SharePoint 2016 can serve as a document management system by providing core document management capabilities out of the box such as metadata, security, versioning, collaboration, indexing and publishing. It allows companies to ensure document control and compliance. SharePoint 2016 can be deployed on-premises, as infrastructure as a service (IaaS), or in the cloud as SharePoint Online. On-premises provides more control but higher costs, while Online provides less customization but lower costs and simpler maintenance. SharePoint offers improved mobility, collaboration and document management over traditional file servers.

1. SharePoint Server 2016 as a Document Management Solution
1. Contents
1. Contents
2. Foreword: Document Management
2.1. Enterprise Content and Document Management
2.2. Components of a Document Management System
2.3. Benefits of a Document Management System
2.4. SharePoint Server 2016 as a Document Management Solution
3. SharePoint Deployment Options
3.1. SharePoint Server 2016 (On-Premises)
3.2. SharePoint IaaS
3.3. SharePoint Online
3.4. Deployment Options Comparison Overview
4. Introduction to the Product
4.1. Hybrid Infrastructure, Mobility and Collaboration
4.2. HTML5 and Mobile Devices
4.3. Durable Links
4.4. Policies, Compliance and Data Loss Prevention
5. File-Sharing Services
5.1. Side-by-Side SharePoint 2016 and Windows File-Sharing Comparison
5.2. SharePoint Drawbacks Relative to Windows File-Servers
6. Conclusion
2. Foreword: Document Management

2. To have a strategy and the means to implement some sort of document management is an important
requirement for any company, within any industry that ensures, amongst others, the validity, the quality
and the security of the information held within the organization’s documents.
Whilst different Document Management Systems may offer different features, and different
organizations may have different legal and internal compliance requirements in terms of managing their
documents, certain basic concepts are common to all DMSs and are applicable to virtually all
organizations.
Although, at this stage, the delivery of a Document Management Solution in not the highest priority
goal we are exploring SharePoint to achieve, the document author has considered it of added-value to
present a shortintroduction to the basic Document Management concepts which can be easily delivered
should the SharePoint deployment proposal be accepted by the business.
2.1. Enterprise Content and Document Management
Document Management Systems (DMS) are intended to allow for documents to be tracked, managed
and stored in a consistent way throughout an organization. A DMS can be seen as a component of
Enterprise Content Management (ECM), which covers document management, web content
management, search and collaboration, management of records and digital assets, and workflow
management, amongst others.
Enterprise Content Management's main goal is to efficiently and securely control the life-cycle of
information, at a reduced cost, from its initial creation/publication, all the way to its disposal. To achieve
this goal, ECMs rely on version control, process routing and data retention.

3. 2.2. Components of a Document Management System
Document Management Systems have many different components, out of which we will highlight the
following:
Metadata Metadata is stores with each document and can include information such as,
for instance, the document creation date and who it was created by. This
metadata can then be used for the identification of the document.
Security Certain documents must be compliant with certain security requirements,
depending on both on country legislation and internal information security
standards. Document security will, therefore, correlate closely to the document
classification.
Versioning Through a versioning process, changes to a document can be tracked over time
and previous versions of the same document can be retrieved. Versioning
generally relies on checking the documents in and out of the Document
Management System when changes are made to it.
Collaboration Collaboration is an integral part of most DMSs and relies heavily on document
security, as it is the process which allows for documents to be accessed and
altered by authorized users only. Collaboration generally includes the ability to
have multiple users working (just viewing, or viewing and modifying) the same
document, whilst assuring traceability of which change was made by which user,
and when.

4. Integration DMSs will attempt to integrate into other applications, so that documents can
be retrieved from, edited, and saved to the DMS repositorywithout having users
switching between applications.
Indexing Indexing allows for quick tracking and retrieval of electronic documents by
keeping track of its identifiers, which can be done through their metadata.
Publishing The method for publishing a document will generally involve multiple strategic
steps such as proof-reading the document, reviewing it, authorizing its
publishing, etc. It aims to be make the document easily readable for the
intended audience, whilst ensuring that any changes to it are tightly controlled.
Workflow Workflows can be a different number and different types of processes
composed of a number of different tasks, which DMSs will attempt to automate
through the definition of rules that define the flow of the document through-
out the environment.
2.3. Benefits of a Document Management System
Overall, the use of a Document Management System allows companies to ensure that document control
is implemented, and that some document standards are demonstrable applied to their organization:
- Documents are reviewed and approved before being released, ensuring they remain legitimate.
- Document changes and their different versions are clearly identified, and that previous versions are
easily retrievable.
- Preventing obsolete document versions from being accidentally used.
- Ensuring the identification and control of external documents too, when applicable.
2.4. SharePoint Server 2016 as a Document Management Solution

5. SharePoint Server 2016 has been deemed fit for purpose as a fairly easily deployable Document
Management Solution as the main core goals of a DMS are catered for by this product. All components
of a DMS listed in section 2.1 of this document (plus several others) are built into SharePoint 2016.
All named DMS benefits specified in section 2.3 are also achievable using SharePoint without the need
for extended and/or non-standard product configuration.
Therefore, any client looking forward to, either currently or in the near future, roll-out a Document
Management Solution, will have in SharePoint 2016 and simple, straight-forward but robust and highly
customizable way to achieve the goal of secure and standardized document management which will
cater for legal and internal compliance requirements such as those relating with versioning control and
approval, information legitimacy, etc.
3. SharePoint Deployment Options
With the availability of both SharePoint Server (on-premises and IaaS), and SharePoint Online,
deployment decisions will always depend on the specific business requirements. To help organizations
make up their minds in terms of what option to go for, Gartner has put its technical and business
expertise to work and come up with a decision framework that is intended to help businesses deciding
which type of deployment suits their needs the best:

6. 3.1. SharePoint Server 2016 (On-Premises)
As a very basic overview, on-premises SharePoint Server 2016 deployments are widely agreed to be a
more familiar match to the typical skillsets commonly found in any IT department. SharePoint 2016
offers a much wide range of features and benefits than SharePoint Online and, additionally, on-premises
deployments also provide administrators (and the business) full control at great proximity over the
entire SharePoint infrastructure.
On the downside, an on-premises deployment will involve high costs if high-availability and disaster
recovery are to be provided for the environment, the architecture can easily become more complex than
it should ideally be, and solution maintenance and support may become time and resource consuming.
3.2. SharePoint IaaS
The “Infrastructure as a Service” deployment of SharePoint 2016 is in many ways similar to the on-
premises deployment (same functionality and customizations are available), with the single main
difference that the solution hardware is managed by an external provider, decreasing the IT
department’s workload by assigning the environment’s maintenance and support tasks to a third-party.
However, to have the solution hosted externally and having its maintenance and support assigned to
an external provider may potentially increasing the solution’s total cost of ownership. Costs may also
become even higher than those for an on-premises deployment, should HA and DR capabilities be
required for the solution. Additionally, network connectivity requirements and constraints may also have
an impact on how easy and cost effective is to achieve as SharePoint IaaS deployment.
3.3. SharePoint Online
The simplicity of SharePoint Online greatly decreases maintenance and support requirements, therefore
reducing the overall solution cost significantly, when compared to an on-premises deployment. Because
it is cloud-hosted, SharePoint online is by default intended to provide support for workforce mobility
and collaboration.

7. On the other hand, SharePoint Online is very limited in terms of the customization and availability of
advanced features provided by default by SharePoint Server. For this reason, whilst it may provide good
enough a platform for those businesses only looking forward to boots mobility and collaboration,
SharePoint Online is by no means the ideal product for those intending to use SharePoint as anything
to the likes of a Document Management Solution.
3.4. Deployment Options Comparison Overview
4. Introduction to the Product
4.1. Hybrid Infrastructure, Mobility and Collaboration

8. SharePoint Server 2016 has been designed to enable organizations which are not ready to move to the
cloud to utilize some of its benefits. It is often referred to a good option as a first step towards the
cloud, providing organizations with secure access to data and applications from anywhere. This is
achieved through the enhancements to SharePoint's hybrid infrastructure, which allow on-premises
SharePoint sites to connect to SharePoint online and/or Office 365.
The SharePoint 2016 hybrid infrastructure focuses a lot on the user experience, which has been made
very smooth and intuitive through the use of a UI including a ribbon that matches that of Office 365,
allowing for a very familiar and consistent experience for users switching between systems.
SharePoint 2016's Hybrid OneDrive for Business is another feature that can be explored in order to bring
the organization closer to the cloud in a phased way. It also provides further means to allow for the
workforce to access their files regardless of where they are. In this context, SharePoint My Sites can be
redirected to SharePoint Online OneDrive for Business.
4.2. HTML5 and Mobile Devices

9. SharePoint 2016 allows for device-specific content targeting and optimized user experience across
devices partially through its heavy utilization of HTML5, which open up a lot of possibilities in terms of
the development of customized solutions to be seamlessly integrated into SharePoint.
Out of the box and with no further customization, SharePoint 2016 offers a user-friendly UI which
designed to be beautifully displayed and interacted with from any touch mobile devices.
4.3. Durable Links
One of the most exciting features of SharePoint Server 2016 is the availability of Durable Links, which in
practical terms means that, once a link to a file is shared between users, should the file name or its
location be changed, the link will still work despite those changes.
4.4. Policies, Compliance and Data Loss Prevention
SharePoint 2016 includes a new Compliance Centre and In-Place Policy Hold Center. Through these,
businesses can create their own policies to be applied to the environment in order to control the flow
of data, set retention policies and so forth. Policies can be assigned to site collections, templates and
others, depending on the specific business requirements.
Data Loss Prevention (DPL) policies are also catered for in SharePoint 2016, which aims to seamlessly
allow for the identification and search of sensitive content within the on-premises and/or hybrid
environment.
5. File-Sharing Services
5.1. Side-by-Side SharePoint 2016 and Windows File-Sharing Comparison

10. Feature/Benefit SharePoint 2016 Windows File-Servers
Web-based access, supporting accessibility
and workforce mobility.
Full support. Not supported.
Document version control with approvals
and, draft-labelling, and major and minor
versions.
Full support. Not supported.
View (and recover) point-in-time (previous)
clearly labelled document versions.
Full support. Very basic version of it
supported though VSS
snapshots (data loss likely
if handled by users).
Document check-in and check-out to
enforce document change control.
Full support. Not supported.
Possibility to deny document downloads to
client machines (saving storage by keeping
single copy of the document in the
environment).
Full support. Not supported.
Possibility to allow certain documents to be
taken offline by certain people and
automatically be synced back to SharePoint
once online.
Full support. The closest available is
Windows offline drive
sync, with limited
capabilities.
Possibility to allow certain people to email
documents directly to libraries.
Full support. Not supported.
Durable links ensure that even if a document
is renamed or moved to a different location,
the link shared with others users will still
work.
Full support. Not supported.
Content Types enabled. Templates can be
used and different document types can be
processed through a pre-set, automated
lifecycle.
Full support. Not supported.
Simple, out of the box or advanced, bespoke
Workflow capabilities for advanced
document management.
Full support. Not supported.
Document libraries fully managed by their
administrators, can be RSS-enabled and with
change alerts/notifications sent to named
individuals.
Full support. RSS and alerts not
supported. Users can
administer file-shares but
in a much messier way.
Out of the box support for Records
Management.
Full support. Not supported.
Document/Library-sets can be defined and
assigned to certain individuals or groups.
Full support. Extended AD and/or other
products’ configuration
required to make this
achievable.

11. 5.2. SharePoint Drawbacks Relative to Windows File-Servers
Although, in many ways, SharePoint clearly offers a far superior range of file-management features and
tools when compared to Windows File-Servers, these benefits come at a price and the following are
common drawbacks clients may face upon a SharePoint implementation:
- The workforce must be trained on how to use SharePoint. How hard this is to be achieved will largely
depend on the users’ adaptability and willingness to learn and implement what they’ve been taught.
- Data owners (if data is to be structured and ownership established) will need moderately advanced
SharePoint training. SharePoint is aimed to empower the workforce but this empowerment is not
achievable if the workforce has no idea what they are doing.
- From an IT perspective, the more elaborate a SharePoint implementation is, the more a test of
endurance it may become. SharePoint offers an extremely vast array of very useful features and, whilst
some of these work “out-of-the-box”, others will require a degree of customization and fine-tuning,
which can be neglected if the technical staff performing the solution roll-out (or the business itself) are
not “in it” for the “long run”.
- The fact that SharePoint Server offers so many possibilities may result in a high level of environment
complexity and, since manageability decreases with complexity, if the environment becomes too
complex, it risks becoming virtually unmanageable. So careful planning and a level of “restraint” is
required for a successful SharePoint implementation.
6. Conclusion
State-of-the-art indexing capabilities and
extremely quick search of documents using
keywords (document title and/or contents).
Full support. Basic-search only. Slow
and resource-consuming.

12. SharePoint is a powerful and robust solution that can is built to support workforce mobility and
collaboration, and which presents clients who haven’t done so already with a paced, sustainable way to
start moving towards the cloud.
A SharePoint implementation is always designed to meet specific client requirements, which the
SharePoint products and deployment options available cater brilliantly for.
Through advanced features and high levels of automation and customization, SharePoint empowers
businesses and allows them to engineer their environment as they see fit, with the utilization of different
product features and varying degrees of complexity depending exclusively on the business needs.
The fact that SharePoint seamlessly offers such great possibilities in terms of mobility, collaboration,
and document management and control without losing the ability to truly let the customer choose what
it is exactly that they want to get out of the product is, in my view, a great achievement which any
business can and will greatly benefit from.