Looking for Easy Document Management? Switch to SharePoint

Each organization has to include customized document management controls as part of its key strategies. In addition to deciding how to create, review and publish documents, it also needs to decide the most appropriate way to retain or dispose these after certain period of time. Therefore, most enterprises look for innovative a document management system that allows them to store, update, share, find, archive, restore and trace all types of documents. Microsoft has released SharePoint 2013 with a set of features to help users in managing all types of documents efficiently, while complying with the relevance governance or compliance policies. If you are looking for effective and flexible tools to control a document's life cycle, it is a great idea to switch to SharePoint 2013.

What Makes SharePoint 2013 a Powerful Document Management System?

Hassle-Free Sharing of Information and Resources

Similar to other innovative document management systems, SharePoint also enable people to access the required resources and information. But it also allows users to organize documents and coordinate calendars effectively, along with creating team workspaces. At the same time, the user also has option to create blogs and wikis simply by using templates. The users on the do can further avail the offline synchronization capabilities to access the documents regardless of his current location.

Tight Control over Document Life Cycle

SharePoint Server 2013 comes with all the capabilities required to control a document’s life cycle efficiently. At the same time, it also enables users to implement the policies applicable to each document. Along with auditing the document-related actions, the system further ensures that the documents are disposed or retained in the most appropriate way. These features further make it easier for an organization to manage documents as corporate records, while adhering to both corporate guidelines and legal requirements.

Maintain Integrity of Content

The latest version of SharePoint comes with document management capabilities. Before editing a particular document, the reviewer has option to activate document checkout. Thus, he can see the revisions made to the document and restore the document to the previous version. Also, the feature can be used to set security at both document and content level. These capabilities make it easier to maintain the integrity of content store on team sites or shared with a distributed team.

Easy to Build a Collaborative Environment

The IT department of an organization can deploy a collaborative environment through Windows SharePoint Services without putting any additional time and effort. Despite being easy to manage and scale the environment is still simple and flexible. The single-server setting and flexible deployment settings further make it easier to reconfigure the document management system according to the latest governance or compliance policies. Thus, all documents can be created, reviews and shared quickly to facilitate decision making.

Effectuate Document Security Management

While allowing teammates to access the resources and information from diverse locations, each enterprise has to put some amount of effort. But the security features provided by SharePoint enable them to effectuate document security management without putting any extra effort. The system allows users to nominate individual users or group, and set permission simply with two clicks. Also, the traceable access of requests to a site makes it easier to find out who has accessed the resources or information.

Smoothly Change the Location of a Document

Often users have to move or copy documents from one library or site to another. SharePoint allows them to move or copy the document at various stages of its lifestyle without any hassle. They can simply create a custom workflow to guide the document through a business process. Once the document life cycle is activates, tasks can be further assigned to the participants according to their individual roles and responsibilities. The authors with required authoring permission can further copy a particular document, while maintaining the relationship between the source and the destination document intact.

While switching to the updated version of SharePoint, an organization is not required to discard the tools that are already being used for day-to-day operations. Some of the most popular tools and applications in Microsoft Office system like Word and Outlook can still be used seamlessly with SharePoint 2013 to optimize the control over a document's life cycle. Custom Sharepoint development teams can help build sharepoint applications for you within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide SharePoint webparts development services. If you would like to speak to one of our expert SharePoint developers, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.

Top 12 SharePoint Content Security Risks and how to avoid them

As organizations are increasingly using hosted SharePoint farms, SP sites or SharePoint Online for regulated and sensitive data incorporating PII or Personally Identifiable Information, customer financial data, healthcare information as well as intellectual property, data security has become a thing of high priority. Along with this, organizations also have to combat expensive compliance risks that revolve around regulated data and Sharepoint. Certain compliance or security risks associated with SharePoint environments can have grave impacts on organizations, if they are left unattended. Security breaches, irrespective of the means which cause them, can lead to fines, brand damage, loss of customer trust along with other serious effects. Let us discuss 12 of the commonly occurring security risks and ways to avoid them.

• Lack of awareness regarding SharePoint content: Governance guidelines should be implemented and content classification should be provided. This involves execution of periodic content scans coupled with providing training to end users. Along with this, SP metadata as well as work-flows should be used by teams for routing sensitive information to safe locations.
  
  
• Collaboration barriers: There are a number of users who regularly copy confidential or sensitive data from SP to their hard drive or to a USB drive, for, say, emailing it to some other person. In most cases, the aim of this copying is to facilitate information sharing with a person lacking access to SP documents. Hence businesses need to enforce clear policies regarding information-sharing, followed by access monitoring and enforcement of policy compliance.
  
  
• Not securing SharePoint from privileged insider accounts: Privilege levels with respect to administrator accounts should be limited, followed by deployment of third-party security solutions for enabling encryption as well as access control.
  
  
• Non-existent or deficient audit trails for SP usage or administrative access: For all the administrative alteration made to Sharepoint and also with respect to system or file access, it is advisable to enable auditing.
  
  
• Lack of content security in SP servers, in transits or endpoints: Companies need to implement solutions which offer content security on SP servers and on backups by means of encryption as well as access control. Along with this, teams should take into account whole-disk encryption with regards to end-points, particularly laptops. SSL encryption can also be enabled by security administrators through data in transit.
  
  
• Misconfiguration of permissions or access controls: First, existing SP permissions need to be audited, followed by review or creation of control policies relating to corporate access. It is good to line up SP permissions along with corporate directory services. With this, administrators would be able to comprehend the use of inheritance as well as improperly managed item-level permissions.
  
  
• SP platform security risks: You should harden platforms through disablement of services or ports that are not required for the platform function. Moreover, patch on a regular basis and take into consideration application white listing.
  
  
• SharePoint and Malware: A server malware solution should be implemented, updating the antivirus definitions on a regular basis.
  
  
• Failure to set limitation on service and administrator accounts: It is advisable to set limitations on privileges relating to service accounts as well as go for disablement of the install account. Also do not make use of shared administrator accounts.
  
  
• SP network configuration and system architecture issues: Putting a dedicated SP web front end within a DMZ, make use of a single function with respect to each server and harden SP, database as well as OS in accordance with the best practices.
  
  
• Setbacks in executing backups, and in providing DR capability: On a regular basis, backups need to be performed and the same need to be restored. Then the means of recovery from disasters with the help of SharePoint services should be considered.
  
  
• Improper search indexing: Often to obtain search results, administrators leverage an admin account, which leads to results that are not relevant for everyone. To avoid this, administrative accounts should not be unnecessarily used for operations wherein they are not required.
  

Management of all the above-mentioned security risks by implementing proper security controls help a lot in mitigating compliance and content security risks in SharePoint. Moreover, putting the SP environment across a robust security footing enables you to widen the scope of SharePoint use within your organization for enhanced communication or collaboration. You can hire developers from top SharePoint application development companies in India who can help you build products within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide SharePoint webparts development services. If you would like to know more about SharePoint 2010 development or SP2013 development expertise, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.

SharePoint and Social Media Goes Together for Unlimited Benefits of Businesses

The social media has become an inextricable part of modern lifestyle. With millions of people using major social networking platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin on a daily basis, the social media has also become an effective medium of web-based communication and information sharing. The social networking platforms have further enabled companies to promote their products and services by targeting customers residing in different regions.

At the same time, many businesses also use social media to stay connected with their existing customers and potentials, along with gathering their suggestions, feedback and views. The huge popularity of social media has further made it essential for each business to choose a content management system that allows them boost public relations by availing the benefits of social media. Unlike the conventional file sharing softwares, the latest version of Microsoft SharePoint offers a variety of functions related to social media and collaboration.

In addition to seamlessly sharing data among your distributed team mambers, clients, vendors and other stakeholders, you can also use SharePoint features to build a customized social media portal for your business just like Facebook. The My Sites feature further enables your employees to create and edit their individual profile pages, and synchronize theire profile with the Active Directory. They can further create public profile to make share both personal and professional information with cowoekers and clients resding in other countries. The social media feature of SharePoint 2013 has made it easier for a business to avail the combined benefits of social media and an innovative content management system. This makes the search for “Top companies in Sharepoint” rise to gigantic global numbers.

Singificant Advantages of SharePoint Social Features

Centralized Location to Store All Your Conten: Each user wants to store all his files in a central location where the information can be accessed easily by others. The My Sites features allow users to have a central location for their personal and professional information. Microsoft has further optimized the features to make it easier for users to access the required information without putting any extra time and effort.

You also have options to use the default Team Template to see links for Sites, Newsfeed and SkyDrive on the top of the page. These links will make it easier for users to quickly navigate within the My Site. Once you make these sites available on several templates, the members of your distributed team can easily navigate from the content related to a specific team or project. Also, they can easily collabaorate the information with their personal account.

Easy to Organize, Access and Share Your Data: Many users look for easier options to organize their content, rather than linking the content to their personal account. Share Point 2013 suuports a concept knows as Follow. The feature enables users to easily and quicky add links and references to specific files on their individual My Sites. At the same time, you can use the features to easily follow documents, people, tags and sites within SharePoint. Based on the things you want to follow, you can see the icon directly that will make it easier for you to access the content in future.

For instance, if your project requires you to create and review new documents, the Follow concept will make it easier for you to add reference to the existing as well as new content. Also, you can review the documents easily by seeing your newsfeed updated. Simialarly, your suggestions and feedback can be viewed by other team members through their newsfeed updates. So they can easily decide the content that they have to rely on, instead of navigating through the entire site.

Options to Start and Continue Conversations: The SharePoint 2013 further allows users to discuss the content by posting, and responding to comments. When one opens his newsfeed, he can view the information on different categories. The section will also see the things that you follow under each catergory. Along with following the content, you can use the feature to interact with other users directly from the site. You can simply add the @ symbol before the name of the specific post, and make it easier for others to find the global address. Also, the mentioned users will get email notifications informing them about the update.

Further, when you create a new team site, it will by default contain a newsfeed. The newsfeed can be used by your teammates to discuss the content. As all your contents are located in a cental place, your coworkers can easily iniatiate a conversation, and participate in discussions. Your colleagues also have options to interact with each other by sending emails. But the interactions through newsfeed will complement the needs of all users. Also, the conversations will remain more centralized within your team or project content.

If you are new to building a social media sharing site using SharePoint 2013, it is advisable to gather instructions provided by Microsoft. The whitepaper further explains how to customize your content management system to avail the features and functionality offered by major social networking platforms.

We provide sharepoint development services. If you would like to know what makes us expert sharePoint developers, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.