SharePoint works but not intuitive
September 23, 2019
SharePoint works but not intuitive
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with MS SharePoint
Our IT PMO uses SharePoint for each of our projects. Each project has its own site. If there are multiple workstreams in a project, they all have their own subsites. We use it as a document repository primarily. We have recently upgraded to the newer version of SharePoint which is nice, but they did remove some of the functionality I got used to. It is also used across other departments in our organization which does make it nice because if you are on a new project team, the other team members know how to use it.
- SharePoint is great for version control. By using it as a document repository we are able to see who made the last edit and when.
- SharePoint has some great "list" features which we use to log project decisions, issues, risks, etc and be able to create charts from the lists so you can easily see all of the statuses.
- SharePoint does offer the ability to custom organize your pages. It is nice as you don't need to adhere to a standardized template.
- Calendar feature that syncs with Outlook is not supported in the newer version of SharePoint. We were, however, able to do this with the previous version which was nice.
- News article feature does not allow you to "follow" it so you don't necessarily know there is something new to look at. Kind of defeats the purpose.
- Not super intuitive.
- It is not the easiest for someone to get started. It is not nearly as intuitive as some of the other platforms I have used in the past. I have found that settings hide in different places. For example, something as simple as adding a new column is not just a click, sometimes you have to dig into the site settings or page settings.
- Overall it has saved us time and money by not housing items on local drives or in email, however, there are other sources out there that could accomplish this for free.
we have tried Confluence as a collaboration tool as well. Confluence does have a steep learning curve in my opinion. I think SharePoint is easier to adapt to because it builds off of other Microsoft habits, but neither is super intuitive. If I were to pick one it would be Sharepoint over Confluence because Confluence feels like you need to have a web development background to use it. SharePoint is that way too, but it was a bit easier for me to grasp.