Sharepoint Organization

Sharepoint Organization

SharePoint organization is an excellent, enterprise-changing tool. It’s also daunting. Yes, it’s okay to admit that taking advantage of all of the fantastic tools nested within SharePoint requires you to actually know how to organize your SharePoint experience. Take a look at some simple “best practices” to help you stay organized.

Gather Intel

This is the step that too many companies are skipping when adopting SharePoint. Good SharePoint organization starts with good conversations. This means conversations with enterprise leadership, the team members who will be using the platform and outside experts. All three groups are equally important for creating an organized, meaningful rollout without perpetual hiccups.

When you go to leadership, you need to ask about expectations. Figure out what they really need from this platform to make the investment of time and money worth it. Next, it’s time to talk to team members. The key here is to determine any existing systems or rules that need to be folded into your SharePoint organization. Lastly, get outside input from people who understand SharePoint. This is going to save you from building limitations into your rollout that are going to cause frustrations.

Create a Governance Plan

SharePoint success comes down to structure, structure and structure. That’s why it’s essential to formulate a plan for how you intend to structure all of the sites and libraries within SharePoint. However, grand governance isn’t enough. You also need to create department-specific and team-specific governances to accommodate for how needs change based on roles and tasks. This relates to everything from functionality to privacy.

Make Document Versioning a Standard Practice

This is really just something that saves you from headaches. Versioning is actually the default for SharePoint documents. While that’s good news, you still want to make sure all users keep this feature enabled.

Take Advantage of SharePoint Metadata

This is huge for finding documents! You can easily fall into the trap of just using SharePoint as “fancy” document storage if you’re just relying on folders. Using metadata to tag documents with easily searched keywords helps to keep documents accessible instead of allowing them to fall into the abyss of endless files. It’s smart to establish some universal rules for how keywords are chosen for documents to ensure that all users can “logically locate” all documents they need.

Nothing beats SharePoint when it comes to building communication and collaboration across your enterprise. However, this platform is not immune to confusion and disorganization caused by “human error” during implementation. Make sure you’re getting some outside help from people who understand every facet of SharePoint to enjoy a level of organization that allows everyone to do more in less time! NCN is proud to be a SharePoint partner to countless organizations. Let us show you how to organize SharePoint for success.