Collaboration & content management platform
4.2/5 (895 reviews)Pros
I've used SharePoint for over a decade. Long before "the cloud" was the tech buzz word, SharePoint was providing users with web-based storage access, and it still does. There are many things to like about SharePoint. First and foremost, it functions much like a web site. Users can easily navigate to their SharePoint home page and set up additional pages, upload and download files, add calendars and calendar events, and much more. SharePoint also creates archives of all files, so if you revise a file and then later need to see an earlier version of that file, you can use SharePoint's versioning functionality to do this. It's a great utility for storing files of all sorts that others on your team need to use. Uploading and downloading files couldn't be easier. We created different landing pages based on our company's needs. For example, we have a Marketing page to store our collateral, a Content page for manuscripts and legal documents, and an HR page for human resources-related materials.
Cons
It can take users a bit of time to understand the unique functionality of SharePoint. However, if you navigate around the toolbars you should find what you are looking for. In terms of design, SharePoint is relatively basic, so users looking for something with a bit more visual flash might be disappointed. Though if you are mainly looking for a reliable place to manage countless files, SharePoint is probably right for you.
As mentioned briefly above, my most recent experience with SharePoint is using lists. This particular list (with a workflow to assign tasks) replaces an Excel spreadsheet of the same information. Using a SharePoint list instead, complete with different views and user alerts, allows relevant people access to the information they need in the right format, without having to duplicate work, send email updates, etc.
While SharePoint can be frustrating, it seems evident from the updates that there is a move towards more intuitive use.
Pros
The recent updates to SharePoint have come a long way in making it more intuitive to use, and providing a better looking user interface.
The management of the 'apps' (e.g. document libraries, lists, promoted links) has become much easier of late. It would be useful to see more information added to the apps descriptions, to help users determine which best suits their needs, without having to navigate to the Office help pages and/or third party sites.
The best feature for my current use is the ability to create different views of a list, and initiate workflows to assign list items as Tasks for certain users, thereby automating the sharing of the distribution of workload.
Cons
Some parts of SharePoint's functionality can be baffling - without formal training, it can be very difficult to work out how best to utilise SharePoint's features. When SharePoint is used across a large institution, without consistent training differing practices across different teams can make collaboration hard, as Sites/Pages/Libraries have been set up to function so differently. Inheriting a SharePoint site set up by someone else is tricky, as the logic they used to manage the site can be hard to decipher.
Permissions can be hard to manage, particularly as its rarely clear to the requester to whom their requests for access are being sent. This can be frustrating, as it can contradict the 'Share' aspect of SharePoint.
My overall experience with Microsoft has been good so far. I am sure there is still so much to learn about this application and I am still discovering new things occasionally. It is suitable if you are looking to create a cloud-based repository of documents and it works efficiently if the IT support team of your company set it up perfectly and they keep updating it steadily.
Pros
SharePoint is the cloud-based tool, which facilitates the storage, sharing, accessing, and managing the files from any location/device using centralized location link. It is a flexible platform and can be implemented and managed in the way you like it.
We have been using this software in our company for almost 3 years now and it is extremely compatible with our needs. It helps in creating a common repository of documents, which can be accessed by multiple users/devices. It works well within groups where the permission to access, edit is given by the primary user. It is one of the best software to manage the confidential information in a controlled and restrictive way. There is an option to chat within the group as well.
All files can be added to library by simple step of drag and drop. It has abundant features to choose from and you can tailor them as per your business needs. Since it is cloud based, it provides inter and intra-departmental cooperation creating a perfect collaborative environment for a small organization.
Cons
One has to be experienced with Microsoft products in order to run this smoothly else, it could be little complicated to learn in the initiate phase. Secondly, it could be expensive than the other products in the market however it provides good features but if you are looking for economical solution, you should research more before buying this. If someone authorized edits something in a document, it becomes difficult to locate where the correction has been made. Though it shows the real-time notification I someone is editing but if you try to locate for the past corrections, it is not easy to find out.
I have been using this software for information sharing and accessing within my organisation and I can say it's one of the best online web-based tool for sharing record and information and that too very securely. Definitely one of the best software for intranet web based information sharing.
Pros
Microsoft SharePoint is the best software for sharing of documentation and information witin an organization. This software given best control to the owners to enable controlled and restricted access to the information for the targetted users.
This helps users to access the information remotely from any location using centralized location link using web browser hence the companies can place the data securely at a centralized location even with password protection and let their employees to access the information virtually from any location using the link or url to access the information. Users can also edit or create new information on the portal using certain credentials provided as per the organizational chart.
This also helps companies to distribute the important bulletin without being any need to distribute that locally to the employees.
It's one of the best software for such controlled and restricted access to the information and valuable data.
Cons
Though it is very effective tool for management of information Sharing within an organization but it require some experience to set the checkpoints to enable the restricted access to the information to a certain group of peoples such as password protection, applying some read only checks and other restrictions that can be implemented.
I've recently been evaluating SharePoint to determine if it is an effective way for our company to share sensitive documents internally and externally with other users involved in our projects. It does seem to be a solid tool for sharing documents securely so we have decided to go with it. So far, so good. I will say that most of the same features are available through Google Docs for free but ultimately, it was the whole package that SharePoint is part of that convinced us to move our workspace into it for the sake of convenience and consistency.
Pros
This software allows you to share your documents, edit and collaborate with other users anywhere in the world in real time, securely. It's an amazing thing when you can see who is currently viewing and editing a document and everything anyone does is automatically saved and secure within the group it is shared with. SharePoint helps save an incredible amount of time and makes remote meetings much more productive. One of the possible drawbacks is that it seems to be limited to people who also use Sharepoint and live in the Microsoft community of software but I recently learned that you can share with people who don't have Microsoft accounts by providing them with a security key to access the documents. It becomes a two step process for them to accept the document and then get the key to enter but at least it is possible and this makes sure your documents remain secure.
Cons
It is possible to share with people who aren't part of your network or even Microsoft's network but again, it takes extra steps. Also, there are settings that enable or disable the feature and it is not very clear where the settings are or how to use all the different share options. It took some trial and error, testing and talks with Microsoft support before we were comfortable that it could do what we needed it to do and how to do it. Even after all of that, it is still a bit unclear when certain options should be used but I suppose that could be considered a benefit of the software's flexibility to do the similar things with different methods.
I used to not like SharePoint at all. It was not user-friendly at all and essentially it wasn't functional. Now that the SharePoint site I use has had some re-modeling and organizing, I feel more educated on the product and I am able to use the features to access the information I need to preform my job duties. SharePoint became much more user-friendly when I was able to customize the site for my team's specific needs. I had to work with my organization's specialized SharePoint experts to educate myself and my team, and get access to several controls in order to make the necessary changes my team needed, which was a difficult process. Overall, once all the changes were made the SharePoint site my team and I use is functioning and we are easily able to retrieve documents quickly, share important bits of information, update calendars to keep everyone informed of events, PTO, OOO, etc., and we can access links to all the websites we need to use to preform our job all in one location. It's great for training purposes and is helpful for new hires to have all the information they need in one convenient location. Now that SharePoint is up and running properly for my team, it is a very helpful resource that we could not do our job without.
Pros
It's customizable and has lots of capabilities. There are multiple applications you can add to a webpage.
Cons
The company I work for has controls set in place that limit your ability to have free range of the customizations and capabilities of the site. We had to do a lot of work to create a useable platform for the team I work on to be able to easily access documents and build a library of information. The search function is not user friendly.
SharePoint, in my opinion, is pretty OK. I would just as soon use DropBox or Google Documents to manage documents, but I think SharePoint is probably better for larger organizations with multiple moving parts. Again, I'm not sure if the problems I have with SharePoint are intrinsic SharePoint issues, or how my company set it up.
Pros
SharePoint allows you to share files with you coworkers easily. If you need software that helps you stay organized, helps keep your remote team connected, and a way to keep project files documented, this software works. For us, we had a large number of team members working remotely, and from satellite offices around the US. Sharepoint helped keep project managers and administrators accountable, and helped us stay organized and on the same page. We were easily able to manage document flow, and everyone could find documents easily
Cons
I don't know if this is a SharePoint problem, or how our IT administrators set up our SharePoint sites, but it was sometimes hard to navigate. There seemed to be endless dead-ends where you had to use the "back" browser button in order to navigate up folder levels. The features that allow you to edit Word / Excel documents in the browser never worked, and always ended up crashing. Also, the "social media" feature that allows you to post updates about what you are doing is really cheesy.
As a company that thrives on organization and sharing of information, SharePoint is a great starting point. However, I think there are better file sharing options currently on the market. Because our company has been using SharePoint since it launched in the early 2000's and we have over 1,000 employees using it currently, we are hesitant to look for other options. Nonetheless, many of our managers and executives are starting to see that SharePoint lacks some of the key features we are needing to run efficiently on a daily basis. If any company wishes to use SharePoint and keep it frequently updated, they need to invest in training a few employees to help maintain the software and its updates.
Pros
The best feature about SharePoint is its accessibility from an unlimited number of people. Our large corporation has all of our managers and executives setup and using SharePoint on a daily basis. It has allowed our 1,000+ users to access needed information and files from any computer that has internet access. This has been crucial to our company when it comes to getting out important information to our field managers.
Cons
When uploading files to SharePoint or downloading files from SharePoint, you can only do one document at a time. This is incredibly frustrating when you have a large amount of documents that need to be uploaded. If SharePoint could update to include a "drag and drop" feature for file sharing, that would bring them up to par with other file sharing software. Also, updating the different sections and pages of SharePoint is not intuitive. If you do not have a vast knowledge of the software, it is difficult to learn and the instructional guides are not easy to follow.
It saves time and increases communication within the organisation. It also unites the employees by providing a single platform for the management of documents. My organisation has been using SharePoint for 5 years and it has been always a great experience to use SharePoint.
Pros
This software manages documents well and provide efficient way to share the information within an organisation. With the use of sharepoint we can save our important documents at one place and all the employees of an organisation can access the document instantly, which saves time and cost. In SharePoint admin can give particular access to the users as per his requirement eg:- if employee A is working with finance in that scenario share point admin can give access of finance related documents to employee A rather than giving him access to all the documents managed by sharepoint . This option helps organisation to keep their data safe from any vulnerable condition.
Cons
It is recommended for large organisations as intial cost of setting up SharePoint intranet is high and it's not fruitful to use it for small organisation . SharePoint need to be customised before its implementation in a particular organisation and this customisation needs time .
Some other collaborative suites do not allow multiple people to edit a document simultaneously, though some competitors do. The biggest thing that stood out to me was that SharePoint provided this feature while using familiar software from the MS Office suite with almost full capability as the desktop application.
Pros
Teams of people from all over the United States were able to work concurrently and collaboratively on living documents. The ability to work in the same MSWord or Excel document simultaneously is extremely valuable to our work. We've tried using other similar web-based platforms for collaborative work with interdisciplinary teams throughout the country, but none were as convenient, familiar, and user friendly as SharePoint.
Cons
Some users on my team had experienced technical issues when navigating through nested files, where it would sometimes lead to an IT error message - forcing them to refresh the page and dig back through the file tree to get back to where they were. This was more of an inconvenience than a serious drawback, as it only happened to some users, through they told me it was somewhat frequent. Other users on my team never experienced the issue, so I wouldn't be quick to blame it on SharePoint.
I'm using SharePoint for more than 3 years now, and it is the main tool in my Company, I edit view and share SharePoint pages daily, where all our procedures and documentation are stored.
Pros
If you work at a company that owns Office 365 Subscription you have got to try SharePoint out. This is a great Knowledge-Base tool that can help you store, keep track of and share all your important Documents/Procedures/Files etc..
SharePoint is very powerful tool, it allows you to set access level and permissions for any page you have on your SharePoint, and even you can Synchronize it with OneDrive making all your Documents available offline on your dedicated device. SharePoint is simple to use, and simple to create any sort of page where you want to store your important documents and it is very customizable, so you can make every SharePoint page stand out from the other and be unique in it's own way.
Cons
SharePoint is very Customizable and you can do almost anything with it, but the Con would be that there is not that much of a templates to use, so you will have to start your page from scratch.
Pros
Sharepoint allows for the easy storage, management, and sharing of information within your company. It is more than just your basic configuration management tool as it integrates flawlessly with other Microsoft products such as Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc. You could have multiple people working on the same document and modifications sync up and can merge with each other. The Cloud based feature of it allows you to access documents remotely from your mobile device, which can be very convenient. Over the years, the interface has become visually more appealing and easier to use and navigate.
Cons
There are certainly other collaboration tools available in the market that compete with Sharepoint and are in many ways better than it in my experience. There are many options and features and it is not always straightforward on how to use them, so there's a bit of a learning curve for new users. I wish permissions could be set up such that managers or team leads had elevated levels of control, not as high as IT obviously but more than regular users. Every time one of our team members leaves, there would always be files locked by that person, and it just gets annoying to have to have IT unlock it for us every time.
We have SharePoint Foundation installed and in use in our main office. It was a free offering from Microsoft, and while it has some limitations, it's been a great addition to our company's assets. We have several sites site up, one for each project team, and a main company site where we use a shared company calendar, document repository, company project management, employee telephone directory, and training resources. Several of the customers we provide technical support for also use SharePoint in their businesses, with varying levels of customization.
Pros
I like the granular level of customization and bolt on third party apps and templates that are available and add nearly unlimited functionality to the SharePoint platform. I like that it can be accessible from within or outside of, a company's internal domain, and that which areas of Sharepoint a user can see and access is controled through differing levels of security.
Cons
If you don't understand the basics of web development and Internet Information Services (IIS), building SharePoint Site's, lists, repositories and administering the back end will have a learning curve.
Overall, it's a positive experience. It can be more costly and take more time than google or iCloud, but the security features and ability to collaborate easier with colleagues is invaluable.
Pros
SharePoint offers more features and collaborative potential than its competitors like Google Drive, iCloud, etc.
Cons
The ease of use can leave something to be desired. On less-capable computers, usage can be very slow.
Overall it has been fantastic to keep knowledge across both mechanical and electrical in one place for reference for all in both teams. Especially for newer employees.
Pros
What is really great about SharePoint is it makes it easy to put all of the accumulated knowledge and documentation in one place. This has been especially useful when we have new hires. When only a handful of us have been here for a decade or more, we have found it can be difficult to bring new hires up to speed. Especially as we didn't have any formal training documents in the past. With SharePoint we are able to continually add information and documentation to one place that everyone can use as a reference.
Cons
I'm sure it is more of there simply being so much information now, that it can be difficult to find something specific you are looking for if you don't know 'exactly' what it is you are looking for. But again, I'm sure we can find a better way to organize everything, rather than this being an issue with the product.
SharePoint enabled us to create an Intranet which made collaboration and sharing possible and took content management to another level with super simple organization, boosting the company's productivity, creativity and transformed our business processes.
Pros
SharePoint is super popular for its' collaboration and sharing capabilities, which is a game changer in today's workforce. It is not a desktop application that is installed locally, but instead, it is a storage server that is accessible via your browser using any PC, mobile device or a tablet.
One of its' key feature is the ability to create websites or team sites which enables teams to work together by storing and saving necessary documents, find whatever information maybe required and many more. Another one being its' content control and/or version control, making data easily accessible with one source. Also, SharePoint has an awesome search feature that allows you to effectively search within all the contents you have created.
Last but not least, it has a super handy recycle bin features for those days when life happened.
Cons
No cons at the moment, just an awesome top of the line saas.
Generally my overall experience with Sharepoint has been superb and excellent.
Pros
On the greatest thing i like about Sharepoint is that it provides me with a simple, familiar and consistent user experience thus simplifying how i interact with my documents and content during management process. Another great thing is that Sharepiont has efficient collaboration features that allows me to collaborate with fellow team mates during a project hence speeding up project completion time. It also promotes productivity in my organisation since the knowledge of each member flows freely within the organisation. I also like the fact that Sharepoint meets consumers choice by allowing me to change and specify on security settings, storage and auditing policies to those ones that i feel will best meet my organisation needs.
Cons
I feel that the very many built in features are more than enough making it difficult for one to choose which ones will best meet organisation needs.
Pros
Probably the best part about Sharepoint is its seamless integration with all the standard Microsoft software such as Word, Powerpoint and Excel. It's so nice being able to have multiple people on a team all working on a single document at the same time, whether it's through the online interface or through desktop-based software. The customizability of Sharepoint is also a strength. With some experience, it's easy to create dynamic, engaging web spaces for teams to utilize for storing and accessing information.
Cons
Customizing Sharepoint sites definitely takes some experience and users can be overwhelmed by available features. This can be overcome by training and governance, as long as you set up the right user rules. The worst part about Sharepoint is related to the web-based versions of the Microsoft office suite. Online Excel, Word and Powerpoint don't hold a candle to the desktop versions so users rarely work from the Sharepoint docs directly online.
It's a good product, but before you make the decision to purchase it, consult with someone who has used it for the reasons you want to use them (file storage, collaboration, websites, etc.) It's not cheap and it might be a waste of money.
We wanted to streamline the progress of working with files submitted by our Chamber members, which is why we united our website and a files storage. We also had two separate storages - one for internal documents that needed to be secure, and a public one, where we had files for our members. It worked, but it was not the easiest thing to use, so we kept the internal storage, but not the public website.
Pros
It's quite powerful, but like most of Microsoft products, it sometimes feels like it has too many available features and it's easy to get lost.
The main thing we liked about SharePoint was the documents, search, and web site options. Our goal was to recreate our corporate website, where people (Chamber members) can upload various documents, for example, application to become a member, and the files would automatically save in the required folder, where the staff can easily access it without having to resave it from emails.
Cons
It's certainly not the easiest thing to use. We had a corporate Microsoft 360 account, and so we decided to use SharePoint for the corporate collaboration for documents and then went for a website. I can't say it was a disaster, but it was definitely not something that was the most user-friendly interface.
After using SharePoint On-Prem for a few years now, if I had to go back and do it over, I would have chosen a different product for document storage and collaboration. Plan and map out your business needs before jumping into a SharePoint implementation.
Pros
SharePoint is very feature rich. Many people run websites, internal and external using SharePoint, and utilize it as a basis to collaborate within their organizations. It has it's own search services, as well as tie ins to active directory. It can be a one-stop shop for organizations for a repository or intranet.
Cons
SharePoint (On-prem) is very difficult to implement and plan out. If jumping from version to versions, there are sometimes limited to no migration paths as well, making a migration very difficult. Licensing for On-Prem is extremely costly, and not in the budget range for most small businesses. Ongoing maintenance and general administration of SharePoint alone can be a full time job for more than 1 individual depending on the build out and use.
Provides housing for our intranet portal to end-users and cloud storage for a number of internal workflows.
Pros
There are so many features and customization options inside of SharePoint that it would be seemingly impossible to ever list out everything you could do with it. Probably the best thing about it though is that it is a Microsoft product, which nearly instantly makes it an industry standard because it has integration with almost all other Microsoft products (most of which truly are industry standards like the Office Suite).
Cons
It is easy to get lost in SharePoint. You may want to create a workflow for example that requires a document to be passed along and approved by different users, but you will read documentation on how to do it and there will be 20 different ways to skin the cat. If you can figure it out then you will be a hero in your organization and everyone will love it, but the hardest thing is figuring out how to do it and sometimes even where to start.
Group projects are completed with less frustration and everyone is able to get their input on every aspect of a project. This program is the definition of "team work".
Pros
There is so many features to make group collaborations on a project smooth. There is direct messaging to discuss individually with a team member. Having share-able links is a huge plus for those who don't have the software to view the progress.
You can see who is typing what in what section and see trends. It make remote group work possible in one interface.
It integrates with other Microsoft products such as the commonly used Excel, Word, and PowerPoint.
You can chat as well as get progress done on the project.
It is much smoother and simpler than sending documents back and forth, so everyone can see what has happened.
Cons
There is a learning curve in getting familiar with the software and how to use it's features effectively. The big con is that it does take up a lot of computing space, so it can appear glitchy or laggy when being used. This is because of the sheer power and capabilities and the connection from so many sources.
Great features, could be smoother while using.
When sharing the link for others to view or join in, when they do not have the software there is more hoops to jump through to be able to actually contribute.
Easy to use system for sharing and storing, backed by the reliability of Microsoft. Been happy using for three years.
Pros
Sharepoint is absolutely reliable, dependable, and simple to use when doing simple things. My freelance work with one company requires daily use of Sharepoint, but mostly just for uploading documents and storing them in a fie system for future access. For this, the software is completely perfect. File menus are easy to create and easy to edit, and the Microsoft label makes them reliable. After daily use for three years, I find simple functions to be perfect with Sharepoint.
Cons
On the few occasions I've wanted advanced features, I must admit that I've had trouble finding them in Sharepoint's menu system. Does this software have a different menu system than other Microsoft products? I'm not quite sure, but it is only a handful of times that I've even needed advanced features, so it hasn't impacted my overall impression of the software.
We needed a fairly simple Staff Intranet for our mid-sized K12 education environment. Being on Office 365 made SharePoint a strong contender, and its direct link to Azure AD as part of the O365 suite is really what is keeping us on the product. It was difficult for our IT staff to design and configure - particularly due to the complex permission structure and lack of documentation - however we realize that with a SharePoint consultant this could have been completed much more effectively. It is good to see Microsoft transitioning to a Onedrive-based UI that will hopefully afford a better experience for both admins and end users.
Pros
-Lots of flexibility in configuring pages, apps, and web parts from scratch with Designer 2013 software
-Bundled with virtually all O365 licenses - don't need to purchase a new service and do Azure AD integration - especially nice as we can allocate permissions based on Azure AD groups
Cons
-Limited mobile app support - different navigation/UI from desktop version
-The product is currently in a transition stage - legacy site UI and pages remain, however users may be redirected to a new Onedrive-based UI platform when they enter from different points
-Permissions management is similar to Windows - is verbose and fairly complex (a pro and con)
-As a midsize business sysadmin - it's difficult to configure a SharePoint site without extensive experience
We use sharepoint to communicate updates across all members per department.
Pros
Each department has their own sharepoint log in, to keep everyone in the loop with any changes and updates that has to be implemented per department or team.
My team handles incoming calls. However i'm also crossed trained to make outgoing calls and handle emails. Depending on the business needs. I have access to their respective files so i can easily take that initiative to research on new updates. We even have self training materials for new handling details for different departments that i'm involved with. Updates are always real time and definitely easy access. And since it's a closed sharing program, security is also covered. So your target audience are the only one who can access the files.
Cons
I am not a part of the team who Initially pitched for the idea to use Sharepoint. It's already on going when i joined. But even though i have no hand in the initial set up. I know that the customization is labor intensive, specially since different departments has different needs and points to highlight. So every time we experience latency, unable to update error or blocked access, Our development team takes care of it. And they can fix it relatively fast.
My overall experience with SharePoint has been positive across the many years I've used it. One of the best features I learned about in recent years was the ability to map SharePoint to a drive on your computer. This has really helped in terms of uploading and downloading multiple files simultaneously. If you plan to use SharePoint, I highly recommend looking into this feature as it will save you a ton of time and enable you faster access to your files versus accessing them from a browser window. Mapping is extremely easy and, in my experience, invaluable. You will also find that you can post graphics on your SharePoint pages. We frequently post "work anniversary" or "birthday wishes" for our team. Lastly, the calendar is extremely helpful as you can block out vacations, conferences, and other events, and know, at a glance, what's happening each day without having to search through Outlook or other resources.