Is Sharepoint a Good Product?

[radderfire]

I've never used Sharepoint and was wondering if it's a good product? i.e. is it well designed and easy to implement and use? In the past I have found Microsoft products a bit lacking in design/usability so I'm interested to know opinions on Sharepoint. Thanks.

 

[Glanza]

Depends what your usage is going to be

 

[d_brennen]

It's fine for it's intended purposes. A lot of the UI frustrations come from poor implementations and lack of staff training

 

[pepp77]

We use it and set it up for customers. It is a great centralised file repository available from anywhere and as long as setup correctly with the right structure and permissions it works as you would want it to. The best bit is the sync to explorer feature.

 

[radderfire]

So its main purpose is as an intranet, team collaboration and file repository? Does it do this all well and is it superior to other team collaboration products?

Is it easy to setup?

 

[pepp77]

in its most basic form it is a file sharing repository, but there is more that can be done with it, just dont ask me what. The basic setup is easy peasy.

 

[Rroff]

I'm not a big fan of it but as mentioned above a lot depends on the implementation - it needs forward thinking and a well organised approach to make it truly useful - far too many places it turns into a mess of different approaches and spread out information lacking a cohesive approach and proper per user quick links, etc.

 

[malachi]

We use it to replace the on-prem file server we had.

Enough to hold files, that's all we need it for.

 

[coupe69]

I'm not a big fan of it but as mentioned above a lot depends on the implementation - it needs forward thinking and a well organised approach to make it truly useful - far too many places it turns into a mess of different approaches and spread out information lacking a cohesive approach and proper per user quick links, etc.

I've found this, unfortunately, this sums up our company's integration of Sharepoint. The structure is lacking with folders and files all over the place.

 

[robertgilbert86]

The Explorer integration really is useful, but as above, I've seen it set up badly so you end up with multiple locations and servers(?).

 

[cokecan]

The search and indexing in SP I've found to be pretty damn good generally. The integration with 365 groups and Teams is a bit of a change for users but overall as a file repository and collaboration tool it certainly does the job. I have no qualms with it overall. One of my setups is a bit of a bodge to store a collection of files between a group of users that are synced using Files on Demand and Storage Sense in Windows. Each user can see all the files on their machines in the synced SP directory without actually storing the files locally, then when they try to access them it downloads the files in the background automatically so they can be edited locally. Storage Sense then storage sense then cleans up the local file after so many days of no activity. These settings are all controlled by InTune and honestly it's been working pretty flawlessly for the last 2 years. You just gotta be careful about how many files are being synced as eventually there will eventually be quite an overhead when maintaining changes to many many files across multiple machines in this way

 

[Throrik]

Was a big fan of a good implementation of an old school On Prem Sharepoint farm, used to manage one, loads of team sites, custom C# integrations etc.

Was a very different use case compared to the 365 version.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

This might put you off.
Our hospital of 11,000 staff has just gone over to it totally integrating Office 365 with it.
I basically use it for sending Medical Records to Solicitors and Coroners and stay away from all the other bits.

 

[radderfire]

Thanks for all the replies guys.

 

[bloodline76]

Its a great product, very easy to use. Plenty of helpful free videos online.

 

[Sone]

I find it works well for small team colaboration or just general information pages. People try to do too much with it is when it seems to go wrong.

 

[m4cc45]

It has great integration into the rest of the MS suite, it's basically what runs OneDrive and, as others have said, the metadata searching is amazing (i.e. picking out words inside a document or PDF).

But, again as others have said, you need a clear use idea first, what is it going to be used for? What security boundaries need putting in place? How are people going to access the data? etc. before you go about implementing it. The reason why there are so many mixed reviews on it is, typically, because of awful implementation.



M.

 

[OspreyO]

Works well ONCE you know what you are doing. We replaced most of file shares, and intranet, project drives and manage file shares internally and externally with it. Its integrated with Office 365 and MS Teams. In fact these kinda sit on top of SharePoint. So to use it you need to have a good knowledge of Office 365.

From the wiki. "SharePoint allows for storage, retrieval, searching, archiving, tracking, management, and reporting on electronic documents and records. Many of the functions in this product are designed around various legal, information management, and process requirements in organizations"

Problem I have we we migrated with very poor training of our user base. Because Office 365 cloud and collaborative working require a sizeable step up in skill set over local copies of Office and Network File Share. Some people will never get it.
The other issue is, you need a naming convention for SharePoint sites, and how you will administer it, we use Azure Active Directory. Some users manages refuse to comply or adhere to the rules, so administer it themselves without knowing how it works, so some sites become a confused mess.

The interface is clunky though. Microsoft loves to make simple things complicated.