Sharepoint Report

SharePoint Report

Report Distributed February 29, 2015

What is SharePoint Online and Why We Chose It?

SharePoint Online is a team collaboration software tool. It can be used to store, share, organize, collaborate, communicate, and access information of our organization from anywhere. As per Microsoft definition of SharePoint Online, it is a cloud-based service, hosted by Microsoft, for businesses of all sizes. Instead of installing and deploying SharePoint Server on-premises, any business can subscribe to an Office 365 plan or to the standalone SharePoint Online service.

We believe that it can be useful to the company because it is an easy way to communicate with staff and other departments throughout the company. Also, communication messages between external partners can be sent as email, mobile text, videos, podcast, etc.

Other Forms of Communication Recommended

Some other forms of communication we considered were Yammer, an internal social network that mixes messenger with the collaboration tools in Office such as OneDrive, Outlook and Skype. Team Caller, a mass text message or phone call that is recorded and sent to people’s cellular devices and lastly, Microsoft Lync an instant messenger. These were not recommended because they did not include external users.

Issues with Communication and the Proposed Solution

Every aspect of our business involves communicating with employees, departments, and external partners. Our communication is not the issue, it is the time to communicate that is the problem. For example, once correspondence reaches an office by envelope or email, it must be processed internally, forwarded, and its status communicated. During normal workflow, this has been done effortlessly and communicated timely. With our current increase in work, we are witnessing backlogs, and untimely responses to customers and partners.

Collaboration spaces are needed due to many projects underway. Whereas a presentation would normally be...