SharePoint consulting:
Why choose intranet.ai?

Creating a site with SharePoint Online is simple. But making a site like the intranet the heart of your digital workplace is not easy at all.

In this article, we will explore the role of Microsoft SharePoint consultants, the professionals who help companies make the most of the platform's capabilities for document management and internal communication. We will examine the pros and cons of relying on SharePoint consultants to customize and optimize the use of company sites, discovering why consulting services sometimes do not yield the expected results.

Finally, we will introduce you to intranet.ai: the solution we have designed to enhance productivity, collaboration, and the well-being of everyone in the company, going beyond mere SharePoint consulting.

SharePoint consultants: who they are and what they do

Microsoft 365's SharePoint Online is for building state-of-the-art corporate sites where you can:

• digitize corporate archives, migrating them to Microsoft's cloud to enable real-time collaboration on documents and access from any device;
• share targeted content, such as news posts, service communications, and newsletters;
• organizing spaces reserved for useful services and resources for workers;
• create pages dedicated to individual departments or specific initiatives.

In order to adapt to the different needs of each organization, SharePoint Online provides numerous features, each designed to enable users to accomplish the tasks listed above. But that's not all.

SharePoint is in fact able to integrate with external products to diversify and expand the capabilities of its sites. Among these products, we would like to highlight Microsoft Teams, Outlook, Forms and Planner from the Microsoft 365 suite, Power Platform solutions (Power Automate, Power BI and Power Apps, to name the main ones) and Microsoft Viva employee experience modules. In addition, enterprise software and third-party applications such as Twitter, Adobe and Google can be integrated.

The possibilities opened up by these integrations are numerous and, consequently, so are the opportunities to be seized by companies that want to improve their productivity and the relationship with their people. But, as always, you have to know where to put your hands to get the best results.

That's where SharePoint consultants come in.

SharePoint consultants are those professionals who have been trained to teach companies the ABCs of document management and corporate communication through the proper use of the components that make up SharePoint Online sites. For example, web parts, lists, and document libraries.

In addition to offering advice and guidance to the IT departments of each client company, consultants handle the architecture, design, development, maintenance, and migration of sites created with SharePoint. In this way, they can make a substantial contribution in building a digital workplace that is not only functional but also, and more importantly, intuitive and easy for users to use according to their activities.

It happens that a product such as an intranet is developed by a company, investing a significant amount of resources, only to be ignored by its audience. The cause is often poor site navigation or a lack of tools with which to manage one's work in a digital environment.

An example might be a chaotic services page that does not allow you to interact with company resources, perhaps to book a meeting room or submit a support ticket. Or it could be missing the people directory, which is the address book containing names, roles, and useful links for finding and contacting colleagues.

To take a less trivial example, we might cite the presence of ineffective archives in one's digital workplace. This means that SharePoint libraries are not configured in the proper way to simplify the drafting, approval, storage, and sharing of documents.

To do this, lists and libraries should be integrated with customized workflows capable of automating:

• the archiving of files from Outlook emails;
• requesting approval for adding or editing a shared document;
• the sending of notifications in Teams chats to alert user groups about any updates in project materials;
• the saving of responses to forms created with Forms;
• etc.

In short, it is clear that an archive should not be understood as a simple container of information, but should be designed to become a practical, intelligent and scalable system.

But this applies to any SharePoint Online component.

Especially, for web parts.

If configured and included correctly, web parts can make communication sites such as the intranet and extranet into information-rich, interactive and dynamic portals. Think of the "News" web part.

You can use this component to show users on your intranet the latest posts published by the organization or one of its departments. By leveraging its filters, this web part allows you to target communications and create newsletter-style bulletin boards to be featured prominently on your site pages.

News from global management, on the other hand, can be highlighted on the intranet home page so that colleagues never miss any important updates.

When SharePoint sites cannot justify the amount of time, energy, and money invested in getting them online, consulting may be the solution.

But that is not always the case. Let's see why.

SharePoint consultancy: What are the pros and cons?

The question to ask at this point is whether you really need to pay someone to create a good site with SharePoint Online.

The answer may vary from case to case, but we think a consultancy can clear the air on one key issue: understanding how and when to use individual SharePoint features to give users the best possible experience.

As we mentioned, SharePoint is an extremely flexible platform for being able to digitize the complex set of business activities, and this is possible because of the many features it has. It therefore requires deep customization to fit the needs of each individual organization.

Seeking the help of consultants can be instrumental in creating sites that are useful for workers and secure for the business information that is shared and stored on a daily basis.

Think again of document libraries.

Should there be friction between SharePoint sites and the external apps from which the documents placed in the libraries come, there could be leaks of files and sensitive data. Add in the lack of a robust control system for administrator users, and the result would be the inability to track this leakage in the corporate information network.

In this case, a consultancy could repair and more importantly prevent serious damage to the document management system, allowing users to share and work on information within a protected work environment. But that is not all.

Although SharePoint is a fairly intuitive platform, there may be instances when customization of its components must go through the ways of programming and writing code.

Experienced consultants have advanced IT knowledge to configure components such as libraries and web parts themselves or to be able to communicate with IT engineers at client companies.

They can make the difference between experimenting with the potential of SharePoint and being able to express it without taking unnecessary risks.

But consulting does not always yield positive results.

That's because the SharePoint consulting profession has become quite attractive in recent years, attracting a growing number of people both because of the interest in Microsoft's innovations and the promise of a competitive salary. As a result, it is difficult for a company to figure out where to turn in a market that is becoming saturated and in which offerings are expensive and limiting.

Limiting, because most consultants offer standard services.

The reason lies in the lack of strong technical know-how with which to model the platform, expanding its functionality by adding integrations and new components. Some consultantsmay not have the experience to anticipate the frictions between what SharePoint enables and what needs to be included in a digital workplace to be of daily use.

The problem is rooted in limited knowledge of the basic mechanisms of the platform, as well as too superficial an experience to know how to break out of these patterns. However, the SharePoint consultant market is evolving-unfortunately.

There are beginning to be more comprehensive SharePoint consulting offerings. Such as ours.

Why intranet.ai doesn't do (only) SharePoint Online consulting

We don't do consulting. Not only that.

We bring to the consulting market a product.

We offer an intranet with which companies can digitize in a matter of days and at a reduced cost.

We have developed an intranet that is already equipped with the necessary features that enable people in an organization, whatever its sector or size, to conduct their business in digital.

With strong customization.

We can extend the basic capabilities of our ready-to-use intranet with the integration of company-specific components.

To do this, our team specializes in developing applications from the products of Microsoft 365, Microsoft Viva, Microsoft Power Platform and Microsoft Azure, to name the most important suites.

We can also count on the technical know-how of Dev4Side, the first software house in Italy to boast excellence skills in the use of Microsoft technologies.

With a portfolio of more than 200 successfully completed development projects and with the title of Microsoft Gold Partner, we have the support we need to continue to improve our intranet solution and solve the singular problems of each client.

Companies that have chosen us have been able to adopt an already operational digital work environment and then expand it with features built just for them.

To learn more about our collaboration with Dev4Side, please visit the
page dedicated to the features we developed for our clients.

We must emphasize that the value of intranet.ai is not only based on strong vertical competencies. What allows us to get close to companies and understand their difficulties, as well as the services and conveniences they would like to give their people, is the multicultural nature of our team. The diversity of perspectives, experiences, and approaches is an unquestionable asset, which has always helped us manage the contingencies inherent in any project.

Our listening skills, experience, and recognized technical know-how enable us to offer much more than ordinary consulting.

Our job is to make yours easier, and we are ready to follow the growth of the intranet built together even after the go-live, even months or years after the end of our collaboration.

We will help you measure its effectiveness and spread its use among users.

We will explain to your company's audience how to use Microsoft's tools and integrated services. We will stay in constant contact to evaluate changes in strategy and continue to refine your new digital workplace.

By now the message is clear: intranet.ai is not just a product. It is a relationship.

To simplify, we present in the table below what we can offer your company to put your investment in Microsoft 365 and SharePoint Online in particular to good use.

Who are SharePoint consultants and what do they do?

SharePoint consultants are professionals trained to teach companies the correct use of SharePoint Online for document management and internal communication. They handle the architecture, design, development, maintenance, and migration of SharePoint sites, ensuring an intuitive and easy-to-use digital workplace.

Why hire a SharePoint consultant?

Hiring a SharePoint consultant can be crucial for creating useful and secure sites. Consultants offer advanced technical skills and help companies make the most of all the features of SharePoint, customizing the platform according to the specific needs of the business.

What are the pros and cons of SharePoint consulting for a company?

SharePoint consulting can offer numerous advantages, such as the creation of efficient and secure company sites, and the optimization of business processes. However, it can be costly and limiting if the consultants do not have advanced technical know-how. It is important to choose consultants with adequate experience and skills.

What services do SharePoint consultants generally offer?

SharePoint consultants offer a range of services, including site architecture management, design, development, maintenance, and migration. They provide support in configuring SharePoint features and integrating with other Microsoft and third-party applications.

Why choose intranet.ai for SharePoint consulting?

intranet.ai offers a ready-to-use intranet solution that allows companies to digitalize in a few days and at reduced costs. Our intranet is equipped with features that optimize productivity, collaboration, and employee well-being, seamlessly integrating with SharePoint Online and Microsoft 365.

What services does intranet.ai offer as a SharePoint consultant?

intranet.ai offers digitalization, migration, development, intranet project management, user training, and internal communication management services. Our intranet solution is highly customizable and integrated with Microsoft 365 to optimize business processes.

How does intranet.ai differ from other SharePoint consultants?

Unlike other consultants, intranet.ai not only offers consulting but also a complete product. Our intranet is already operational and can be expanded with customized features, reducing implementation time and costs and offering a modern, collaborative digital work environment.

How does intranet.ai support companies after the intranet implementation?

intranet.ai follows the growth of the intranet even after go-live, helping to measure its effectiveness and promote its use among users. We offer continuous support to evaluate strategy changes and improve the digital workplace based on feedback from the business community.