Microsoft SharePoint is being used across our Americas Division by a number of departments including Engineering, HR, Payroll, Finance, Customer Service, and Technical Support. The scope of how we used varies from department to department, but we mainly use SharePoint for document management and workflow approvals via the use of out of the box workflows and a 3rd party add-on called NINTEX Workflow.
SharePoint helped us digitize our approvals that were done via pen and paper or by email; with the use of SharePoint we were able to cut down the amount of time it takes our approvals to be completed.
Pros
SharePoint Workflows are one of the most useful features that can be used; setting up approval workflows is relatively easy for any user.
Another example of what SharePoint does well is the ability for admins and power users easily architecture the security structure of the SharePoint Site Collections. The access permissions can be setup in a way where there can be several sub sites and even document libraries that only specific users have access to.
Creating document libraries is another aspect that SharePoint does very well; users can use the "Open with Explorer" feature to start creating the document libraries which resembles how folders are created in Windows.
Cons
One improvement we would recommend is to make SharePoint work in all browsers; at the moment it only works well in a browser that has ActiveX.
Implementing a Visio like user interface for creating out of the box workflows would be a great feature.
Removing the needed local client configurations such as having the site URL in "Trusted Sites" and the need to run WebClient Service would improve the ease of use of SharePoint.
Likelihood to Recommend
One specific scenario where SharePoint would work really well is if there's a need to digitize an approval process; SharePoint does a good job of creating approval workflows. Another scenario would be where there's a need for a central location to store a document where several users need access to work on it; that way there's only one version.
We primarily used SharePoint (starting in 2012) as a file repository. Subsequently, we were able to leverage it as a business intelligence/analytics reporting tool. We likewise maximized the use of document lists and task lists by configuring these as dashboards and deliverables trackers. It addressed our need for real-time collaboration, document management, project knowledge-base and for project reporting.
Also as a KAIZEN initiative, we were able to reduce dependencies on Excel worksheets or macro-enabled worksheets and move these tasks into SharePoint also for faster and more efficient collaboration.
Pros
Ease of use - SharePoint is relatively much easier to use (whether end user, admin, or visitor) compared to other ECM products.
Ease of administration and customization - SharePoint is relatively much easier to administrate and to configure/customize compared to other ECM products, like OpenText which is quite limiting when it comes to customizing or extending features.
Scalable and flexible in terms of cloud-hosted infrastructure modeling.
Cons
Well, for Sharepoint Online, the add-on features which are free tend to expire within a month or earlier. It would be great if these free add-on features would last longer or last permanently.
Likelihood to Recommend
SharePoint is well suited for projects involving: decommissioning of end of life systems, databases, repositories and then migration of legacy data into the new SharePoint platform.
We use it as a document repository across the organization for every department. It is also used for its calender's for stuff like a vacation calendar for employees, or who is on call for each department. It also keeps a version history for every document so we can keep track of edits. This all helps us keep ISO compliant.
Pros
Keeps documents up to date for everyone
Lets us be ISO compliant
Calendar management is easy
Cons
Editing documents is a pain
Only works correctly in the Internet explorer browser
Very slow and annoying credential checking
Likelihood to Recommend
This is basically the equivalent to having google drive, dropbox, or one drive, just at a bigger scale that does not work as well. Basically collaboration is non-existent and very hard to use. You must manually check out the document, edit, save, and check back in. Plus it only works for certain file types well. Using visio diagrams is a pain. There are much better alternatives.
In my current role, I have incorporated SharePoint in a variety of ways and perhaps that's its greatest attraction and benefit. SharePoint is an enterprise product and we needed to have a number of business use cases to justify its costs. For us the cost of the platform, licensing, resilience, DR, support etc. all need to be considered before it became the platform of choice. Luckily for most organisation, although not the case for my current company due to sensitive data, cloud hosting including Microsoft's Online offering do away with the initial steep curve to embed it in. Even given the initial capital outlay, it is a far more cost-effective option if you consider a plethora of alternatives that need to be procured to provide the same set of functionality. In our case we have used it for;
The intranet
Customer Portals for our partners. that incorporate surfacing data from our other enterprise systems; Oracle, SAP, IBM, Maximo etc.
Health and Safety System.
A number of document management sites for various departments, migrating from other expensive products.
Collaboration to increase security and reduce load on Outlook (constant attachments etc.).
There are a number of other projects that we're considering that will go on SharePoint.
It's integration with Outlook, Lync, SCCM, SQL Reporting, Office Web Apps (OWA), Microsoft Dynamics is the next set of challenges that will eliminate the need for a number of scattered systems and bring a coherent search experience.
Pros
The intranet - SharePoint has a mature publishing framework with workflows, content approval, versioning, multi-lingual site and so on.
Collaboration and Social Features that include complex workflows for documents, multi-user updates, rich metadata association, and much more
Surfacing line of business data (Business Connectivity Services) and providing ability for rich Dashboards and KPI with integration for Excel graphs (Excel services) and SSRS and a host of other features that provide powerful analysis and reporting capabilities.
Lists of various types with configurable columns, alerting, and email integration rich taxonomy, secure access - all without writing a single lin eof code.
Ability to search not only data held within SharePoint, but also on disk shares, outlook and other systems (eDiscovery).
Cons
SharePoint has seen improvements in workflow, but I feel the process for end user can be further simplified.
I'd like to see LightSwitch somehow integrated to provide building relational applications (similar to force.com in some ways).
The Client-side Object Model needs to be further developed.
Likelihood to Recommend
SharePoint is extremely well suited to Intranet, Document Management and a host of 'tracking' type applications. It is not well suited to put relational application on it, although there is some limited relational support.
