What is SharePoint Online? Benefits & Features
6 MIN READIn simple terms, SharePoint Online is a popular variant of Microsoft’s web-based service SharePoint. It is also an essential part of Microsoft 365 that offers diverse benefits to allow employees to work together.
SharePoint Online also ensures collaboration in workspace with its centralized storage, convenient accessibility, and content management that helps boost productivity.
For a detailed idea of what is SharePoint Online and how its key features, benefits, and best practices ensure high productivity in your workplace, read this blog till the end.
While discussing reasons to opt for SharePoint Development Services, a very common question that comes to mind is what SharePoint Online is and what are its benefits.
Microsoft SharePoint is available in two variants, SharePoint Online and On-Premise. The former is a collection of web and cloud-based technologies. It means’ SharePoint Online acts as a cloud-based platform that can help organizations store, organize, manage, and share information digitally.
Unlike SharePoint On-Premises, users can access SharePoint online development service from their devices easily. This makes SharePoint Online users work remotely beyond the office premises.
SharePoint Online is further divided into three hubs OneDrive, Newsfeed, and Site. It also hosts a new micro blogging feature that allows users to engage in “posts-like” conversations.
Let’s take you through the features and benefits that define what SharePoint Online is.
Key Features of SharePoint Online
The key features of SharePoint Online that help boost productivity in the organization are mentioned below:
Customization
One of the most noteworthy features of SharePoint Online development is its convenience of customization. Besides the default interface, you can craft the platform as per your business’s unique requirements.
You can also customize the entire SharePoint Online developer’s interface to align with your brand.
Ease of Management
Another significant feature that comes with what is SharePoint Online is that this platform acts as a centralized repository. With this, administrators can access official information from their devices remotely.
As a centralized repository, SharePoint Online can hold diverse information like office policies, employee details, and customer portfolios. It also comes with a significant data security setting that allows administrators to share access to these documents selectively.
Convenient Document Management
Since its release, SharePoint has been significantly accessible to organizations that help schedule and organize company information. Best practices of SharePoint Online ensure smooth data flow with cloud storage within organizations.
Employees can further get access to essential business-related information anytime. Employees can also share documents securely. Multiple employees can also work on the same documents together ensuring seamless collaboration.
Flexible Functionality
Another important feature of this SharePoint application development service is its excellent flexibility to integrate with diverse platforms. This ensures convenience in scheduling meetings, organizing contacts, and other information-sharing activities.
Content Management
While talking about features with what is SharePoint Online, we cannot deny its content management capabilities.
SharePoint Online helps users create and share content easily. Users can also edit each other’s content with the required access. Besides these, SharePoint makes publishing content an easy process. The platform allows you to schedule content publishing time beforehand on different social media platforms, intranet, and websites.
Furthermore, SharePoint also brings to table attractive social networking features that make sharing of content ideas quite easy.
Benefits of Using SharePoint Online
To further delve into the importance of SharePoint Development services, let’s take you through the benefits of SharePoint Online.
- SharePoint Online offers a centralized repository workspace that helps enhance collaboration as multiple employees can work on one document together.
- Easily integrates with Microsoft 365 tools to ensure seamless communication among team members even while working remotely.
- Document version control, metadata, and tagging features along with automated workflows ensure convenience in data management among team members.
- SharePoint Online is included in Microsoft 365’s package subscription. Unlike SharePoint On-Premise vs. SharePoint Online, you do not need to bear the expense of setting up on-premise servers.
- Data stored in SharePoint Online is securely encrypted with multi-factor authentication. Built-in data compliance features also help prevent data loss
- Unlike SharePoint on-premise, you do not need to bear additional maintenance and update expenses. Microsoft continuously updates and fixes SharePoint Online issues every time.
SharePoint Online Best Practices
Now let’s take you through some of the best practices of SharePoint Online.
Access Management
SharePoint Online server opts for Kerberos or SAML as a modern authentication protocol for every Active Directory implementation. These are much more secure than NTLM authentication as Kerberos uses tickets to authorize users.
Control Management
SharePoint allows users to manage control of every document they work on from their end seamlessly. Document owners can share access to documents with required team members. They can also schedule how long a team member can view and access a particular document.
This avoids instances of too many viewers or users in one document that can lead to data security breaches.
SharePoint Workflows Automation
SharePoint workflows allow users to automate diverse tasks that help save a lot of time and boost productivity. By knowing what is SharePoint Online, you can use it for best automation practices to plan, customize, test, build, and secure the content. This ensures seamless communication among team members while eliminating most chances of data breach.
Auditing SharePoint Online
Comprehensive auditing is necessary to ensure data security and backup. Unlike SharePoint On-Premise, SharePoint Online does not have a particular log search team. To access SharePoint-related events, you can use the unified SharePoint audit log.
However, the log retention tenure will be 90 days, in case you do not have the E5 license.
To conclude, this is all you need to know about what SharePoint Online is and how it can help successful collaboration within its unique platform. SharePoint Online can be a solution for your organization if you are embracing remote work.
The upcoming years will witness much more SharePoint Online development updates that will help organizations ace up their productivity game.
Frequently Asked Questions
Version history in SharePoint Online development saves the number of changes in a document by every team member. You can view these version histories and restore them easily. To do so, consider right-clicking on the document and select ″Version History″. From here, you can view the required version and restore the same.
To create a new site, open the SharePoint application in Microsoft 365 suite. From here, navigate and click the Create Site″ option. Then, select any one between Team site or Communication site enter the necessary details, and click on finish to create the site.
Following clear governance, using metadata for document management, providing necessary user training, keeping the sites organized, and reviewing necessary permissions are some of the best practices for SharePoint Online.