17 October, 2013

5 ways to spruce up SharePoint 2013 for your intranet CMS

One of the biggest drawbacks that affect content management is the lack of proper search plug-ins. In the current scenario, businesses do not have adequate amount of time for tracking down different files. SharePoint comes to rescue in such a situation.

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SharePoint intranet comes with convenient document libraries, enabling every business to categorize information in the way they want. In fact, you can have all your content easily accessible by means of different libraries within a hosted portal- a library for media, one for finance, report, sales, marketing and so on. The inconvenience of lost data will never be experienced. The intranet also comprises the latest antiviral software for ensuring preservation of online infrastructure.

As a business owner or team member, SP allows you to open up documents through the web, and also to synchronize work via document collaboration. In short, SharePoint provides a collaborative, hosted solution for content management through the intranet. Investing in SharePoint development for org-wide collaboration always pays rich dividends. Let us discuss 5 trending ways which will help you to spruce up SharePoint 2013 for your intranet CMS.

1. Creation of an intranet newsfeed with SP 2013
With the help of an intranet newsfeed, users are able to publicly and rapidly communicate with each other by sharing ideas, posting updates, asking questions along with other activities. So far as the management is concerned, it is a great means for engaging with employees personally, directly and openly. Moreover, the SharePoint newsfeed renders a micro-blogging experience similar to that derived from social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Users are able to post comments, direct particular users with the help of @targeting as well as tag the same to a particular topic utilizing #tags. Comments or users can be liked or followed.

2. Showcasing intranet blogs with SP 2013
Intranet blogs are a brilliant way to discuss on relevant topics providing authors with the capability of communicating a message as well as starting conversation and collecting feedback. Readers can have their opinions heard and addressed. Authoring and publishing tools are offered by the SharePoint blog site to authors, in the same manner as they would expect from a consumer CMS. The features include the ability of video embedding from sources such as YouTube, rich text editing, capability of content publishing directly from MS Word. It is possible to like, rate, follow or share blog posts.

3. Using SharePoint 2013 for creation of intranet survey
With the help of intranet surveys, creators are able to speedily crowd source precious information from a huge employee pool. As participants, employees can get an easy means for bottom-up feedback and hence become more engaged. The SharePoint survey app offers a template to easily as well as quickly build surveys with diverse question types (multiple choice, text fields, rating scales). On completion of the surveys, results are represented graphically with the facility of exporting to Excel. The promoted links app of SharePoint builds metro-style tiles along with a hover-over state in order to make room for additional text information. The advantage is that tiles offer increasing visual engagement as against a standard list, following the SP site's theme.

4. Leveraging SP 2013 for surfacing intranet KPIs
With regular and convenient access to KPIs, employees can adjust their activities to accommodate the changing business demands. Enhanced visibility of performance metrics at an organizational level helps in greater employee collaboration. With the help of the Excel Web Access Web Part, data can be displayed from an Excel spreadsheet straightaway onto a SharePoint page. Granular control can be maintained by the author over the data that can be displayed from the spreadsheet and accessed. Once it surfaces on the SP page, the data can be made user-interactive.

5. Using SharePoint 2013 for creation of an intranet discussion list
Through intranet discussion lists, users can discuss specific topics with subject matter experts and their peers. It can be used for diverse purposes helping employees draw the benefits of a wide organizational network of resources and knowledge. Forum-style collaboration areas can be created with the help of SP Community Site Features. Using the discussion list, users can start discussions or ask questions. Moreover, categorization of the content can be done.

For creating an engaging and dynamic intranet CMS, SharePoint 2013 is loaded with all the requisite functionality. Great outcomes can be enjoyed by those who comprehend the changing intranet demands and leverage this new functionality.

We provide SharePoint application development services. If you would like to discuss with an expert SharePoint developer from our team, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.

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