SharePoint has transformed the marketplace since its launch in the 2000s. The platform today has evolved from an on-premises solution to several licensed, cloud-based flavors bundled with Microsoft Office 365 and Teams.
For organizations that operate on a server version, the benefits of migration to Office 365 become compelling. However, this requires a comprehensive review of their custom applications, intranet, and features that may require re-engineering when planning a migration to the cloud. There may also be specific organizational and collaboration goals, as part of taking advantage of new Office 365 capabilities, in providing document management services, a corporate intranet, and/or a learning hub.
The SharePoint platform in Office 365 enables the use of new client-side capabilities, along with new and evolving PowerAutomate forms, workflow and integration capabilities. Note the replacement of legacy server-side customizations can require creativity and line of business understanding to design and build successor applications and capabilities that can work within Office 365.
This article focuses on key Office 365 SharePoint development trends that will assist organizations to build, manage, and successfully use the latest SharePoint-based solutions.
SharePoint Development Services Trends
Trend#1: The End of Farm Solutions
SharePoint development techniques leveraged the capability to have full access to the server (Farm) and lead to a range of different solutions – covering farm, sandbox, and scripted solutions. Farm solutions had full control across all the servers in the SharePoint farm, while sandbox solutions have since been deprecated and removed from Office 365 support operated at a site collection level.
Note that the management and deployment techniques are different in the Cloud than on-site. Farm solutions are incompatible with Office 365 and require a rewrite using different frameworks, such as the SPFx Framework.
Trend#2: Increased Testing
Since deployments of customizations in SharePoint are by definition unique, testing becomes all the more critical, as new capabilities are exposed for integration and automation. Performance, throughput and identity management, and end-user experience become paramount. Consequently, a potential lack of diligence paved the way for four issues – poor performance, inconsistent integration, usability issues, and governance gap.
Customization of workflows, libraries, views, sites, pages, and integration with legacy systems, and document and metadata automation requires regular testing to locate and remediate, as they involve and affect different departments. Such customizations should be regularly tested as Microsoft updates and patches can cause subtle changes and impacts.
Further, the integration of SharePoint with other third-party tools raises the risk of security issues. Since enterprise-level applications are connected via this software, untested customizations can lead to user authentication issues that frustrate users, or security issues.
Additional Read
Microsoft 365 Groups vs. Teams vs. SharePoint Comparison
Trend#3: SPFx and PnP
Microsoft’s SharePoint Framework (SPFx) enables customizations that serve the line of business requirements. Organizations can use it when migrating from server-based services to the cloud and need to move from farm to cloud-based solutions. It serves as an alternative practice to the traditional .NET framework. Today, TypeScript is a hot technology, which works on the cloud.
Patterns and Practices (PnP) is another popular practice method. It involves a holistic version of SharePoint development, which is tested and updated by the Developer’s community.
Trend#4: Simplifying and Integrating Business Processes
Microsoft SharePoint with its collaborative feature streamlines business operations through centralized master data management. Customers, vendors, and partners can be easily managed through SharePoint along with external sharing and dedicated and isolated external partner sites. Organizations can make educated decisions as these technologies are leveraged across enterprises. By deploying for individual departments, the end-user experience can be tuned, and gauged in real-time, as we automate and simplify business processes, save effort and time, and find creative ways of accelerating operations.
Since SharePoint Development Services can be easily integrated with other technologies – SQL, Azure, Teams, OneDrive, CRM & the full Microsoft Office Suite, it allows centralization of work environments and consolidated enterprise search, which makes it easier for employees to access data anytime, anywhere. Additionally, it’s compatible with popular web browsers – Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, & Safari. Hence, it renders a comprehensive user experience across all form factor devices as well.
Trend#5: Content Optimization and Data Management Simplified
A content management system (CMS) is critical to the success of an organization. This tool enables employees to communicate ideas, news, and updates about their company’s products and services both publicly and internally. Microsoft Office is a popular choice among users as it easily creates, edits, and publishes documents and converts them into different formats for sharing. Content can be managed centrally, including drafting, and publishing, with the option for content approval workflows, and scheduled publishing.
Often, organizations struggle to manage their enterprise data sets, as employees continuously generate and publish data. By using SharePoint, organizations can streamline their communication, as this software enables teams to plan, organize, and schedule content for publishing. It’s cloud-based software that supports centralized data storage, i.e., all content in a range of formats is stored in a unified, central location from where users can access the necessary documents, links, events, and tasks with a streamlined and audience targeted experience, without users feeling overwhelmed, or experiencing stale information.
Trend#6: Maintain the Digital Culture
Microsoft’s SharePoint has been assisting organizations in streamlining their team collaboration and engagement for 20 years. It has adapted well to different enterprise and collaboration environments. This SaaS product enables smooth automation of document management and transforms business processes to optimize the workflow. Thus, with our SharePoint Development Services, organizations can significantly improve their employees’ efficiency by helping them migrate to a digital interface.
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How Can Businesses Save by using SharePoint as a Service?
The biggest advantage of using SharePoint as SaaS (software as a service) is that it’s cloud-based, i.e., organizations needn’t install and run the application on their computers. Consequently, the costs related to hardware purchase and maintenance, software license purchase, and support are significantly reduced. Additionally, the online setup cost for SharePoint is negligible.
With cloud services, companies are more agile. They can subscribe to SharePoint offerings based on their usage and requirements instead of purchasing a license and installing it on their machines. If the software requires new hardware, that cost can be eliminated if organizations choose to migrate to SaaS services offered by SharePoint.
Additional Read
How to Activate SharePoint Publishing Infrastructure
Conclusion:
With our Microsoft SharePoint Development Services, your organization can optimize the collaboration, workflow, and engagement of your teams. Our Consultancy services can assist you with automation and data-driven business decisions by developing or enhancing intranets and central dashboards to be the one-stop-shop and the default location for all corporate enterprise information.
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