Teamwork Makes the Dream Work
The workplace of the 21st century is a constantly evolving space. Technology has enabled employees to work together faster and farther apart. Cubes are becoming a thing of the past. Open floor plans, huge tables, unassigned seats, laptops and tablets, and big screen displays are commonplace in trendy downtown offices. The idea is to bring coworkers together, share ideas between departments, work together, collaborate. After all, there is no “I” in team.
And, of course, employees are working remotely with greater ease and better internet speeds than ever before. This means they have to take advantage of applications to bridge the physical gap between them and their coworkers. Here at Atomic Data, we have satellite offices in San Diego, Denver, New York, Phoenix, Seattle, and Bismarck—in addition to the two offices in Minneapolis. Close to 130 workers spread out over eight locations. And, as a SOC 3 attested organization, we need to adhere to stringent security and compliance standards. So we need a collaboration solution that is easily accessible, available, integrates well with applications, and is highly secure. We found that answer in Microsoft SharePoint.
SharePoint is a web-based collaboration platform. As a Microsoft offering it integrates with Office programs and enables users to store and share information. Since it’s web-based, users can find the information and documents they need from anywhere. Not only that, but they can work on documents through the integrated Office web apps or on their workstation’s applications. Working through the web app enables multiple users to work on a document at the same time. When working on say, a Word doc, Word will highlight a section being edited by another user and lock it out so you’re not writing over each other’s work. Otherwise, users can “check out” documents, making them inaccessible to others while editing.
“…they have to take advantage of applications to bridge the physical gap between them and their coworkers.”
With such ease of access, it is important to maintain a secure environment. SharePoint makes security a breeze. Access to pages is incredibly granular—drilled down to the user, page, and read/write levels. There are some areas of our SharePoint site that I can’t access, some pages I can look at but not edit, and some that I have complete control over. Where Atomic Data’s SharePoint environment sets itself apart though, is that we host SharePoint in our data center environments. Our security is elite, and we add several layers on top of password protected access to the page. VPN use is required when not in the office and connected to the network, and multifactor authentication powered by SecureAuth is required to connect to the VPN. Without those, access is denied to the SharePoint page.
On top of being accessible, secure, and effective, SharePoint is highly customizable. For us, and our clients, we fully deck out the site with custom branding and site mapping so that SharePoint functions as the internal homepage. This brings all the necessary info into full view on the landing page. Shared calendars, search bars, commonly used links, and news/announcement tickers are all great features available for customization. In these ways SharePoint spreads information throughout an organization quickly and easily—thus improving productivity and efficiency.
“After all, there is no “I” in team.”
That’s what makes SharePoint such a powerful and versatile tool that builds collaboration within an organization. It’s easy to use and familiar to anyone already using Office or Office 365 products, meaning implementation is generally smooth.
Atomic Data’s Microsoft Software Solutions (MSS) team specializes in all aspects of SharePoint. Our Engineers will architect a scalable solution that will perform well today and is prepared for the future. They’ll develop and design a custom branded site that’ll drive user adoption and increase collaboration.
Do you already have a SharePoint site? Is it out of date or underperforming? Atomic Data will complete a technical assessment of your environment. This will provide you with a summary of your current state and make technical recommendations and estimates for the work.
SharePoint is the culmination of Atomic Data’s motto of “Safe. Simple. Smart.” Making IT serve the needs of businesses. If you are seeking to increase collaboration within your company and would like to learn more about Atomic Data’s SharePoint development offerings, click the link below and contact us today.