Microsoft (MS) Sharepoint Online
Overview
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When you need to store documents that should be accessible to certain people in your company or by your customers or vendors, then you need MS Sharepoint Online You do not want to use anymore a file server since either the file server is not remotely accessible or if remotely accessible, you need to set up a RDS and/or a VPN client on your remote computer. Also a file server is hard to reach from a mobile device.
When you want to organize all documentation (files, website links, announcements, pictures, videos, contacts, tasks, etc ) per team or group of people so that they all can see this material at anytime from anywhere, then you need MS Sharepoint online. This way people will find information quickly when they need it, and be able to share quickly new information with other people.
When you want to link to those team sites in MS Sharepoint Online during a discussion forum or a chat so that you can share some information quickly instead of having to email it, then you need MS Sharepoint Online.
When you want to reduce your administration costs by at least 50%, then you need MS Sharepoint Online.
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When you want to structure all your company information properly by planning function, management level, and operation/execution level, and you want to further group information within those levels by department (sales, marketing, production, support, training, accounting, HR, etc), then you need Internet Customer Solutions to help you with setting up such a structure, to train your people, and to support them in becoming disciplined to to store information in a structured way. This way people will find information easily.
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MS Sharepoint enables you to do the following:
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Setting up site collections/portals that have:
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Private sites and subsites but that can be shared with external users. A site can be for a team, a community, publishing site, ...
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These private sites and subsites can have:
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Pages
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Document libraries that can be shared
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lists for weblinks, issues, tasks, contacts, announcements, custom lists,
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Calendars
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Discussion groups
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Blogs
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Videos
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Slides
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Applications from Microsoft and 3rd parties
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A Site and Subsites
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Your company may store today its paper documents in hanging folders, and the hanging folders in cabinets in a certain way. Or, your company may store electronic files in electronic folders in a certain way, and electronic folders in computers in a certain way. You may even use the online storage places such as dropbox, box.com, Google Drive, etc. However all these storage places are just storage places. To do your job as a team member or department member, you need a calendar, you need to store weblinks, you need chat with each other to send a quick message, you need to share and edit documents online with other people, you need to protect certain information, you may want to have a web conference or video call, you need a discussion forum , you need to see who worked on certain documents, etc. A file server, Dropbox, Google drive and other online storage sites don't offer these features. MS Office 365 Sharepoint Online offers these features.
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The way you organize your information depends on your organizational structure, your needs and preferences. MS Sharepoint Online can acomodate any information organization/structure. Below is only an example of a possible structure. The most important requirement for such a structure is that the structure is well planned and very solid so that people will easily find their documents, chats, and their information.
Once the structure is in place, people need to have DISCIPLINE to keep the structure well organized if it gets expanded or changed.
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Our company has a methodology to help you structure your information properly. We can build the structure in MS Sharepoint Online. We can also brand you Sharepoint Online sites and subsites. Branding means making them look like a public website so that the site is simple, clean and easy to navigate.
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A possible structure is as follows:
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For each department eg. Marketing, you will create a site. If you do this, you will have in the top menu a site tab for eg. Marketing, Sales, Production or Service Fulfilment, Accounting, Purchasing, HR, etc.
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Under each site eg Dept, you can have a subsite for each product or service, and a sub-subsite for each sub-product or sub-service.
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In each subsite, you may have:
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Announcements​
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Doc libraries
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Lists for
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Issues​
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Contacts
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Tasks to do
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Subsite calendars​
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Discussion forum
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Office group conversation
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Pages with important information
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Product
Service
Marketing
Sales
Production
Kitchen Table
Kitchen Cabinet
Dining Table
Subsite
Subsite
Subsite
Subsite
Subsite
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Document Libraries
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You can store all types of documents in a document library, even a 3D picture as seen below. The video underneath the picture will show it.
Sharing a Document, and Chatting with other party about it
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You can share a document in the document library of a Sharepoint online site.
Sharing a document with other MS Office 365 users/account, or with external people.
See the videos below on how easy it is to share a document.
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Once a document is shared, you may see a picture of the person, with whom you shared the document. You can click on that picture and chat with that person about this document. This way a document will get finalized and agreed upon much faster. No more emailing back and forth. See how to do the chat below:
Sharing a Document with other MS Office 365 users within the companyY
Sharing a Document with external users
What's New in 2018 about Sharing a Document in OneDrive and Sharepoint Online
Chatting with people about document
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When editing a shared Word doc in Office 365, select the picture of someone who’s editing at the same time, and then select Chat.