What is Sharepoint?

So, you have found us while looking for a CRM or Stakeholder management solution and you either don't know what SharePoint is or your business does not currently use Microsoft SharePoint.

Does this sound familiar? - 'There are many copies of Word documents floating around your office server, workstations and email folders. No one knows which is the most recent version of 'that agreement' or when it was edited or by whom. Your inbox is filled with emails with attachments to look at and comment on or edit - consuming lots of mail server storage.

• You and your colleagues waste time every day looking for the latest document, spreadsheet, presentation or that proposal that we did last year,
• people are always asking the same questions because there is no easily accessed reference for business processes, and
• managing meetings and who is meant to be doing what - consumes way too much time!

Well, if you use SharePoint this wasted time, documentation confusion and business risk can be neutralised!

Which takes us to what is: 'What is SharePoint'?

If you Google that question, you will find literally hundreds of definitions. But if you are a newbie to SharePoint lets start with:

SharePoint is a Microsoft technology platform that you can use in your business or organisation.  It runs on a Windows Server and there is a free version available with your Windows Server license. It can be deployed in-house or hosted by an external service provider.

Microsoft Sharepoint enables you to run your business or organisation more effectively, by enabling users to share business information including Microsoft Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, PDFs and other business and social information. It provides a 'single source or truth' for documentation and business information. All of the information can be restricted to specific users or groups of users. It can be accessed via a browser from your desktop, your home computer or while on the road - using secure connections.

Microsoft's SharePoint provides a platform on which your organisation can run an intranet* and extranet** consisting of a collection of web sites. These SharePoint web sites can be used to manage a wide range of business related activities. With out-of-the-box SharePoint you can do business tasks like:

• storing, sharing & collaborating on files created in MS Office applications, PDFs, images etc..
• creating WIKI sites to brainstorm and share ideas
• creating blogs for internal information sharing
• tracking meeting's - attendees, status, decisions and documentation
• managing and collating all of the information for an event or project
• providing internal training information
• organising social events, tracking attendees, providing directions and sharing event pictures
• sharing internal processes for different business activities

Research on the web and you will find the many ways that people are utilising SharePoint to make their business activities more efficient and productive.

Then there is a wide range of third party add-ons that enhance SharePoint functionality. These include applications and tools to manage workflow, reporting, advanced alerting, graphical mapping and charting.

LookOut Software's CRM and SRM are business application  add-ons for Microsoft SharePoint that enable users to leverage more of their business activity from within the SharePoint browser interface. We basically add components to an additional SharePoint web site to make your CRM or SRM. This means you do not have to leave SharePoint to lookup a contact's details, update an opportunity or project, add a new phone call etc.

By leveraging the felxibility and scalability of Microsoft Sharepoint the deployment of an in-house CRM / SRM system can be quicker, easier and less expensive. As your ITC staff or server provider do not have to install an application on every desktop your relationship management tool can be up and running very quickly. Find out more about our SRM and CRM here

Notes:

* an INTRANET is one or more in-house web sites that can only be accessed by your organisation's personnel. SharePoint is also used to create public facing web sites, but the intranet/extranet usage is relevant to our CRM and SRM applications for SharePoint.

** an EXTRANET is similar to an Intranet. It enables authorised users outside of the firewall to access SharePoint. These users could be your staff or even third party business partners.