More than 75% of Fortune 500 companies are using Microsoft SharePoint, the fact in itself makes it one of the most sought after corporation soltion. Interestingly, they are all using it for different things. SharePoint is a platform for a number of different programs rather than being a single software program. Your employees can synchronize their efforts and communicate by tying their mobile devices and PCs together through the back-end system that SharePoint is. It is not something to purchase and install on a desktop computer.
Whether you have a company where ten people work from a single office or one where hundreds of employees are spread across a region, SharePoint makes it possible to work with the same level of coordination and agility.
The following are a few ways in which SharePoint helps keep everyone on the same page and in the loop:
More Productivity through Compatibility with Other Microsoft Products
SharePoint works with all Microsoft Suite products, as it is by Microsoft. SharePoint works natively with the Office suite, including PowerPoint, Excel and Word. So, if everyone in your office is familiar with MS Office, SharePoint can help enable even more features and enhance productivity even further.
Anytime and Anywhere Access
SharePoint is a web platform, which implies that anyone in the organization can access it at all times while using any browser. This is especially useful as the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend catches on with organizations as well as employees. People using not just Windows computers, but those using Chrome or Macs can also easily access SharePoint and, therefore, all the information you want to make available to them as members of your organization or business partners. SharePoint works very well with mobility and geographical spread of companies.
Business Intelligence
You have access to information for making better decisions and execute other business intelligence services based on the comprehensive access to your business’ data that SharePoint provides you. SharePoint can help you discover broader patterns, besides making it easier to search through all the files of your company. You can see charts and graphs that are intuitively graspable to understand relationships among different inputs or trends developing over time. SharePoint can also assist with implementation by getting everyone in the company onboard once the course of action is decided.
Intranet
A variety of information, along with scheduled tasks, announcements and news in your company can be found on the internal-facing site everyone associated with the company can sign in and access. From the status of ongoing projects to client history to employee performance are among the topics about which different levels of information access can be granted to everyone, while customizing dashboards by role and department. Company wikis and social networking platforms for employees can be set using tools that SharePoint provides. Everyone in the company can attend and visit seminars set up through the intranet of the company.
Websites
Your web developers can also create and manage a creative public-facing website using SharPoint.. You can make changes to your web pages after signing in through SharePoint, which acts as a website Content Management System (CMS). You can build new pages, add graphics or text and update information.
Documents
Documents don’t have to be locked on any one hard drive as shared space to store documents is available to businesses through SharePoint. Unless access has been limited to a small group by the administrator, SharePoint allows access to documents stored on it to everyone in the company. So, to obtain all files required for a task, you don’t have to wait for a number of emails or have to visit a number of offices. You can track updates, while saving previous versions, while you work simultaneously with your co-workers on single document through SharePoint. So you can get inputs from all the people you need to without having to email them different versions of the document.
Extranet
You can partner with outside businesses by sharing with them a site you create through SharePoint. You can give them a place to upload the information you need from them, while giving them access to information they need from you. The other business may be one you are contracting for a project a part of the supply chain of your company.
The Essence: SharePoint is built to extend the same ease of interaction that small groups located in a single location have to large groups who are geographically spread across a wide area. You can use any mobile device or desktop to access SharePoint. Access anything related to the project, including schedules and locations of co-workers, client histories, project status or other information from anywhere through SharePoint.
Almost any aspect of collaborating for business that you can think of can be easily streamlined and customized through the implementation of SharePoint. This makes it a very powerful tool that doesn’t rely only on its out-of-the-box functions and features.
Is it possible to link two distinct SharePoint instances to the same database?
We cannot link two SharePoint instances to a single database. Connecting them to a single server however is possible. But not the same database.
“SharePoint is built to extend the same ease of interaction that small groups located in a single location have to large groups who are geographically spread across a wide area.” This is so true. It definitely has helped us a lot.
Your good knowledge and kindness in playing with all the pieces were very useful. I don’t know what I would have done if I had not encountered such a step like this.