Because of its high level of configurability, SharePoint is unique to virtually every organization that uses it. Through Microsoft apps and third-party tools, SharePoint can be anything from a collaboration tool to an online application hub. Nonetheless, SharePoint is primarily used as a document management solution or an intranet by the vast majority of organizations using it.
How Does A CMS Work?
CMSs (or “content management systems”) are not the same as document management systems. A content management system is a system for developing and publishing a wide range of media, while document management solutions are primarily concerned with managing large files, collaborating across teams, sharing and archiving documents that are stored in a database.
Typically, website managers and their staff use content management systems to create, edit, submit, approve, and publish content. Users of the website can then view and read this published content. Imagine an online blog or magazine: articles and posts are written and published using content management systems. In order for long-term retrieval of content, it must be searchable once it has been published.
CMS solutions typically include four basic features. To begin with, it must provide a way to create content. The purpose of a CMS isn’t just to store files in the cloud. The system should allow users to produce and work on new pieces of content right there.
It is also important for a CMS to provide users with the ability to manage content. It is common for multiple people to work on the same article, web page, or project in a CMS. A site-wide editor, a section editor, and two writers may be involved. Content can be viewed and changed by each of these individuals. It’s important to be able to view edit history and retrieve older drafts if something goes wrong during the editing process.
Publishing capabilities should also be included in a CMS. Every site that goes live, whether it’s a public website or an employee intranet, must have quality control measures. Review and approval processes, often automated and controlled, are necessary to provide this quality screening.
Last but not least, a CMS should be easy to find. Internal teams and external users need to be able to find content quickly using a variety of search criteria. An effective search feature is essential for any content management system.
What is SharePoint CMS?
SharePoint CMSs are content management systems that are part of SharePoint sites. Content management systems like WordPress and Joomla are used by many publishing sites. All these features are included in these sites, as well as many others. If an enterprise is already using SharePoint for internal document management or another application, it can simply use SharePoint for content management.
An organization can also publish content to SharePoint and present it to a specified audience. Several companies use SharePoint as a content management system for their intranets, serving content to homepages, team sites, and information pages. Several companies use SharePoint to manage the content on their company websites.
Benefits of SharePoint CMS
With SharePoint CMS, you can manage digital assets such as corporate documents, records, media asset libraries, and visual/audio content.
SharePoint provides many advantages for enterprise content management, including:
- Effortless Use
A user’s experience with SharePoint is intuitive and efficient thanks to its easy-to-use interface. The platform is accessible via desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. Moreover, first-time users can easily navigate the system’s intricacies thanks to its streamlined workflow. You can also automate key business processes with it.
- Enhanced Collaboration
Organizations can use SharePoint CMS to collaborate and make decisions in real-time. By handling versioning and maintaining a rudimentary history of the document, it allows multiple people to work on the same document at the same time. Chatting with other editors is also an option.
- Security Enhancement
Document safety can also be improved with SharePoint. Secure your documents with encryption and cloud backup. Additionally, you can choose who can view, print, and edit your documents.
It is possible to limit sharing between peers and groups in SharePoint (for example, only members of authorized groups can view or edit your documents). You can also set up permission inheritance for SharePoint groups, so that only specific users will be able to access them.
Documents are protected from unauthorized access by this method. Certain documents can also be protected with two-factor authentication and one-time passwords.
Better Intranet with SharePoint
SharePoint is also used by many companies to build their company-wide intranets in addition to content management. Intranets are private networks within (and customized to suit) enterprises. A company-wide intranet typically serves two purposes. Intranets are central hubs for employee resources and important company information. Employees can access information about company policies, calendars, contact lists, and more via the intranet at any time.
SharePoint is ideal for building a company intranet due to its considerable customization options. A SharePoint intranet often includes an employee center, which houses information about employee benefits and company policies, as well as resources for payroll and job training. Corporate intranets also include news or community sites, which are dynamic to present certain information based on an employee’s department, geographic location, etc. Other features of community or team sites include company news, relevant department contacts, and staff forums.
Customizing a SharePoint intranet is not an easy task. Information organization, team collaboration, employee resources, etc., vary from business to business, so there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Businesses can even integrate Office 365 tools or third-party apps into their intranets with SharePoint. So many choices can be overwhelming, but there’s a lot of freedom.
Creating a Personalized Intranet Experience
To design an effective custom SharePoint intranet, enterprises must strike a balance between global and local experiences. Everyone in the community needs access to global content. This category may include company newsletters, company policies, and staff directories. In general, global content is content that is relevant for all departments, job titles, locations, and current projects within an organization.
Local content, on the other hand, is more tailored to the individual user. SharePoint can deliver more relevant content based on a specific user’s geographic location, department, active projects, and more.
Personalizing SharePoint in this way makes it more useful for individual teams, departments, or offices. SharePoint intranets will provide employees with the information and links they are most likely to need, rather than giving everyone the same homepage and requiring them to look up relevant news, apps, contacts, documents, and other resources on their own. SharePoint can facilitate local information discovery without sacrificing discoverability of global content by providing dynamic user experiences on certain pages.
Join the Next Level SharePoint Training
Create your digital office using an internal team site built on SharePoint. Learn to create a private & secure website to store, organize, share, and access your organizations data and files wherever, whenever. Join this advanced training and get free limited time offers from ClinkIT Academy.
Key Takeaways from this Event
- Discover SharePoint Online’s capabilities and features
- Learn the different development models for customizing SharePoint Online
- Understand the use of SharePoint Client-Side Object Model (CSOM) and the SharePoint REST API
- Find out the different kinds and uses of SharePoint Add-Ins
- Automate processes using SharePoint Workflows and Microsoft Flow
- Create a Power Apps app using SharePoint Online as a data source
Register for the SharePoint Next Level Training this May 9 to 10, 2023
9 AM to 5 PM
