Document Management System for SharePoint
What is a Document Management System (DMS) for SharePoint?
A Document Management System (DMS) for SharePoint is a centralized platform for storing, organizing, managing and securing documents within an organization. It facilitates collaboration, ensures compliance and makes the company’s digital assets easier to find.
Top Benefits of Using SharePoint for Document Management
Centralized Document Storage
All business files are kept in one secure and searchable location.
Strong Version Control
It is easy to track document changes and prevent data loss with automated version history.
Enhanced Security
Role-based permissions allow organizations to restrict access to sensitive files.
Custom Branding
Add your logo as a custom SharePoint favicon, custom fonts, and brand colors to any page.
Robust Compliance
Audit trails show document activity, enhancing transparency and accountability.
Seamless Integration with Microsoft 365 apps
It is easy to collaborate and use SharePoint with Teams, OneDrive, and Outlook.
Key Features of an Out-of-the-Box SharePoint Document Management System
- Document Libraries and Folders for organizing files.
- Metadata and Taxonomy Management for classifying documents and facilitating retrieval.
- Workflows and Automation for streamlining approvals and notifications about document changes.
- Retention Policies and Compliance Controls for ensuring adherence to industry regulations.
- Co-Authoring and Version Control for real-time collaboration.
- Integration and Extensibility for further customization.
How to Set Up a Document
Management System in SharePoint
Plan Your DMS Structure
➔ Identify the types of documents you'll be managing.
➔ Define libraries, folders and metadata you will use to keep your documents organized.
Create Document Libraries
➔ Within SharePoint, create document libraries for specific departments, projects or document types in alignment with your DMS strategy.
➔ Configure views, columns and metadata to categorize your documents.
Set Up Permissions and Access Control
➔ Use SharePoint Groups to control access to documents.
➔ Assign permissions (Read, Edit, or Full Control) based on roles.
Automate Common Workflows
➔ Use Power Automate to streamline approvals, document reviews and other common workflows within your organization.
➔ Configure alerts and notifications for document changes.
Enable Compliance Features
➔ Implement Retention Policies and Compliance Rules.
➔ Use audit logs for tracking document activity.
SharePoint Document Management Best Practices
Optimizing your SharePoint DMS helps improve productivity and collaboration, strengthen security as well as reduce storage and performance issues.
To make the most of your SharePoint DMS, consider following these best practices:
Plan a clear information architecture using document libraries and folders.
Use a logical and consistent naming convention for easy navigation.
Use Metadata and Tags instead of deep folder structures to prevent document duplication.
Use custom metadata fields to enhance organization.
Automate approvals, notifications and document routing to reduce manual file handling.
Restrict access to sensitive documents using role-based security groups instead of individual permissions.
Audit permissions regularly to maintain security and compliance.
Activate version history to track edits and restore previous versions if needed.
Set retention policies to manage document lifecycle.
Educate team members on naming conventions, security protocols and best practices for document management.
Challenges and Limitations of Out-of-the Box Document Management in SharePoint and Effective Solutions
While SharePoint provides a strong foundation for Microsoft 365 document organization out-of-the-box, many organizations run into frustrating limitations that have a negative impact on their business. Here are the most common challenges and ways to solve them using Document Management software for SharePoint like Sprocket365:
When knowledge is captured in Word documents and stored in a large document library in SharePoint, it can be challenging for users to find the information they need quickly. When they finally do, a common behavior is to download the document for future use, creating a risk of reliance on outdated information. Even document authors can struggle to find and retrieve the documents they created, so they often create another document with similar information and upload it to SharePoint.
Consequences for the Business: Duplicate information stored in various documents can lead to confusion. Challenges with document findability and clear versioning can jeopardize adoption, create compliance risks and cancel out the benefits of having a centralized DMS.
Cost-Effective and Convenient Solution: With its wide range of handy web parts, including Documents web part, Sprocket365 gives users a way to store knowledge in SharePoint as a page by either converting documents they already have or creating new SharePoint pages. In addition, Sprocket enables an intuitive navigation system that helps the team access the most up-to-date information faster and reduces risk of document duplication.
While Power Automate provides basic workflow automation, it lacks flexibility for complex approval chains and escalations.
Consequences for the Business: Enterprises with multi-step, conditional approvals can’t fully automate document management and are forced to deal with manual overhead or resort to costly custom development for more advanced automation.
Cost-Effective and Convenient Solution: Sprocket offers pre-built, configurable workflow components that allow teams to easily automate key document processes without coding or additional external tools.
SharePoint relies heavily on manually applied metadata, which can lead to inconsistent tagging, misclassified documents and long search times for relevant assets. If proper information infrastructure hasn’t been created and metadata guidelines aren’t followed, finding a document quickly becomes a challenge.
Consequences for the Business: Loss of operational efficiency is significant. It is difficult for the workforce to find, filter and organize documents. This results in wasted time and potential compliance risks.
Cost-Effective and Convenient Solution: Sprocket365 knowledge base functionality makes it easy to store knowledge effectively. In addition, Sprocket 365 offers intelligent metadata suggestions and enforced tagging rules, which ensures accurate classification of documents and improves document findability.
With Sprocket 365, You Can Easily Create and Maintain a Single Source of Truth Within Your DMS
You can manage your documents, preserve critical company information, govern your policies and procedures in SharePoint and always have the latest, most accurate versions of all your documents available in your Knowledge Base.
How It Works
1. Install Sprocket365 from the SharePoint App Store
- Go to Microsoft AppSource or your SharePoint admin center, search for Sprocket365 and click Add to SharePoint.
- Follow the installation instructions and grant the necessary permissions.
2. Configure Sprocket365 for Your Document Libraries
- Open Sprocket365 from SharePoint and connect it to your existing document libraries.
- Set up custom metadata fields, tags, and filters to improve organization.
3. Automate Workflows and Document Lifecycle
- Use Sprocket365’s automation tools to create workflows for approvals, archiving and document status updates.
- Integrate with Power Automate to trigger actions based on file changes.
4. Enhance Search and Reporting Capabilities
- Leverage Sprocket365’s enhanced search filters to quickly find documents based on metadata.
- Generate reports on document usage, access logs, and compliance status.
Who Is Sprocket365 For?
Sprocket365 is right for you if you are tired of disorganized document libraries, inefficient search, and manual workflows and want a streamlined, automated, and user-friendly DMS that enhances collaboration and compliance in SharePoint.
