Evolution of SharePoint – 2007 to 2013

SharePoint has evolved dramatically over the last decade. This entry looks at ways the platform and our approaches to it have developed over time. Perhaps more pressing than any other question, however, is whether or not you have fully evolved in your own approach to SharePoint.

An Incredibly Brief History of SharePoint

While other Microsoft offerings foreshadowed the eventual destiny of SharePoint, it was when Office SharePoint Server 2007 was originally released that the platform really took shape. With the option to create team sites, navigation, and advanced workflows, the 2007 iteration gave us a fully functional enterprise content management system.

When SharePoint 2010 was released, it did more than improve the design. It enabled and empowered employees at all levels by providing business connectivity services, improve business intelligence, and improved automation throughout the workflow process.

Then, with SharePoint 2013, we saw dramatic improvement in the social offerings. The ability to collectively store, source, and share information resources within the content management system allows SharePoint to work as the spine of your enterprise social efforts.

Where Did You Get Stuck?

You may have noticed that we moved beyond simply being an enterprise content management (ECM) system in 2010. Yet many users—including, or perhaps even especially, long-time users—settle into preconceived notions about SharePoint that interfere with really taking advantage of what the system now offers.

SharePoint expert Marc Anderson, in a November presentation at the Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM) conference, showed some of his research into how users were adopting the various functionalities of the platform. Even amongst users who were fully upgraded to SharePoint 2013 or SharePoint Online, there were notable omissions in the types of tasks completed.

Veteran users were more comfortable customizing the interface, training users on the platform, improving the infrastructure, and gaining improved insights on their business operations. However, these same veterans were less likely than new users to take advantage of internal applications and search features.

The research didn't merely point to a group of "dinosaurs" who failed to adopt the new bells and whistles. In all groups, limited use of new collaborative options, social features, and advanced integrations shows a saddening trend. Many stop their evolutionary journey short of its maximum potential when it comes to the use of SharePoint.

Anderson jokingly talked about the stages of SharePoint acceptance, likening them to the stages of grief. For many, there are stages of denial and frustration as it becomes more clear that the out-of-the-gate version of SharePoint will not magically do everything for you. This eventually becomes an acceptance of the effort required to take advantage of the tool. Indeed, such effort is vital for a full SharePoint evolution.

So where are you stuck? How expansively do you use the various resources that SharePoint has to offer? And how can we at SharePoint Engine help?

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