3 business problems solved with SharePoint

With rapid globalization, businesses are required to cope up with the trend to operate from locations outside the office; hence the need for efficient communication becomes all the more evident. Dynamism and agility are the ultimate necessities for businesses to have a competitive edge, but paper-based processes or poorly structured documentation storage are becoming a hindrance, given the time as well as the effort needed in searching for information.

So far as paper documents are concerned, it is inconvenient to track them. Very often, there is the probability to lose them and moreover, manual processes can result in errors. Since the process state is not visible, considerable time has to be spent in completion of actions or monitoring the process. Poor visibility may also be caused by storage of documents in inadequately structured shared drives, wherein manifold versions often lead to duplication and loss of visibility for the most recent version. All these issues combined together lead to lower productivity and higher cost, with dire consequences such as litigation in case processes fail.

Across the years, SharePoint has emerged successful in solving these common business problems. With the passage of time, this product by Microsoft has become the standardized means for storage as well as sharing within an organization. Every client has a different manner of SP utilization for solving problems. Let us discuss three common business problems that SharePoint has solved.

Document Management : It is a fact that a number of businesses make use of sub-folder structure for storage of documents and emails are being used to distribute them. In this case, locating documents within a deep set of sub-folders or going through loads of emails might be a great hassle. Being a central location for the complete set of documents, SP is able to solve these problems to a great extent, enabling rapid access of documents.

A powerful feature of SharePoint document management is that the storage of “meta-data” or information is possible against the documents within columns. A much more robust solution is provided by SP, which brings together the data as well as documents. Moreover, document control features such as the capability of viewing track changes or version history have great potential especially in cases where using the latest version is extremely essential. Again, a document's major and minor versions enable a department or an individual to make alterations to a document without publishing the alterations before they are entirely ready. Version conflicts are prevented by the check-in and check-out features, and documents are also made available for out-of-office use.

Workflow Issues : Since SP empowers non-technical users with the capability of fixing efficiency issues, it is indeed a great tool for solving business issues as well as making room for rapid development. So, now employees who are well-versed with the issues can leverage SP to solve them without involving the IT department. This is where the beneficial uses of SharePoint workflows come in, which help in accelerating the process, reducing errors, doing away with unnecessary steps, providing better documentation along with enhancing communication.

SharePoint solutions also enable convenient document movement through approval process, updating information from other databases or software programs, and so on.

Collaboration : SharePoint goes a long way in doing away with the problems of disparate systems, unstructured data and decisions, thereby resulting in increased collaboration. Considering the collaborative aspect, the major areas wherein SharePoint comes in handy are HR Management, Compliance and Business Intelligence. As an efficient collaboration portal, SharePoint empowers investors, clients, partners, coworkers, stakeholders to share ideas and information on dedicated SP pages which store information pertaining to that particular project. Moreover, with the help of SP, a team environment can even be promoted amongst employees who work remotely, irrespective of the frequency at which employees meet each other.

Thus, it is clear that SharePoint, with its powerful features have been able to solve critical business problems thereby leading to immense benefits. Proper implementation and management can indeed lead to great business improvements. Sharepoint 2013 mobile development teams can help you build products within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide SharePoint portal development services. If you would like to hire sharepoint developer from our certified team of SharePoint developers, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.

SharePoint Migration Using 3rd Party Tools

Currently in SharePoint, content migration is achieved using third party tools. Leveraging third party solutions simplifies the procedure along with reducing the effort or time needed for the process. It also cuts down on the cases of failed migrations arising out of issues such as file corruption. Analysis has revealed that clients spend good amount of time preparing data for migration, and these efforts may not yield fruit in case the policies and procedures are not adhered to. Owing to such risks, clients prefer using third-party ISVs or independent software vendors for migrating content from on-premises SP into the hosted service. Let us check out the following third party tools that facilitate migration or consolidation of content.

AvePoint: A recognized leader in rendering infrastructure management solutions for Microsoft SP, AvePoint is a cost-effective and efficient solution for migrating business-critical content from diverse electronic repositories to Microsoft SP. The following are a few of the different DocAve Migrator modules:

• Content can be automatically moved from source SharePoint 2003 or 2007 into the mapped elements within SP 2007 or 2010 by SharePoint Migrator.

• Website Migrator provides an efficient, reliable and affordable solution for the organized transfer of web content to MS SharePoint 2007/2010.

• Content sprawl is reduced along with IT productivity enhancement by eRoom Migrator through centralization of eRoom project databases as well as other collaborative assets across a single SharePoint 2010 and 2007 repository.

• Consolidation of manifold EMC Documentum content sources over SP can be automatically achieved by Documentum Migrator, thus maximizing ROI for legacy content present within EMC Documentum.

Clockwork Software: This software offers reliable document migration from old ECMS to SharePoint 2013 or SharePoint 2010. Successful migration can also be achieved from any SQL Server based ECMS (CMS, DMS, EDRMS) with files stored over a network drive or share. ECMSs such as Hummingbird DM6, Worksite, FileNet, DOCs Open and so on. With this, various version and metadata can be migrated to SharePoint libraries as well as folders. It is also good for small migrations.

Idera SharePoint migration suite: It is by far the most comprehensive solution available. This tools empowers you to visually architect as well as organize content and metadata during the migration process, thereby improving usability, eDiscovery, search and manageability. This suite can be used again and again, without any services, in a variety of scenarios that include SP site reorganization, SP platform upgrade, as well as rolling out new applications and sites. The following are the components of the migration suite:

• SP information architect which facilitates rapid and convenient development, deployment as well as maintenance of SP taxonomies and metadata.
• SP content organizer allows for the application of metadata and relocation of files anywhere within SharePoint with simply a few clicks.
• With the help of SharePoint migration manager, content can be deployed, migrated or compared within different versions of SP or from file systems.

Metalogix: Data can be migrated into SharePoint from any source system by using Metalogix. It is possible to migrate from one version of SharePoint to another, from diverse Enterprise Content Management systems as well as from Exchange public folders, websites, blogs or file systems. For simplifying the process, there are different kinds of modules like SharePoint Site Migration Manager,Website Migration Manager for SharePoint, Metalogix Migration Manager for Blogs, etc.

Axceler-Davinci Migrator: It reduces the risk, brings down the cost as well as reduces the time required for the procedure. With the help of the Davinci Migrator, you would be able to identify possible problems prior to their occurrence. Migration estimates aid the creation of realistic schedules. Moreover, Davinci allows migration in a single big wave or a series of continuous smaller waves. Hence you have the freedom to operate as per your own schedule.

Apart from the above-mentioned ones, there are a number of other tools such as Vital-Path, Vyapin, Tzunami, Proventeq and so on. By using these third-party tools, many obstacles that cause hindrance to the overall migration process, can be overcome. If you need an experienced hand with your sharepoint migration, you can hire developers from top companies in sharepoint. That will surely release a lot of stress associated. However please do ensure that the vendors you choose at least possess the awareness of tools available.

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