SharePoint Online

44’s Jonny Hooke explores the reasons why switching to SharePoint Online should be at the top of your list for the new year.

January is typically a time to reflect and take stock. And in the world of internal comms, it’s an opportunity to think about new ways for your workforce to collaborate and stay connected, whether you’re deploying your intranet for the first time or upgrading to a shiny new platform, such as SharePoint Online.

It’s an obvious point, but if you’re responsible for communicating with different groups of colleagues within your organisation, then you need a good set of tools that allow you to do so in a straightforward and pain-free manner.

And with SharePoint Online, there are a range of features to help you enhance your internal communications strategy and boost the employee experience for your workforce. It’s scalable, flexible and in many cases may already be available in your organisation.

Given the sheer depth and potential of SharePoint Online’s capabilities, it can be daunting knowing where to start, but a little understanding of what’s possible can go a long way to unlocking some great benefits for your company.

So, what is SharePoint Online?

In simple terms, SharePoint Online is a collaborative software tool designed to improve internal communication across organisations.

It allows users to create intranet sites for teams and departments; manage content effectively; collaborate with team members inside and outside your organisation; manage and collaborate on files; automate workflows, and much more.

How can it help me and my team?

1) It enhances your intranet and communication channels

SharePoint Online gives organisations the opportunity to create communication and team sites, allowing colleagues to disseminate news and updates across both large and small audiences.

Communication sites – or intranets to you and me – have a range of features to encourage collaboration across organisations, such as newsfeeds for updates, blog sites for leaders to share strategic messaging, social media feeds powered by Microsoft Viva Engage, Enterprise Wiki pages to endorse knowledge-sharing, document management and libraries to promote collaboration (more on that below), and much more. And it’s all tied together within a single platform. Neat, eh?

Team sites target improving communication within smaller groups. For example, a marketing department with a handful of people may create a team site to share news, updates and files between themselves, thus streamlining communications and helping members stay connected.

There’s also lots of personalisation available within SharePoint Online, from site templates, page layouts and ready-made web parts for the intranet build, to personalised homepages and audience targeting, to help different groups see the content that’s most important to them quickly and easily. This level of customisation helps you design your intranet and channels to best meet your workforce’s needs, so they can better absorb the company culture and engage with your content.

2) It helps with document management and file sharing

SharePoint Online provides access to files in your organisation that can be edited and collaborated in real-time – irrespective of where colleagues are located or what device is being used.

It’s also a useful repository for organisation-wide information, such as forms, templates, lists, business data and more – so having it all in a single, accessible location makes it easy for colleagues to find the documents they need.

Document management features like version control, document check-in/check-out, and indexing, ensure that everyone has access to the latest version of documents – which can often by a pain point for intranet users. Efficient document control, backed up by good intranet governance, is the backbone of any successful SharePoint Online intranet.

3) It’s integrated with Microsoft applications

SharePoint Online seamlessly integrates with other Microsoft Office 365 tools, such as Outlook Online, Word Online, Excel Online, OneDrive, Teams and more, providing a unified suite of productivity tools. And delving deeper, SharePoint Online supports Power BI integration for employees handling data, and you can develop custom applications to automate tasks, streamline communication, and more.

Users can access and interact with documents directly in SharePoint Online, eliminating the need to switch between different applications. And all of this means increased productivity and efficiency, and therefore a seamless working experience for your team.

And it’s the familiar user interface of many of these apps that can help employees learn how to use SharePoint Online quickly, boost user adoption and reduce training costs.

4) It supports remote working

SharePoint Online allows users to access the platform from any location with an internet connection, which supports remote and hybrid work models and offers a unified content management system for businesses with a geographically-dispersed workforce.

SharePoint Online also has a mobile app to allow colleagues to access SharePoint sites and collaborate on the go. It’s perfect for the hard-to-reach part of your workforce – those colleagues out in the field – and gives them an opportunity to access and engage with the latest news and updates directly from their mobiles (if they have a company device).

5) It’s safe and secure

SharePoint Online is equipped with advanced security features designed to protect your data, including data encryption, access controls, and two-factor authentication mechanisms.

You can assign granular permissions and access levels to users and groups, so only authorised individuals can view and modify sensitive documents, which helps to safeguard confidential data and ensure regulatory requirements are met.

SharePoint Online also allows you to share documents with people outside your company. Isolating sites for external use can enhance security by controlling and tracking exactly what content is shared.

6) It uses AI to boost collaboration and efficiency

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a transformative force in almost every aspect of modern life in recent years, and SharePoint Online is no exception.

AI is baked into SharePoint Online. It can improve search functionality, automate tasks, analyse data and organise documents, so employees can spend their time elsewhere, improve their user experience, and ultimately allow organisations to stay ahead in a rapidly-changing business environment.

According to a McKinsey report, it’s estimated that employees spend 1.8 hours each day on average researching and gathering information from their intranet – which makes up nearly 25% of their working week – so integrating AI into your operations is not just a luxury but a strategic necessity.

SharePoint Online

What’s next for SharePoint Online?

There are a few interesting features on the Microsoft 365 Roadmap scheduled for this year, such as Copilot in SharePoint, which will leverage AI and data to make the site- and page-creation process more intuitive and efficient. And Copilot agents – effectively AI bots – will provide a conversational generative AI experience for your sites.

We’re also looking forward to Microsoft Syntex, which uses advanced content machine learning to automate content-based processes, improve search accuracy, and manage compliance risk. This will help with processes such as content understanding and assembly, document processing, and more.

Get started

If you’d like support to help your company make the most out of SharePoint Online, we’re here to help. Get in touch and find out how we’ve helped other organisations audit, develop, and improve their intranets.