Microsoft SharePoint is a powerful content collaboration, intranet and employee engagement tool. With 40,000+ organizations across various domains using SharePoint for efficiently managing their content and processes, Microsoft has been recognized as a Leader in the 2019 Gartner Content Services Platforms Magic Quadrant Report. SharePoint is efficient and popular amongst its followers due to its version-tracking ability, the capability to constantly communicate with all staff, storing information at a centralized location and its ability to encourage collaboration.
SharePoint uses Document Library – a secure, centralized and easily accessible place to store documents. The SharePoint Document Library provides hassle-free access to these documents for your staff where they can access and work on these files any time from any device.
SharePoint comes with its Out-Of-The-Box (OOTB) functionality which is great for saving cost and quicker time to market. At the same time, it comes with its limitations and can disappoint a certain user group by not fulfilling some business requirements. Wondering about the business scenarios where SharePoint OOTB has restrictions to please your end-users? Check some of these among others with examples and images of our OOTB Modern Document Library.
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- Search featureSharePoint OOTB offers you to search for a keyword existing in a file name, file (MS Office and readable PDF files) and metadata with a search option either with a site search box or document library search box. It also offers a facility to use wild card characters ‘*’ that comes handy when you don’t know the exact keywords.
Some business scenarios:
• The filters applied to narrow down the search apply only to the folder which is being searched. The filters are neither applied to the parent folder nor the child folder.
• You can use a combination of the filters provided to you, similar to those displayed in the right-hand pane of the image. However, you can’t combine filters along with document name.
• Wildcard character ‘*’ can be used only at the end of the world. It won’t give you relevant results if you use it at the start of the word, e.g., to search for all the results containing ‘finance’ word, you can use ‘fin*’ but not ‘*fin’.
- Navigation functionalitySharePoint OOTB navigation offers you to navigate with some restrictions. The facility offered can be time-consuming at times, based on the location of the folder you want to navigate to.
Some business scenarios:
The navigation is not as efficient as that provided in Window’s Explorer where you can go to any folder, any time, irrespective of where you are currently present. If you are navigating to the levels down the root, you can navigate to the folders that appear on the screen but not to those folders which appear below some folder that is not present on the screen. You need to go up the level and locate the parent and then can navigate to it.
- Pin to Top featureIt’s a cool feature that enables you to keep the documents you want to work on, on the top of the list for easy and efficient accessibility.
Some business scenarios:
The feature is applicable only for a particular folder in which the documents exist. Thus, if a user wants to quickly access some of the documents throughout the Document Library, e.g., inside the folder “Proposals” in the screenshot displayed above, the current pinned document won’t be visible.
- Update metadataMultiupload is another great feature offered by SharePoint OOTB. As its name suggests, it enables a user to upload multiple files at a stretch.
Some business scenarios:
SharePoint OOTB just uploads the files and doesn’t bother about the metadata associated with them. As a result, the metadata related to these files will stay blank unless a user deliberately populates or updates it.
- Search featureSharePoint OOTB offers you to search for a keyword existing in a file name, file (MS Office and readable PDF files) and metadata with a search option either with a site search box or document library search box. It also offers a facility to use wild card characters ‘*’ that comes handy when you don’t know the exact keywords.
SharePoint OOTB is great to start with. However, with growing business complexity and demands, it can hamper the purpose for which it’s implemented by restricting end-users from managing the content effectively. SharePoint customizations provide an answer to these challenges by offering a quick and efficient interface, thereby reducing time to search and locate the content and enhancing employee productivity.
• SharePoint can be customized to search the entire Document Library even while staying in a specific folder.
• The interface can be devised to use multiple combinations of filters along with the document name to narrow down the search for enhanced efficiency.
• Customization can help navigate from any folder to any other folder, just like Windows Explorer. It can save the navigation time significantly.
• Using SharePoint customization, you can create a ‘Favourite’ section that can always display the documents you want to access the most, irrespective of the folder you are located in.
• SharePoint customization facilitates you to create a pop up after Multiupload to update the metadata either selectively or as a whole.
These are some of the few offerings SharePoint customizations can achieve. Frankly speaking, customization can help you personalize your SharePoint investment and experience and if you want to go for it, the sky is the only limit!
At WaferWire Cloud Solutions, we have our team of SharePoint certified veterans that can conquer all types of SharePoint customization challenges across various domains. Contact us today to know more about our SharePoint Customization Services.
