Did you know 86% of Microsoft SharePoint customers chose cloud-based SharePoint servers over on-premises servers as of 2022? SharePoint for business has evolved significantly from its origins as a simple content management tool. Today, it serves as an effective way for leaders to streamline workflow, enhance processes, and enable more efficient communication across organizations. In fact, SharePoint has become essential for businesses driving digital transformation. What is SharePoint used for? Primarily, it provides a central repository for all business documents, allows teams to collaborate in real-time on the same documents, and offers advanced search capabilities that improve productivity. Additionally, companies are increasingly embracing these cloud-based productivity tools as the default solution for supporting distributed workforces.
We understand the challenges of implementing SharePoint effectively in your business environment. Throughout this article, we'll share expert tips on how to use SharePoint effectively through customization, document management best practices, workflow automation, and security measures. These SharePoint tips and tricks will help your team maximize this powerful platform's potential while avoiding common implementation mistakes.
Customizing SharePoint's appearance and structure helps create a cohesive business environment that reflects your brand identity. A well-designed SharePoint environment not only reinforces your company's visual identity but also improves user adoption and productivity.
Your SharePoint site's logo serves as the cornerstone of your brand identity. Notably, SharePoint offers two distinct logo options: the site logo and the site logo thumbnail. The site logo appears in the header of your site, whereas the thumbnail appears in search results, site cards, and anywhere a square logo is needed. To update these elements:
For the best visual impact, consider using a transparent logo that contrasts well with your header background. Furthermore, you can modify your site's title and description to better communicate your brand's message and values.
SharePoint templates provide pre-populated pages, layouts, and web parts that can be customized to match your business objectives. These templates serve as excellent starting points for common business scenarios:
To apply a template, select Settings Apply a site template, then choose the template that best matches your business needs. This approach saves considerable setup time and ensures consistency across your organization.
Consistent layouts across SharePoint sites improve user experience and reinforce your brand identity. Consider these layout best practices:
First, select an appropriate header style that complements your branding. SharePoint offers multiple header layout options, including Minimal and Extended, each providing different ways to emphasize your brand elements.
Second, utilize section layouts strategically. The "One-third right" layout option is particularly effective for most business content as it creates a balanced, readable page structure.
Consequently, when these customizations are implemented thoughtfully, your SharePoint environment becomes not just a tool, but an extension of your business identity that users find both familiar and efficient.
Effective document management lies at the heart of any successful SharePoint implementation. By setting up smart document management practices, businesses can transform how teams store, find, and collaborate on critical information.
Metadata—essentially information about your information—serves as the backbone of SharePoint's search capabilities. Rather than relying solely on filenames, SharePoint allows you to tag documents with descriptive attributes such as document purpose, author, creation date, department, and audience. This systematic approach creates a powerful search environment where users can quickly locate what they need.
For maximum effectiveness, implement a consistent metadata strategy across your organization. The Term Store management tool enables administrators to create and manage term sets, ensuring terminology remains standardized throughout your SharePoint environment. Moreover, enabling enterprise keywords gives team members flexibility to add their own searchable tags, creating a balance between structured taxonomy and user-driven folksonomy.
Despite metadata's advantages, thoughtfully structured libraries and folders remain essential for intuitive navigation. Create separate document libraries for different departments or major projects, then use a shallow folder structure (limited to 1-2 levels) within each library to prevent the "folder maze" problem that plagues many systems.
For sophisticated organization, consider implementing content types—reusable templates that define document structure and associated metadata. Alternatively, document sets offer a hybrid approach, functioning like folders that can have their own metadata, with documents inside inheriting those properties.
Version history stands as SharePoint's "silent hero," automatically tracking document changes and providing a complete audit trail. This feature is invaluable both for collaboration and compliance purposes. When enabled, SharePoint preserves previous versions whenever changes are saved, allowing users to view, compare, or restore earlier iterations if needed.
Configure versioning settings to specify whether to track major versions only (12.0) or include minor drafts (12.3). Although each version consumes storage space, the ability to recover from mistakes or document the evolution of important files typically outweighs storage considerations.
According to Harvard Business Review, more than 90% of employees surveyed said that workflow automation boosted their productivity. This statistic highlights why automating workflows should be a cornerstone of your SharePoint strategy.
Power Automate serves as Microsoft 365's primary automation engine, connecting SharePoint with other applications like Teams, Outlook, and Planner. This powerful tool eliminates time-consuming tasks, reduces errors, and frees your team to focus on strategic work that drives business value.
The cloud-based platform creates automated workflows—called "flows"—between different applications and services. Since Power Automate runs in Microsoft's cloud infrastructure, you benefit from better uptime and scalability than on-premises solutions. Your workflows continue running even if your local systems experience issues.
Common scenarios for Power Automate in SharePoint include:
Document approval stands as one of the most common SharePoint workflow use cases. Through Power Automate, you can manage the approval of documents across several services, including SharePoint, Dynamics 365, and others.
To create an approval workflow:
Approvers can respond to requests from their email inbox, the approvals center in Power Automate, or the Power Automate mobile app. For multi-stage approvals, you can establish approval chains where different stakeholders review documents in sequence, with automatic escalation if approvals are delayed.
Timely reminders keep projects on track without manual follow-up. Using the SharePoint connector in Power Automate, you can create reminder workflows when specific dates approach. For instance, if a document library contains policies with expiration dates, you can set up automated email reminders 30 days before renewal.
Similarly, configure notifications when documents are uploaded, list items are modified, or deadlines approach. You can even establish escalation paths—for example, sending notifications to a task owner and their manager for overdue tasks, then escalating to director level after seven days.
By implementing these automation strategies, your team will spend less time on repetitive tasks and more time on value-adding activities.
Protecting your SharePoint environment requires a multi-layered approach to security that safeguards your business data without hampering productivity. A well-secured SharePoint implementation balances accessibility with appropriate safeguards.
The foundation of SharePoint security rests on proper permission management. Instead of giving individual users direct access, utilize SharePoint's built-in security groups (Owners, Members, and Visitors) and assign users to these groups based on their responsibilities. This approach simplifies administration and reduces security risks.
For granular control, consider breaking permission inheritance when necessary—but do so judiciously. Remember that when you break inheritance, you create a new permission structure that requires separate management. Therefore, always follow the principle of least privilege: grant users only the minimum access needed to perform their job functions.
MFA stands as one of the easiest yet most effective ways to secure your SharePoint environment. This security measure requires users to provide more than one verification method when signing in, creating an additional defense layer that significantly reduces unauthorized access risks.
To implement MFA for SharePoint:
External sharing capabilities make SharePoint valuable for collaboration but can introduce security vulnerabilities. At the organization level, configure sharing settings to match your security requirements—options range from "Anyone" to "Only people in your organization."
For site-specific restrictions, implement domain limitations by creating either allowlists or blocklists. This approach lets you control precisely which external domains can access your SharePoint content, effectively preventing data leakage to unauthorized parties.
Comprehensive auditing helps identify potential security issues before they become problems. SharePoint's audit logs track various activities including document access, modifications, deletions, and permission changes.
Access audit reports through the Microsoft Purview compliance portal to monitor who's doing what with your content. These reports help you maintain compliance requirements and identify unusual patterns that might indicate security breaches. Subsequently, use this intelligence to refine your security controls and educate users about best practices.
SharePoint has undoubtedly transformed from a simple document repository into a powerful business platform that drives digital transformation across organizations. Throughout this article, we've explored several essential aspects of SharePoint implementation that can elevate your business operations.
Customizing your SharePoint environment creates a cohesive digital workspace that reflects your brand identity while improving user adoption. Similarly, smart document management practices ensure your team spends less time searching for information and more time using it productively. Workflow automation represents another critical advantage, as evidenced by the 90% of employees who reported productivity boosts through automation tools like Power Automate. Last but certainly not least, robust security measures protect your valuable business data without compromising accessibility.
Many businesses struggle to fully utilize SharePoint's capabilities due to limited technical expertise or implementation knowledge. Calanceus specializes in helping organizations unlock SharePoint's full potential through customized solutions tailored to your specific business requirements. Our team of SharePoint experts can assist with everything from initial setup to advanced automation, ensuring your investment delivers maximum value.
Remember that successful SharePoint implementation requires a strategic approach focused on your specific business goals rather than simply deploying features. Start with the foundational elements outlined in this guide, then gradually expand your SharePoint capabilities as your team grows more comfortable with the platform.
The path to SharePoint mastery takes time, though the productivity benefits make this journey worthwhile. Whether you choose to implement these recommendations internally or partner with specialists like Calanceus, a well-executed SharePoint environment will become an invaluable asset to your business operations for years to come.