7 reasons to choose Sharepoint as a document manager

7 reasons to choose Sharepoint as a document manager

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“Can I use SharePoint as my document manager, replacing my current document repository?”, “What benefits can I obtain from centralizing my document management in Office 365 SharePoint?”, “How can I / do I have to face the change?” .

There are many questions that a company asks itself when choosing SharePoint as a document manager . When it comes to organizing documents there are many options that depend on the particular need of each business, however, it is essential to follow some “good practices” or initial recommendations that will undoubtedly facilitate the process. But where do we start?

Do you really need to migrate your entire file system to SharePoint Developers Toronto?
If we ask this question to end users, the answer will always be: “We have to save everything, just in case we need it later”? However, we must do a previous review exercise to clean and discriminate what really needs to be migrated.

We only need to migrate active documents . We don’t need to migrate log files from 10 years ago. We also don’t need to migrate content that we don’t even know what it is.
We must migrate recent versions . SharePoint offers a version control system, so no migrating “Document.v1”, “Document.v2” or “Document.v3”. Much better to start in a clean environment.
Will my current file structure be kept?
It is not necessary to keep the same current file structure . To implement workpuls an effective structure we must start thinking about how to work with SharePoint and that, transferred to our “real life”, could be summarized as follows:

SharePoint Content manager document manager

It is important to think about how to set up and organize sites and libraries: for example, you can use libraries per project on a team site or libraries per product on a project site. The possibilities are endless and the tools for working with documents in SharePoint too, so it is convenient to be clear about how each of them will be used.

To plan and create a new functional structure, it is important to think about which documents are for daily work , which we are not going to share with anyone and which may be organized at our discretion, and which documents that we do need to publish or share .

What features does SharePoint offer?
1. Version control
Version control is undoubtedly one of the most useful tools in SharePoint: it allows you to see what changes have occurred in documents, showing the version number and size of each document, who and when made the last change, and view and / or restore any previous version.

SharePoint Version Control

2. Protection and unprotection
What if I need to work exclusively with a document and no one else can modify it in the meantime? The check-in and check-out feature allows it: it allows a document to be edited for a specific user who must “check in” again or publish it after finishing working with it to make it visible to others.
It is necessary and important to analyze when a library should be configured to use this functionality because it contradicts basic principles of collaboration, although it can be useful in some scenarios.

3. Co-authorship
Co-authorship allows multiple users to edit the same document at the same time. It allows, in certain cases, to see what other users are modifying “live”, showing a cursor with the name of the user who is making the change, or to see the changes that have occurred when updating the content. It is available for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote documents.

SharePoint co-authored edition

4. Metadata
What happens if, in addition to my organization by folders, I need to categorize my documents ? For example, classify documentation by type of document, by year or by product. The organization by folders, in this case, would not be sufficient or effective, so we should use metadata to tag documents and then serve us to filter or search.

You need to spend time and effort analyzing the required metadata for each type of document. Doing it arbitrarily can make the difference between having a functional document manager or the opposite.

5. Searches
One of the essential points will be how to search for documents in SharePoint . The search is a very important and complex point and, to exploit it to the fullest, it is necessary to know how to configure it. SharePoint allows you to configure search scopes, to narrow down the data sources in which to search, and refiner panels, navigable metadata that allow you to filter the search results obtained.

6. Views
The document libraries allow you to filter, sort and group files by metadata to see the documentation you need to see, how you want to see it. For example, it may be common for one user to need to see the documentation of a library of “Minutes” grouped by year and sorted by department, while for another a view grouped by department and sorted by year is much more intuitive.

SharePoint allows you to save these settings in what, in SharePoint, are called public or personal “views” (only available to the user who creates them).

SharePoint views

7. Alerts
How can I be aware of the changes that occur in the most relevant documents of my organization? Or to know if someone has modified a file that I have created? SharePoint allows the subscription to alerts so that, in the event of any change in a library or file, automatic and customizable emails are received informing of the change.

As a good practice, pay special attention to how many alerts we subscribe: it is about receiving useful notifications and not ending up setting up rules to move those notices to a folder and not paying attention to them.more infoto visit: https://liveblogcenter.com/

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