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Maximizing Business Value: Best-in-Class Add-on Solutions for Microsoft SharePoint

December 23, 2013 No Comments

Microsoft SharePoint Online with Office 365 delivers all the best business tools, but there are powerful add-on solutions available to organizations looking to customize the platform according to their unique business requirements. As a Microsoft partner and trusted SharePoint advisor to organizations nationwide, En Pointe keeps in daily contact with its customers, hearing their pain points around managing their SharePoint content and alleviating those concerns to help them function in optimal capacity.

As a result of numerous customer discussions, our product team spent months searching and testing various SharePoint add-on tools in search of the perfect solutions to complement the technology. After a comprehensive vetting process, we identified a short list of the “best of the best” add-on solutions currently available in the marketplace.  These are just some of the add-ons that organizations can leverage to get the most out of their investment in their SharePoint infrastructure.

1.  CRM Online Integration

If you are using Microsoft CRM Online in Office 365, a free add-on is available to integrate CRM with Office 365 for Document Management. From the Microsoft Website, “The Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 List component for SharePoint makes your Microsoft Dynamics CRM documents that are stored on SharePoint available to you in a format that has the look and feel of Microsoft Dynamics CRM. This component also enables Microsoft Dynamics CRM to automatically create folders that will be used to store documents related to Microsoft Dynamics CRM records on SharePoint.”

 

Download the add-on and add this to the solutions gallery. Navigate to Settings and Document Management, enter the SharePoint site. Now you have you CRM documents integrated with SharePoint.

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2. Project Online

Microsoft just introduced one of its powerful tools, Microsoft Project Online, to the New SharePoint Online. Project Online is a premium add-on by Microsoft and is fully integrated into SharePoint Online. Manage projects, tasks, and resources centrally through this platform.  Additionally, Project Online includes Project Web App which works an online Project and Portfolio management tool through which you can manage your projects, tasks and assign resources. Setup is an easy, 3-step process that allows users to start managing projects in Project Online.

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3. Yammer

“My Sites” introduced in SharePoint 2010 has come a long way. SharePoint comes with a built in news feed so employees can post new documents, announcements and presentations. Yammer integration with SharePoint Online adds another layer of social networking with social feeds, updates, groups, file uploads, polls etc.

4. Enterprise Online

Only available to EA customers, Duet Enterprise online is a premium add-on from Microsoft in collaboration with SAP so that business users can easily use SAP processes and data insight. Duet Online takes the cloud to a totally different level where you can extend your SAP data into Microsoft Online services. SAP pushes data to SharePoint Online in the form of reports or workflows. Customers will have to deploy Duet Enterprise online, configure a SharePoint Online Add-on, and setup a mutual trust relationship between on-premises SAP and SharePoint Online.

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5. MetaVis

MetaVis provides the broadest set of features and tools in an all-inclusive, easy-to-use platform for migrating SharePoint, file share and Google content to SharePoint Online or on premise infrastructure. Once migrated, MetaVis provides a comprehensive set of tools for managing the information, including modules for visualization, maintenance, administration, backup, security and permissions management.

Microsoft SharePoint Store

SharePoint has been a great success based on the fact that customers can customize and extend the solution using their own custom codes, extensions, and add-ons. Microsoft introduced the SharePoint app store taking the online version of SharePoint 2013 to a whole different level. The app store provides robust tools that can be easily integrated with SharePoint Online. These add-on apps range from social site add-ons to premium paid add-ons. There are a number of tailored solutions available in the SharePoint app store that can be content management, reports, visualization, and project management focused.

The cloud is all about taking the complexities out of a customer’s IT environment, but at the same time, it represents a great deal of unknowns for an organization. The above information only provides a basic framework of just some of the best in class add-on solutions for SharePoint. If you are a current cloud customer, or just simply evaluating the cloud, I encourage and challenge you to evaluate the aforementioned solutions and be sure to seek out a trusted Microsoft partner and cloud specialists to help you throughout the entire process and identify the most cost effective solution for your organization – based on your unique requirements.

Ramin Archer

Ramin Archer is a Microsoft Cloud Architect at En Pointe Technologies, a leading solution provider of IT products and services, and one of the largest Microsoft partners. For more information, visit www.enpointe.com or follow @EnPointeTech on Twitter.

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