Managing documents effectively in Microsoft 365 SharePoint is a common challenge for organizations. To address challenges that arise, organizations must implement a structured approach to document management that evolves based on their needs. Join as we explore different levels of document management maturity, from default document libraries to advanced extensibility solutions.
Document Management Problem Statement Common document management issues include difficulties in locating files, poor search functionality, duplicate documents with different names, and permission mismanagement. A particularly frustrating issue is the accidental reorganization of files - such as unintentionally moving a folder - leading to confusion and lost productivity. Addressing these challenges requires a thoughtful strategy for structuring and managing documents in SharePoint.
Information Architecture & Governance
People using platforms like Microsoft Teams or SharePoint often wonder why nothing much changes or improves in their organization once they have rolled things out. Most often, we find its because content is moved into SharePoint or Teams without any sound organizing principles. Instead, the content just becomes shared folders in the cloud. What’s missing is usually good information architecture and governance.
Information Architecture
Information architecture (IA) describes how we store, organize, find, and work with information to make it more understandable and useful. We’re all familiar with the organizational structure of places like grocery stores but we often struggle with organizing our work in similar ways. IA is as much art as it is science and we’ve painted many an IA picture over the years. Let us help:
- Create a robust content structure
- Design and optimize your navigation
- Develop and manage custom taxonomies
- Evaluate your search configuration
- Build an excellent user experience
Governance
Your governance plan has to be a living resource, just like your intranet. It’s not just some document you store away to say you have one. Governance is a way to oversee a solution after launch to ensure all employees are on the same page. It can be thought of as a rule book, a shared mental model, guidelines, whatever is the best framing for your culture and overall goals.
A good governance process ensures everyone has the same clarity around goals, identifies key players and their responsibilities, acts as a framework to improve your intranet over time, and helps reduce content sprawl. Even the simplest governance model is effective in ensuring continued success. Let us help you create or update a realistic plan that you can monitor regularly and modify as your business needs shift.
We guide you in communicating your strategy, business processes, and defining roles to support an actionable governance plan that works in the real world and will scale with your business by:
- Aligning with compliance and record retention needs
- Implementing change management and process controls
- Formalizing security & external sharing guidelines
- Maintaining content quality throughout the full lifecycle
- Creating a seamless user experience
- Identifying clear decision makers to support your governance long-term
Above all, the governance approach we build with you is right for your organization: there is no such thing as one-size-fits-all.
Dive Deeper with related 'Ask Sympraxis' episodes
Effective Document Management Strategies for Microsoft 365 - SharePoint edition
Recorded live on Wednesday, February 5, 2025 at 12:30:00 pm ET
SharePoint Intelligent Versioning
Recorded live on Wednesday, January 22, 2025 at 12:30:00 pm ET
Recently, Microsoft introduced “intelligent versioning,” a feature designed to optimize storage and enhance usability by prioritizing newer versions of documents. In this blog, we’ll explore the fundamentals of SharePoint versioning, its benefits, potential pitfalls, and how to configure it effectively—plus what makes intelligent versioning such a game-changer.
What is SharePoint versioning? SharePoint versioning allows users to maintain a history of changes to documents and list items. This feature has been around for years and is controlled at the list or library level. By default, SharePoint creates a new version every time a document is edited, storing up to 500 versions. While this can be useful, it’s important to manage versioning carefully, as each version consumes storage space. Without proper oversight, small changes can lead to significant storage usage.