Office 365/SharePoint Online – Accounts, roles and groups for records and information managers

Organisations have stored and managed records in on-premise versions of SharePoint for many years. Generally speaking, these records had to be managed in - and disposed from - individual site collections. Office 365 now includes a range of roles, access controls and settings that can be used to manage records across the ecosystem, making it …

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Why is it so hard to ‘go digital’?

I visited a local fast-food outlet recently and could not help but notice the 'Lever Arch' binders in the small office behind the counter. A small two-drawer filing cabinet was also located below the desk. It made me wonder - in this day and age when pretty much everyone has access to the internet including …

Auto-populating document templates via a form in SharePoint

UPDATE - As Microsoft have deprecated SharePoint 2010 workflows from SharePoint Designer (SPD) (as described here), the model described below will not work as described. See this updated post - 'Auto-populating Microsoft Word templates - a no-workflow option' published 21 September 2020. As at this date, there does not seem to be an equivalent Power …

Using the Sync option to work smarter and reduce duplication, and increase end user acceptance of SharePoint

Note: A correction was made to this post on 20 July 2019, relating to if a document library contains mandatory metadata. Perhaps the single most common complaint about using electronic document management (EDM) systems over the last two decades has been the requirement to save a copy of a record stored on a network file …

SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business – Preventing external sharing of data

A recent (September 2017) article suggested that OneDrive for Business (ODfB) (and by extension SharePoint Online (SPO); ODfB is a SharePoint-based service), a key application in Office 365 was a potential source of data leaks and/or target for hacking attacks. I don't disagree that, if not configured correctly, any online document management system - not …

Life without folders – SharePoint 2010

For a generation now we have been using folders on network drives, in home computers, and in email systems, to categorise and store digital content. We now do it in the cloud too. They are a hard habit to break because they make so much sense. Almost everyone in work today uses folders to categorise, …

Implementing SharePoint to manage documents – changing user behaviours

From around 25 years ago, computers began to replace paper-based processes for most office-based workers. Users grumbled and some (mostly at senior levels) managed to avoid using a computer altogether. The majority of office workers (who became known as 'users') just adapted to and eventually adopted the new work practices, often with the promise of …

Is your SharePoint team site a ghost town?

One of the best 'unknown' (to end users, anyway) features of SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint 2013 is 'Site Web Analytics', hidden away under Site Settings. This, out of the box, feature provides useful information such as the average number of site views per day, the average number of unique visitors per day, trends, as well …

Implementing SharePoint 2010 as a Document and Records Management System

There are several things that are worth asking or considering as a records manager (or equivalent) in a company that is using, or plans to use, SharePoint 2010. This can significantly affect how things occur. Governance If your organisation uses SharePoint there is a good chance you will have a qualified SharePoint Administrator in the …

Principles for managing documents as records in SharePoint 2010

These are my quick tips for managing documents as records using SharePoint 2010. Keep it simple  End users will not use the system if it is hard to use or requires too much extra work. Keep the UI clean and simple (and common). Make it intuitive. Promote the benefits of the application, not the application …