What is SharePoint?

Understanding what SharePoint is and how to use it for your business can be a difficult concept.  A simple explanation begins with stating that SharePoint is not a program, but instead a platform and collection of many different products and solutions bundled together.  The platform is accessed via a server on your network, which users connect to and uses its solution tools from.

What do you use SharePoint for?

SharePoint allows you to create websites that hold features which allow users to work together.  It’s like an office intranet platform, which allows employees to share and manage content, collaborate and quickly find information.  The platform empowers teamwork, where users can easily share files, data, news updates and more.  Resources are easy to share, ensuring users are kept engaged and up to date with what’s happening within the company.

SharePoint inherently helps users work with other people.  The platform offers you shared calendars, tasks lists and documents, and will let you know when things have been changed by another user.  For example, when using Microsoft programs such as Word, PowerPoint or Excel, users can save their work directly onto their SharePoint site, which allows other users to access and contribute to it.  It's essentially a platform that acts as a home for your community’s content, and a platform to be able to work on it together.  Access rights to specific sites can also easily be controlled.

Working with so much data can make it challenging to find something specific,  but even the simplest of features like SharePoint’s search tool helps to make this as easy as possible.  In just one click, users can find information, expertise from colleagues and data insights to inform their decisions.  You can search your own content in multiple ways, as well as search for people within your network.  SharePoint also helps you bring all of your information together and provides you with insights to help you understand, organise, build upon and extend it.  SharePoint celebrates collective knowledge, and makes it easier than ever to find it.

 

To learn more about SharePoint and how to best utilise it for your business, you can check out our SharePoint courses.