Productive employees due to SharePoint

There are many keys to success of a small business, one of the most important keys is your employees. Your employees need to be able to work together while at the same time fulfilling different roles. If they can’t quickly and easily access necessary information, overall productivity will be down. One way to ensure this doesn’t happen is by employing a system like Microsoft SharePoint. SharePoint was launched by Microsoft in 2001 as a document and content management program for intranets – closed networks within a company. Over the past 11 years, SharePoint has added a ton of different capabilities and features that make it an integral part of many business’s infrastructure. One of the biggest advantages of SharePoint is that it integrates with Microsoft Office and Office 365. Here are five things you can do with SharePoint to help make your company and employees more productive. Centralize all essential documents. The problem many small businesses face is that files are spread out, normally kept locally on an employee’s computer which makes sharing difficult. SharePoint allows you to organize your files in a central location while allowing employees or other parties to access and share these documents. Collaboration. With centralized document management, your employees can collaborate easier. No more having to email another employee to get them to send a document then having to compile different versions into one document, as employees will have access to the same document with changes made clearly visible. Solidify goals and roles. Employees in small businesses often complain that they don’t know what their roles are and what exactly the company is doing. With SharePoint you can create lists and documents with your goals and expectations of employees, which they can access. Clearly defined goals and roles will go a long way in keeping employees productive because they will be able to see exactly what they should be doing. Project management. Project management can be one of the toughest things to keep on top of. One team may be using a separate calendar and documents that other teams don’t have access to causing productivity bottlenecks. With SharePoint you can create calendars and workflows that are shared on the network so you know exactly who is working on what, when it’s due and what’s left to be done. Stage-gate implementation. With the combination of calendars, workflow and shared documents you can establish a clearly defined stage-gates, a set point where document drafts, workflow process or any project needs to be approved to move on to the next step. This creates an element of control that keeps projects on track, and necessary parties informed at all times. Through clever use of SharePoint and the different addons, you can reign in uncontrolled projects, keep track of projects and ensure your employees know what they should be doing. If you and your employees are organized and have easy access to data and collaboration tools, you will see an increase in productivity of both employees and the company. To learn more about how you can use SharePoint for your business, please contact us. Published with permission from TechAdvisory.org. Source.

Oh no! Dropbox sees account info hacked

Have you ever wondered about the security of cloud based applications and services? If yes, you’re not alone. It can be a bit discerning to relinquish full control of your business and trust all your information, business processes or whole business to cloud providers. For the most part they offer a secure service, however, they have been hacked before, with the most recent service coming under attack in the last week of July. Read more...

Does the Nexus 7 stack up to iPad?

Until early July there was one tablet that all other tablets were compared against, many falling far short. That tablet is the iPad, and from its release in 2010 has seen few competitors, until now. The competitor is Google’s new tablet, the Nexus 7. While the Nexus 7 is a competitor of the iPad, the question posed by many small business owners is: does it really stack up? Read more...

July breaches expose insecure passwords

July was a bit of a rough month for many websites, with a number of popular websites suffering high profile security breaches where user information and passwords were stolen. These attacks have many wondering if their information is secure with websites. The answer isn’t a clear yes or no, and depends on a large number of factors, one of which is your password and how you keep it secure. Read more...

One and two finger scrolling on Android

In early July, Google’s new tablet-the Nexus 7-went on sale. The tablet, using a new version of the Android OS, is widely believed to be one of the first true competitors to the iPad, and to this point, the reviews of the tablet have been largely positive. Because of this, and the low price, small businesses now have a truly viable tablet. As with anything new, there’s a learning curve when it comes to navigation using a touch screen though. Read more...