Communication and collaboration are considered as the key driving forces of organizational success. At present, there are a bunch of digital platforms available in the market for improving an organization’s employee collaboration and internal communication. However, being the decision-maker of the organization, the main challenge lies in selecting an optimal platform that regulates the trajectory of the organization. Choosing the right collaboration platform at the right time is directly proportional to boosting project productivity, communication, secure documentation, and whole business success.
The Microsoft community has made it easy for decision-makers with its wide range of tools for real-time workplace collaboration and document management. Among different M365 tools, SharePoint holds a unique reputation because of its incredible features. Also, it’s important for business stakeholders to understand that this platform should not just be used for basic document/content management. The potential of SharePoint is limitless and let’s look at some of the ways businesses can customize the SharePoint platform.
Potential Applications of Custom SharePoint Development
1. Project Management
SharePoint allows businesses to configure and use the platform as a robust project management platform. From tracking daily activities to executing complex analysis, this platform enables businesses to meet their goals.
The SharePoint-powered Project Management platform allows organizational leaders to monitor and regulate project initiatives. Individual tasks can be created, categorized, and allocated to one primary user or multiple team members. Once assigned, the members will receive a notification and be able to view the tasks upon logging in. Managers can visualize tasks and updates, validate whether project progress is on track, and consequently make modifications. This level of organization and information offers a proactive way to project governance.
SharePoint also offers an intuitive Project Workspace template that can be integrated with a project management solution. This way, stakeholders can have a detailed picture of projects through widgets and reports like delayed tasks, percent complete, and milestones. Decision-makers can research further to get updates on project aspects like Risks and Costs with the Status Report console. Quick access to different project information keeps stakeholders updated and enables timely task completion.
2. IT Portfolio Management
By hiring experts from a recognized MS SharePoint development company, businesses can configure and implement the platform as an IT portfolio management solution. With this solution, organizations can observe and track all IT programs, projects, and requirements. Managing multiple IT projects under the same category becomes easier with this solution.
With this platform, stakeholders can assess all IT projects at the beginning of the organization’s annual planning cycle and review their potential costs, conduct risk assessments, and calculate possible ROI. Understanding how appropriately projects meet future annual objectives can help stakeholders categorize the most valuable IT developments.
Similarly, portfolio management solution helps businesses track additional IT expense details by pulling up a timeline view or bubble chart of all projects. The bubble chart displays the risk and scope of IT projects. The timeline view illustrates planned and approved IT projects against time. These views enable organizations to calculate the effect any project could have on finances and resources.
3. Resource Management
Organizations can team up with a custom SharePoint development services provider to build and launch an exclusive resource management portal. This portal offers a wide perspective on resource utilization, cost, and availability. It is helpful in generating resource plans, assigning resources to projects, and evaluating expected resource needs.
This SharePoint-powered portal can display resource demands and allocations. Consequently, decision-makers can assign projects to resources on an hourly or FTE (full-time equivalent) basis, which is mentioned as the project cost. This portal monitors resources in real time, which helps in keeping data accurate and offering flexibility when the requirements change. Through effective resource management strategies, businesses can make sure of accurate planning, supervision, and forecasting.
4. Financial Planning
When an organization’s entire financial data is managed through a single platform, it assists in easy budget determinations and allocation of finances.
By using the SharePoint platform, businesses can design and deploy financial planning portals that help in tracking cost and benefit plans, and key metrics, like Return on Investment, internal rate of return, and net present value. The financial planning portal also helps in evaluating Capex and Opex against actual budgets over time. With this portal, businesses can also experience automated forecasting from actuals and forecasts to getting an accurate estimation. The SharePoint-based financial planning portal simplifies easy approvals and brings changes to resource consumption, establishing a robust connection between finance and projects.
5. Human Resources Portal
With SharePoint supporting automated workflow integration, many large-scale enterprises have found it to be highly beneficial for Human Resources operations. By building a SharePoint-based HR portal with automated workflows, businesses can largely modernize recruiting, onboarding, employee data management, upskilling, and certifications.
Moreover, SharePoint workflows can manage HR-related requests from the workforce, as well as assist with policy creation and management, acknowledgement, and approval processes. By using SharePoint as an HR management portal, businesses can simplify the onboarding process and save time that would otherwise be invested in training new and existing workers.
6. Knowledge Base
Lastly, SharePoint can be used as a powerful knowledge management repository. By functioning as a document repository or content management system, SharePoint can give team members access to the data they require. But it can also be used as a knowledge base that anyone in an organization can search and find the essential information they need rapidly.
Having all the important resources that teams need to perform their regular activities in one place can help businesses streamline the way knowledge gets distributed. In addition, the version control feature in SharePoint ensures that the resources available to team members are up-to-date and they are still relevant to them.
Crafting Personalized Solutions with Dedicated SharePoint Experts
Though SharePoint comes with an easy-to-use interface and functionalities, businesses need the expertise of skilled SharePoint personnel to implement any of the use cases mentioned above. By hiring developers from an offshore SharePoint development company, organizations can build and launch personalized solutions in line with their needs.
These developers are aware of SharePoint’s architecture, APIs, and can build scalable solutions that resolve business needs. Also, dedicated SharePoint experts provide continuous support and maintenance, and make sure that the designed solutions remain functional in the long term.
Summing Up
SharePoint development has turned from a useful endeavor into a necessity for companies that want to help their workers stay productive and efficient. To test the capabilities and implement advanced solutions using SharePoint, hiring dedicated developers is the best way. It is evident that such experts help businesses reap incredible collaboration and automation capabilities.
