Getting more from your SharePoint investment

“It’s not whether SharePoint can or can’t do something, it’s a matter of what kind of effort: what percentage is going to be out of the box, from freely available code or templates, from 3rd party plugins, or custom coding? The more business logic you’re embedding in custom code, the more you may consider separating that out from the SharePoint part.”Craig Roth, Gartner

Additionally it could be that a business ends up paying a considerable sum of money for features they don’t need just to get one feature they do need. That’s not the best use of time or money, and will eventually backfire on an organisation.

So the solution here is to look at bespoke app creation, one that can either integrate fully with SharePoint or sit on top of it. One clear benefit of this is compliance; businesses that use off-the-shelf applications cannot be sure that they meet all the necessary rules and regulations of their industry.

That’s so important when it comes to highly regulated industries such as pharmaceutical, financial services, oil and gas and the aviation industry. One of our customers from the pharmaceutical industry needed to ensure that its workflow system was fully compliant following a recent change in the law.

There is little doubt that Microsoft SharePoint is an incredibly useful tool, one that thousands of businesses around the world rely on for document management, project management, content management, intranet portals and more. It is the ultimate enterprise collaboration tool.

Having said that, it’s also true that many businesses are unaware of the true power of SharePoint. There are myriad reasons why that’s the case; some users feel SharePoint meets their needs and look no further for additional functionality, while others simply lack knowledge of SharePoint’s true breadth of functionality.

That’s where Intelogy comes in. We are a SharePoint consultancy that specialises in helping companies to get more from their SharePoint investment, to relieve that nagging doubt you may have in the back of your mind that the technology is able to do so much more.

Build your ownNow, it could be that an application is available in the official SharePoint Store that claims to offer the functionality a business is looking for. For those companies with a “buy, don’t build” approach, that could prove adequate. But an off-the-shelf application is unlikely to offer the full customisation that big businesses with complex systems and requirements really need. Industry analysts Gartner agree:

We were brought in to redesign the company’s existing workflow app to improve auditability as well as simplifying and streamlining the workflows. We also developed a supporting custom web application that shifted the complex business logic away from the workflows and improved user interaction.

Integrate apps into SharePointA second option is to look at integrating applications into SharePoint, something that got much easier with the release of SharePoint 2013.

Microsoft introduced something called the SharePoint Cloud App Model, which means businesses can separate the SharePoint server from the server hosting the applications. Custom code and applications can now be used without fear of impacting a standard SharePoint deployment, and upgrades can be applied without any impact on the applications.

Whether it is business process management (BPM), decision support systems or systems that support and add value to a business, such as business intelligence (BI), finance, audit and compliance, reporting or resource management, integrating applications into SharePoint can unlock value hidden across your business.

Kennedys is one customer that has discovered the benefits of integrating applications into SharePoint. The law firm used an extranet to securely communicate with its clients, but maintaining it required lots of direct involvement from the IT department.

We designed a web application that ran on top of Microsoft SharePoint that enabled new, secure sites to be provisioned quickly and simply, pulling information from existing internal platforms and allowing external clients to access and interact with their data.

The integration of Kennedys’ extranet solution with its heavily customised and complex internal environment required customised work from Intelogy and the end result was a much improved environment that enabled Kennedys to identify opportunities for deeper and richer collaboration internally and externally.

It’s not whether SharePoint can or can’t do something, it’s a matter of what kind of effort: what percentage is going to be out of the box.Craig Roth, Gartner

Contact:To help you get more out of your SharePoint investment and improve productivity and business performance Intelogy is offering a half days’ consultancy with two of our SharePoint experts for £500. To find out more contact Intelogy on +44 (0) 203 7473 480 or email info@intelogy.co.ukwww.intelogy.co.uk

Customised SharePoint – designed for your businessSo building custom applications for SharePoint, or integrating apps with it, really does represent the best way to maximise return on investment without adding additional risk to your SharePoint environment, and Intelogy is the company to help you achieve that.

We understand that every customer is unique. We have over 20 years experience, so the knowledge, skills and drive are all there to help customers truly maximise their SharePoint investment. We help realise the potential of technology a business has already invested in, whether it is via the creation of bespoke applications or customisation of applications that are already in use.

Getting more out of your SharePoint environment will help your company become more collaborative, and better collaboration improves productivity; this will ultimately improve a company’s bottom line and make it more profitable.