This document discusses three ways to improve enterprise productivity using SharePoint:
1) Integrating SharePoint with email to allow easy sharing of content without attachments and better search, collaboration and use of IT resources.
2) Simplifying content management, collaboration and search through SharePoint to reduce time spent finding documents and improve access to information.
3) Automating business processes using SharePoint workflows to streamline processes, increase accountability and efficiency, and provide insights.
Streamline your business processes. By doing so, you are able to create a process and stick to it. It reduces the urge to circumvent the process which has been put in place and could throw off future steps therefore making it a more lengthy process in the end. Memory is unreliable. These days where our inbox is constantly filling up with requests and where your office line and cell phone could ring simultaneously, there is a chance that a request can slip through the cracks. With a workflow in place, you will now be able to receive automated reminders or status views of all outstanding requests, by doing this, you will have reminder or a double check if something passed you by the first time around. Eliminates bottlenecks. By breaking down and automating the task process, everyone can treat their portions simultaneously therefore reducing the number of roadblocks within a particular task. Treating urgent issues. Credit holds are a popular one, with a workflow you can see it and treat it right away, decreasing the issues where, in the past, there would be lags if someone was out of the office and needed to approve something manually. Enforces accountability and compliance. This allows you to better manage your information by protecting it and following processes put in place based on your role within your organization. User satisfaction Typing errors and misinterpretations are reduced, processing times are shortened, users can monitor progress at all times and overall processing quality is increased. The users find immediate satisfaction and the adoption of the WorkflowGen workflow software comes naturally. Productivity gains Thanks to computerized and automated procedures, employees save time on processing paper documents and can focus on the important issues. Critical Success Factors A successful SharePoint workflow project begins with a clear understanding of the final solution. This entails clearly defining a functional specification, what the solution will and won’t do, how it fits into your governance plan, to whom the solution is targeted, and how it solves the stated business need. Obviously, executive support and sponsorship is paramount. An ounce of planning effort spent will save a pound of implementation and testing! Benefits Leveraging workflows in SharePoint can provide five key benefits: Having control of information and the flow of information within the organization should support an organization’s principles. Whether it’s capturing historical information or complying with regulatory mandates, controlling information is critical to modern businesses. Accountability Tracking the status of an action item, process step, or key document allows accountability of people and processes. Workflows support and enable integrity of work for the organization. Efficiency Arguably the benefit with the most positive impact to profitability for an organization is the realization of efficiency improvements. Automating workflows can reduce effort and time spent by employees performing workflow steps manually, enabling them to be more productive. Insight One benefit that many organizations may not immediately consider is the enhanced insight into a business process workflow. Knowing at which stage a particular process is or where the next step needs to be taken can help identify bottlenecks and reduce delays. This allows deeper insight into the business by key decision makers and provides important data needed to help steer the business. Ease of Use A critical factor to success will be making the solution easy to use for your audience. A difficult to use form, or one that allows incorrect data to be entered, will lead to a quick abandonment of the solution by the users. The solution should be intuitive to use and not require a large training effort. Ultimately, every organization has internal processes that are used for delivering products or services to their clients. Using SharePoint to make these processes easier to use, easier to control, and more efficient, while providing better insight, and accountability can help you gain the competitive edge.