The lack of a company-wide collaboration strategy can be a bottleneck to achievement, leading to an unengaged workforce and disconnected colleagues. As the world becomes accustomed to hybrid working, using technology to work smartly and efficiently is a top priority for small businesses.

In the first blog of a SharePoint-focused series, we’ll be sharing some examples of how to use Microsoft SharePoint for collaboration. These SharePoint use cases show how you can improve cooperation and productivity among your employees.

Microsoft SharePoint can be used to store, organise, share and access information from any device. As a central repository for an organisation’s knowledge, it provides a secure and stable location from which to manage projects and build and share documents.

SharePoint provides modern tools for content and project management, but a key factor in its popularity lies in its collaborative capabilities. If you’re looking to improve teamwork across your organisation, these five tips on how to use SharePoint for collaboration should provide some answers.

How to use SharePoint for seamless collaboration

One of the most widely-known functions of SharePoint is allowing multiple users to work together on a live document. With the ability to view version history, write and respond to comments in real-time, and store all related content in a secure shared location, collaborative SharePoint use cases cover virtually all business activities.

With SharePoint, document management is modernised, relieving you of overflowing folders filled with outdated files. You can create a streamlined and structured system so that you can always access critical documents with ease. As well as helping you store and disseminate information precisely, SharePoint enables any team member to create a project, select its participants and choose the level of access that each person should be granted.

As more and more organisations require easy-to-use technology to optimise teamwork, SharePoint integration with any device means you can access what you need whenever you need it.

Build a SharePoint intranet service to engage and unify your people

A culture of cohesion is important for any organisation, strengthening bonds and overcoming traditional silo working mentalities. Its flexibility and customisation mean many businesses use SharePoint is as an intranet service to build communities and ensure people stay connected in the hybrid workplace.

Using a SharePoint intranet service provides numerous communication and management features for organisations of all sizes. Beyond the standard home intranet site, you can create extensive portals and multiple websites for communication and resource sharing, and even embed applications that are specific to your industry.

Improving communication and allowing for better teamwork relies on strengthening employee relationships. Common SharePoint use cases involve harnessing the rich engagement tools available.

SharePoint also offers personalised, targeted news for your users, adding to that sense of individual engagement which is so vital to making people feel valued and appreciated.

Communities can be created by integrating Viva Engage with your SharePoint intranet service, providing an informal and conversational dimension to your internal communication with a place to share content with unique groups.

Use Sharepoint to harness collective knowledge

As the pace of work increases, so does the need for knowledge to be accessible in a simple, speedy way. SharePoint makes it easy to find information and expertise as soon as you need it and encourages users to share their own knowledge within your organisation’s repository. This is one way we see organisations using SharePoint for collaboration successfully: facilitating the ongoing exchange of ideas.

SharePoint’s content management system, complementing its integration with Viva Engage and Teams, enables you to maximise the speed and variety of knowledge sharing across your organisation, with people, expert opinions and content all included in a powerful search function.

If you have SharePoint set up optimally for your business, the search function in Sharepoint can immediately provide your users with recommendations of relevant content, websites and news, as well as always showing recent files, making it quick and easy to get back to work.

Also included in search is your entire workforce, with SharePoint responding to queries by highlighting individuals whose expertise and skills are relevant to your needs, creating introductions and links which make collaboration so much simpler.

Even greater possibilities with Microsoft 365 and SharePoint use cases

Sharepoint is a key part of Microsoft 365, a collection of applications that organisations rely on.

Integration of apps across Microsoft 365 is seamless. This gives you the ability to use a lot of Microsoft tools within SharePoint, including Word, PowerPoint, the Viva suite and OneDrive. For example, you may choose to employ SharePoint in tandem with Planner to manage tasks and oversee individual responsibilities throughout a project.

Microsoft offers a standalone SharePoint subscription but leveraging it together with Microsoft 365 opens up even greater collaborative possibilities – which is where the platform excels.

Microsoft Teams, fast becoming the de facto tool for business communication, has a symbiotic relationship with SharePoint. A simple way of understanding their connection is by viewing Teams as the interface and Sharepoint as working behind the scenes to manage and supply user requirements. One example is that when creating a Team, the Team is automatically created in SharePoint where you can access all relevant files and data.

Microsoft Viva, Microsoft’s employee experience platform, is customisable within Teams. This allows your users to access the tools they need together with access to relevant news and communications. This all adds up to make make communication more accessible, with added functionality to boost productivity. Once Viva has been integrated into Sharepoint, the Teams dashboard will offer additional navigation tools to assist in your workflow.

SharePoint is the foundation of Viva, providing unified integration to optimise collaboration. With Viva becoming a familiar part of many organisations’ internal communications experience, an additional tool is now available to make hybrid working as streamlined as possible.

How to use SharePoint for collaboration with Power Automate

Microsoft technology is designed to enable you to do more for less and some of the most effective SharePoint use cases come from its integration with Power Automate.

Power Automate helps you automate common tasks across Microsoft 365 services with the aim of freeing up time and optimising efficiency.

Responding to emails, activating approval processes and error handling are just some examples of the automation which can be achieved by building workflows in SharePoint and Power Automate.

The capabilities of Power Automate give you even more options when using SharePoint for collaboration and productivity. It’s a particularly modern approach to working which can save you time on low-intensity tasks, freeing up space to focus on high-priority responsibilities.

 

Microsoft SharePoint offers exciting opportunities to optimise your business processes and build a collaborative environment where more is possible. Talk to our experts today about bringing SharePoint to your organisation.