to upgrade to newer version, it would require a sizable investment.

Microsoft doesn't offer support for SharePoint unless you purchase the option. There are also 3rd party solutions for this. Support for SharePoint is minimal at best on its own. You will need support so your best bet is to purchase some type of support package through the vendor you purchase it from.

See the customer service section above.

N/A. SharePoint was the original solution.

I wasn't with the company during the procurement and deployment phases.

Our solution was done in-house.

Unknown.

This will vary greatly depending on your CAL agreement with Microsoft and what vendor you purchase options from.

SharePoint is a good solution and is very flexible if you're willing to invest the time and money into it. It requires full buy-in from various departments within a company and will require heavy configuration to get it to where it typically needs to be for your needs. I personally wouldn't go with SharePoint again as it doesn't fit my needs and is currently being used, but in very limited fashion.

We use this solution for intranet, extranet, web site, content management, collaboration, integrations, eCommerce, inventory, portfolio, project, and process management.

This solution has given us better access, coordination, collaboration, and visibility. It is an enterprise system for many functions instead of multiple systems to support. Interactive intranet instead of static web pages, integration of other systems to include GIS. We also have better search capability. 

The most valuable features are the Integrations, web site, and search.

The areas of this solution that need improvement are the relationships between lists, cross-site web parts, and page-building tools.

• Shared document repository and communication tool for projects and teams
• I love SharePoint lists; they are pretty flexible and easy to create and export data from. 
• You can also restrict the view to customize to specific audiences. 
• It is also easy to create subsites, and security can be applied to individual pages.

It is a good tool that makes managing projects and teams much easier. All documents and calendars are in one central location.

• SharePoint lists
• Calendar
• Subsites
• Security
• Survey
• It is easy to administer as a business user.

The UI could be more flexible out of the box. With coding, you can customize the look and feel to your heart's content, but configuration without coding is limited.