Last week Greystone Technology had the opportunity to attend Denver SharePoint Fest 2017 at the Colorado Convention Center. SharePoint Fest is an annual event held around the United States that allows SharePoint administrators, software developers, information architects and power users to learn how to leverage SharePoint in their current environments whether that be on-premise SharePoint or Office 365.
As usual, it was a very popular event with over 300 registered attendees! It was great connecting with fellow SharePoint users & administrators, and we had some engaging conversations around where Microsoft is taking SharePoint and Office 365.
Key Takeaways:
- Lower Entry Point for SharePoint – SharePoint in all of its renditions remains a viable and powerful communications and collaboration tool. The cost of entry for the platform continues to shrink and it is quickly becoming a viable solution for even small businesses.
- OneDrive for Business & Files on Demand – As we mentioned a few weeks ago in our blog post, Microsoft is continuing to develop the files-on-demand infrastructure which will allow end users the ability to have all their files with them without the need for storage. This feature will allow many more business to make the jump to SharePoint.
- Flow – Microsoft Flow is a product to help you set up automated workflows between your favorite apps and services to synchronize files, get notifications, collect data, and more. Flow can tie into a user’s email/calendars/OneDrive and even SharePoint allowing your organization to develop workflows in place of a manual process. The Flow application has been publicly available for just over 8 weeks and is currently seeing approximately 500k unique “flows” each week.
- End User Engagement – According to recent studies ONLY 32% of the workforce in the United States is actively engaged in work. This staggering number represents approx. a $450 billion to $550 billion each year in lost productivity. With the proper planning and a digital transition plan, utilizing services like Office 365 & SharePoint can greatly improve those numbers.
- Communication Hub – With new communication hubs within SharePoint (rolling out to Office 365 users in the coming months), the need for a company intranet will be reduced.
Communication sites take the smaller group conversations of Team Sites and opens it up across the organization. Through its connection with SharePoint in Office 365, communication sites surfaces content in SharePoint home, in Office 365 and SharePoint mobile to all users with access. End users will have the ability to quickly see company news/recent hires and company events no matter what device they are using.
Many exciting changes are coming to SharePoint & Office 365 over the next six months, and it was great to be surrounded by others to share in that excitement! Thank you to all the speakers for sharing your knowledge. We look forward to continuing our conversations around the future of SharePoint.
