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Last week, I had the pleasure of presenting at SharePoint Saturday Toronto. Post-session one of the attendees told me she really valued the session because, “What you said was common sense. My organization hasn’t been using common sense.”
So, here it is, the big (common sense) revelation – you don’t have to be the model of SharePoint document management excellence at launch … or even two years later … it’s an evolution and a process of maturation that leads to successful document management in SharePoint.  Your organization falls somewhere in this spectrum. Many of us are in between levels, straddling the line between Functional and Sophisticated use of SharePoint. Here are some guidelines for determining where your organization fits in this model:
Simple
- Check-in Check-Out
- Versioning
- Approval Workflows
Baseline Content Types
Functional
- Content Types
- Multi-Step Workflows
- Managed Metadata
Content Type Hub
Sophisticated
- Document IDs
- Document Sets
- Document Center
- Content Organizer
Multi-step Workflows
Mature
- Retention Policies – In-Place or Records Center
- Co-Authoring
- E-Discovery Policies
- Advanced, Automated Workflows
OneDrive Implementation
These are not hard-and-fast rules – but they provide a basic framework for evolving your document management strategy. Two things to consider:
- Not every organization needs to be ‘Mature.’ Perhaps that’s not your goal, or it’s impractical since SharePoint is not a one-stop shop.
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Determine where you are now, and where you want to be on this spectrum. In some cases this might require back-tracking to ensure a more sound information architecture and foundation are in place.
This is a process of setting goals and expectations. It’s completely reasonable to mature your SharePoint implementation as your organization matures. Just my two (common) cents.
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