SharePoint Reviews

• 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.

Collaboration and document sharing are the primary reasons for using SharePoint. We have used the product in many government agencies for documents management, workflow, enterprise search, departmental solutions, Intranet, etc.

SharePoint is a big product with many features including customization flexibilities. We have deployed it in many government agencies which were in much need of process and automation improvements.

The product makes it easy to manage lists, forms, searching, and security. One of the most valuable features is its integration with Active Directory.

• Processing data from multiple site collections is not easy as they reside in different databases. 
• The management of the product/back-end is complex.

We have purchased add-ons to handle multiple site collections, form creation, and design. 

The use case is based on internal processes. We want a central place for storing data, documents, and user processes, to automate processes.

In this case, it's a financial program. All customers starting our financial program are automatically created on SharePoint. From there, all the documents that are related to each customer will be stored on SharePoint, and we then use it as a kind of a black box. You put everything in, you do not know where it is. Then we have other applications around it that give you information that you need. Or you can save it and, based on customer information or the kind of document, it knows where to store it on SharePoint.

It manages processes. I personally think a very strong point is that we use it in combination with OneDrive. Now that we have been handed the GDPR law enforcement, in combination with OneDrive, we can synchronize documents or part of a customer's information to a laptop. If they make changes it will automatically be synchronized back. In the case of a lost or defective device, you always have the information. I think this is a very strong point.

It's stable. It's very widely used by companies. Also, the knowledge of the product has improved over the years, and by other companies that support it or are Microsoft SharePoint partners. So if there are problems, there's always a user or company that knows the information or can help you; even with very uncommon problems.

Another strong feature is the search engine. It can search all documents. It can find everything.

We also have our own developers. What we want with SharePoint, we can program it and create many reports, every kind of information needed. Developers can easily create an application for it and display this information.

We are mainly using third-party tools for it, at the moment, for automating processes. In the new version, for 2019, I know that some of the processes are finally in SharePoint. They are a now using third-party tools for it.

Also, the integration with Outlook could be improved.

It's fairly easy to scale. You can just add front-ends to it. Just a little installation and it's done. It's very easy to expand.

Technical support is very good.

The switch was handed to our default supplier of software, in this case, Microsoft. The whole platform we used was based on Microsoft.

It's not a vendor we select, we select a product. After that, we look at the vendor. If the product looks good, promising, and it looks stable - and of course we test it before we go any further with it - then we look at the vendor, especially the support. Then we find other cases, where they have implemented a similar product or feature and ask for their feedback.

A partner initially installed it. That was the start of our use of SharePoint. I believe there was a lack of information or a lack of knowledge on the part of the external party that initiated this project. As our internal IT department has improved, the setup of SharePoint - we migrated to a new version - has improved.

My advice would depend on the use case. SharePoint, for us, is the most suitable because we use mainly Microsoft products. So for us, it's the way to go because the integration is solid. If colleagues have other products, it depends on what they're asking. Look at the best option. It's not that I'm saying, "You have to use this product because it's the greatest." Consider what you need, what you want.

It's very stable. I don't call it a document management system, I call it a multifunctional document system. You can do a lot of things with it. It's just incredible how much. I really like that we have been able to automate a few steps that people had to do. Also, this process was only possible with SharePoint, because of the integration of other Office products. We're using the basic Microsoft suite and integration was a very big part of it.

I have found SharePoint team sites to produce much more 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 company-wide document management.

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

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

SharePoint has workflow built into the software however it is very simplistic. Third party applications integrate with SharePoint to provide a more feature full workflow. For example, if I wanted to create a workflow for new employee onboarding process I could use SharePoint built in workflow. Doing so would provide me limited configuration options, no version control, only attach to one list, sequential workflow only, and not very customizable.

Using a third party you can create intuitive workflows, customize branding with CSS, easy drag and drop implementation, comprehensive workflows actions (loops, foreach, parallel actions, variables), and maintain retention history.

I would like to see it built-in the product itself.

I have used this solution for two years.

Some 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 in order to determine the number of servers and also as to what SharePoint function(s) they will serve for meeting the demands of your organization.

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

Initially, we were using simple file shares and emails for this purpose.

SharePoint can be very complex to set up initially both in terms of the infrastructure as well as the backend design and implementation. The more scalable the environment, the more complex the setup will be. Generally, third-party consultants will be needed to implement the solution.

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

We have not evaluated any other solution before this one.

You will need to hire and communicate with a third-party consultant.

From my perspective as a developer I would say that the most valuable features are :

• the wide variety of data source connections
• completeness of features
• strong query possibilities (customisation, SQL, MDX, macros)

Each year, managers have to take important decisions about the future based on voluminous reports which took several weeks to produce. Now, these reports have been replaced by a dashboard which is maintained on a daily basis.

• The suite is complicated to set up, complicated to maintain, complicated to work with. Cognos requires a bigger and more skilled centralized BI team.
• Cognos Insight, the self-service, desktop dashboarding and analysis tool designed is not quite at the same level of the competition like Tableau or Qlikview.

We have been using the solution for 19 years.

We have not encountered any stability issues. The version 10.2 we use is very stable.

We have not encountered any scalability issues. The contract between IBM and the organisation covers all the needs we have.

I would rate the technical support at 8/10. I had very few technical support needs but they answer correctly when required.

I am not aware of any previous solutions. I always use Cognos solutions for my BI needs.

The setup was complex. As I work for a large financial organisation, the security matters are very important. For that reason, we had to deploy the different components on many servers in different zones, separated by firewalls. We also had to support the needs for several tens of users for data analysis and a few hundred more users for data consumption.

It's not the least expensive solution in the market but if your needs are great in terms of functionality, number of users and amount of data, it is worth purchasing it.

We evaluated the solutions available at the time. Among others, these were Micro-Level, Business Objects and Hyperion.

I do not think it is possible to implement a solution to the scale of the one we had without the help of knowledgeable Cognos BI resources. Ideally, it is best to hire an expert or one or more good Cognos consultants.