SharePoint Online: Complete Guide for Beginners
Aftab Alam
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Updated On - October 05, 2023
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Updated On - October 05, 2023
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Updated On - October 05, 2023
Read time: 4 minutes
Microsoft introduced SharePoint as a collaborative platform primarily focused on efficient document management and storage to streamline collaboration among team members and inter-departmental employees. Over time, it has evolved significantly with a range of easily customizable features, allowing for diverse levels of utilization across businesses.
SharePoint offers various editions, each catering to distinct functions and benefits, including SharePoint Standard, SharePoint Server, Server Enterprise, and SharePoint Online. Altogether, SharePoint boasts a vast user base, with over 200 million active users benefiting from its capabilities.
Typically, the average user tends to overlook the distinctions among different terms associated with SharePoint Online, such as Office 365 SharePoint, Office SharePoint, Microsoft 365 SharePoint, SharePoint 365, and more. It’s important to note that all these terms encompass SharePoint Online, a fundamental component of the Microsoft 365 subscription plan, which can also be acquired as a standalone product. SharePoint Online holds an advantage over SharePoint on-premises due to its elimination of the necessity for a dedicated server system. Operating as an online service, SharePoint incorporates numerous features not found in its on-premises counterparts, including –
Microsoft is accountable for updating its online services, so you get the latest version of SharePoint each time you log in to your account.
SharePoint Online is tailored to seamlessly integrate with cloud infrastructure, offering comparable features to its on-premises counterpart. In fact, it enhances productivity and collaboration by leveraging the cloud environment, making it highly scalable and efficient.
Users can effortlessly access their accounts from any web browser or computer device, ensuring universal availability of both their account and its data. This seamless accessibility empowers teams to collaborate and work on projects from different corners of the world, accessing the same documents and fostering productive global collaboration.
Within Microsoft 365 plans, a comprehensive suite of Microsoft Office applications is accessible, encompassing essential tools such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Outlook, and OneNote, among others. Furthermore, SharePoint Online seamlessly integrates with these applications, enhancing collaborative capabilities and user productivity. Users can effortlessly integrate and utilize these applications within their workflow, ensuring uninterrupted and efficient work processes. Additionally, Microsoft 365 offers the flexibility to create and manage MS Office-related apps within sites, lists, and libraries, further streamlining organizational operations.
In the realm of SharePoint on-premises, the SharePoint Administrator carries the responsibility of regularly updating the server to mitigate potential threats like ransomware and spyware targeting SharePoint systems. Performing these updates is crucial, as an outdated server becomes an easy target for such malicious attacks. Thankfully, with SharePoint Online, these vulnerabilities are significantly reduced since updates are applied automatically, ensuring a more secure environment.
SharePoint Online offers a dynamic array of features and functionalities, allowing users to tailor their data in a highly personalized manner. Users can craft web pages that showcase their businesses, disseminate announcements, share pertinent professional insights, efficiently organize projects, create, design, verify, and share documents within the site collection. The platform provides extensive customization options for libraries, empowering users to configure them to suit their specific needs. Additionally, users can establish localized social networking sites within the platform, fostering seamless interactions and collaboration among individuals.
As previously highlighted, SharePoint Online holds significant importance within Microsoft 365 business plans, offering cost-effectiveness for businesses by granting access to a comprehensive suite of applications and services. This eliminates the need for the company to invest in physical server machines or incur additional service expenses, resulting in a more economical solution.
The SharePoint Migration streamlines the process of migrating on-premises data to SharePoint Online by eliminating the need for manual data movement. This powerful tool efficiently transfers selected sites, lists, document libraries, and workflows to the designated online SharePoint account. Moreover, it seamlessly accommodates migration from the three previous versions of SharePoint—2016, 2013, and 2010—ensuring a smooth transition of data and workflows to the latest platform. So, you can migrate SharePoint 2013 to SharePoint Online by running the tool.
Before starting the migration, you can assess the size and number of your site collection, libraries, and Workflow. Also, the user should check that they have an adequate level of permission to move the data from its source.
SharePoint Online has significantly enhanced teamwork, collaboration, and information sharing within businesses. However, the free SharePoint Migration tool has limitations, allowing migration of only one site collection at a time and lacking the ability to halt an erroneous migration. To gain better control over data migration, utilizing Kernel Migrator for SharePoint software is recommended. This software is purpose-built for SharePoint data and offers extensive features such as comprehensive filters, versioning control, and intelligent metadata transfer options. It supports the migration of multiple site collections and other components of SharePoint from on-premises environments
