SharePoint360 Highlights Best Practices for Driving Collaboration with Microsoft SharePoint

San Diego, CA, August 12, 2009 --(PR.com)-- SharePoint360, the premiere provider of business productivity consulting and hosting solutions, today has unveiled best practices for driving utilization of Microsoft SharePoint in the enterprise. To date, SharePoint has been Microsoft's fastest growing product, having reached $1 billion in sales faster than any previous Microsoft product. Moreover, in a recent study of its members, the Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM) found that 83 percent currently use, or are planning to use, SharePoint, emblematic of the product’s widespread adoption.

This growth has created the opportunity for companies with SharePoint implementations to turn their employees on to the full range of functionality and drive greater platform utilization so it serves as the cornerstone of enterprise content management. Below are six best practice insights for maintaining a successful portal to help manage collaborative workflows.

· Create an initial taxonomy and structure
Maintaining a solid taxonomy and structure is an important success factor to ensure employees become comfortable with SharePoint’s structure while preventing loose files from proliferating; Promote sending links instead of attachments and encourage employees to navigate to the work hosted on SharePoint as opposed to pushing the work around.

• Make the portal the "front door" to the business
SharePoint users should live by the motto “if someone is not using the portal, they are not really part of the business.” By placing everything an employee needs on a daily basis in the portal (HR docs, phone numbers, benefits, etc.), it will become a home base for everyone in the company.

· Promote managerial direction/spearheading/adoption
Come out of the gate with managers clearly establishing that the SharePoint portal is the sole online collaboration environment. Having managers on board with the plan will help the project deployment process be smooth and well received.

· Reward collaboration
Simple acknowledgment goes a long way. Creating a sense of common purpose binds people together and inspires stakeholders to internalize collaborative efforts.

· Ensure proper training of employees
Take the initiative to train employees – it will go a long way. Be sure to keep it non-technical and bear in mind that IT people may not be the best trainers.

· Design a fun, branded portal
It is crucial to pull employees towards the portal. Items such as weather updates, what's for lunch, webinars/classes, upcoming events, photos of the day or of corporate events, etc. alongside the business data are all great draws to the portal. Branding also shows that the company is behind the solution which in turn will help employees respect, use and contribute to it more.

“Through working with our clients to help them get the most out of SharePoint, we’ve come to realize that in addition to uncovering all of SharePoint’s hidden functionality, ensuring employees are on board is equally as important,” said Paul West, principal and co-founder of SharePoint360. “We want to ensure companies are getting it right the first time by instilling habits in their workforce and maintaining best practices within the portal.”

For more information about SharePoint360’s services, please visit: http://www.sharepoint360.com.

About SharePoint360
Headquartered in San Diego, SharePoint360, LLC is a leading SharePoint consulting, hosting and business intelligence solutions provider. Founded in 2006, the company is a Microsoft Certified Gold Partner, whose team of software industry expert have completed have completed a variety of collaborative technology implementations for Fortune 500 Companies, small businesses and government agencies in the U.S. and internationally. More information about SharePoint360 is available at http://www.sharepoint360.com.

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