SR1 Director Steven Richardson speaks to McNeil Collective to discuss how SharePoint can be used to manage Health and Safety within organisations. They discuss uses such as Health and Safety Tracking, Risk Registers and Lessons Learned Databases.

We have recently been working with several professional service companies including financial advisors, accountants, and solicitors to help them leverage Office 365 and SharePoint online capabilities to store and manage their client files.

Using these tools they are also able to create a “portal” for there clients to login to, so they can view and manage there own documents.

Some benefits of this approach include:

• One central area to upload client documents
• Secure sharing of client area to enable the client to view and manage their documents
• Automatic notifications to the client of new documents to review
• Automatic notifications to internal staff that a client has created/edited or viewed a document
• Automatic notifications to internal staff that some action is due to that client. For example annual review, tax return, etc.
• Full audit trail
• GDPR compliance
• Digital signing

Professional Service Document View

End Client Document View

If you need any help implementing this in your site or have any other requirements, then please get in touch.

One of the limitations of modern SharePoint sites is the end-user options to brand them to meet company brand guidelines.

In this post, we will show you how to easily apply your corporate colour scheme to modern SharePoint sites, and add a logo to give your users a familiar UI experience.

1. Create your modern SharePoint site

2. Navigate to Microsoft UI Fabric Designer

3. Select corporate colour values

4. Select Export Theme, and copy PowerShell Values

5. Paste the powershell values into the following PowerShell script and run

Connect-SPOService “https://SPTenant-admin.sharepoint.com/” -Credential (Get-Credential)

$themeName = “SR1 Development”

$palette = @{
“themePrimary” = “#000000”;
“themeLighterAlt” = “#898989”;
“themeLighter” = “#737373”;
“themeLight” = “#595959”;
“themeTertiary” = “#373737”;
“themeSecondary” = “#2f2f2f”;
“themeDarkAlt” = “#252525”;
“themeDark” = “#151515”;
“themeDarker” = “#0b0b0b”;
“neutralLighterAlt” = “#faf9f8”;
“neutralLighter” = “#f3f2f1”;
“neutralLight” = “#edebe9”;
“neutralQuaternaryAlt” = “#e1dfdd”;
“neutralQuaternary” = “#d0d0d0”;
“neutralTertiaryAlt” = “#c8c6c4”;
“neutralTertiary” = “#a19f9d”;
“neutralSecondary” = “#605e5c”;
“neutralPrimaryAlt” = “#3b3a39”;
“neutralPrimary” = “#323130”;
“neutralDark” = “#201f1e”;
“black” = “#000000”;
“white” = “#ffffff”;

}

Add-SPOTheme -Name $themeName -Palette $palette -IsInverted:$false -Overwrite

6. Navigate back your your SharePoint site, and select your new Theme from the top right cog (Change the Look)

You will also see options for changing the logo, header style, footer, and navigation style.

If you need any help implementing this in your site or have any more advanced branding requirements, then please get in touch.

Lead consultant Steven Richardson discusses his favourite SharePoint tools for migration, workflow, form development, digital signatures, and people search.

Over the last 15+ years, I have had the pleasure of working on many SharePoint projects varying in size and complexity.

One question I often get asked is what my favourite tools and add-ins are for various tasks. Whilst this can be tricky, as it is very dependant on the specific business requirements, budgets, and internal IT capacity, I often end up recommending the products below for Migration, Workflow, Forms, Digital Signatures, and People Search.

Just for clarity, I have no affiliation with any of these products (except the staff directory app). I receive no commission or other incentives for recommending these products. I prefer this as I feel it allow me to give my clients impartial recommendations, based solely on their needs.

Migration

A key component of SharePoint projects is often migration. This may be of content and documents from an earlier version of SharePoint, or documents from the file server or a 3rd party document management system.

My preferred tool for this is usually ShareGate. The main reason for this is the combination of simplicity and the level of granularity it offers.

Notable mentions

SPMT is a very simple free tool provided by Microsoft for migration to SharePoint Online from earlier versions of SharePoint (2010 +) or the file server.

Mover was recently acquired by Microsoft. Whilst Mover SharePoint integration is still in its infancy, I believe this will be improved over the next 12 months, and could well end up being the tool of choice

Workflow

Workflow capabilities are one of the great benefits of SharePoint. It allows us to build list-based applications rapidly that can really add value to an organization.

For this, I have chosen 2 tools, dependant on environment. One for on-premise SharePoint, and one for SharePoint Online.

For on-premise SharePoint, my preferred workflow tool is Nintex. Once again the primary reason being ease of use. This is something you can train a superuser with, allowing them to create and maintain workflows themselves. It also offers an array of functionalities and connectors.

Whilst Nintex also have a solution for SharePoint Online, this is a little bit more limited than the on-premise version. This is understandable as the on-premise version has full access to server-side components, whereas the Office 365 version runs client-side. Whilst it is still a good tool, I feel this has recently been surpassed by Microsoft Power Automate (previously flow) and Logic Apps. The array of functions and connections available is continually growing and you can really create some powerful enterprise-level automation, direct from SharePoint.

Notable mentions

K2 is a very powerful workflow engine, which we have used when organisations already have it set up with other products. Whilst the learning curve can be steep, the capabilities are very impressive.

Forms

When it comes to form-development there is a lot of options. My preferred choice for end-users is Nintex. Whilst it can be costly, it makes it very simple to create rich engaging forms, without relying on IT.

Notable mentions

Client-side rendering of forms using HTML, Javascript, and CSS. For a truly bespoke look and feel this can be a good option. Whilst it does require some SharePoint technical knowledge to implement them, if well structured they can easily be handed over to internal IT teams for future maintenance.

Cognito forms are easy to create WISYWIG forms that can be integrated into SharePoint lists using Power Automate

Digital signatures

In recent years, and with the rising popularity of Office 365 we are getting a number of service-based clients such as solicitors, accountants and financial advisers asking us to build secure client portals in SharePoint Online. A key requirement of this is often an easy way for the clients to produce pdf documents that can be accessed by there customers and digitally signed.

My preference is Docusign due to the seamless integration with SharePoint document libraries, allowing customers to sign the document, and the signed version to be uploaded as a new version of the original document. Also, the standard plans are very cost-effective, although do have a limit of 100 transactions per year. For higher volume transactions, bespoke plans are available which are also relatively cost-effective.

Notable Mentions

Adobe Sign. Often clients are already using this, therefore we would recommend them to continue with it as it also has nice SharePoint integration features

Staff/People Directory

With this was I am biased. Over many years of developing SharePoint intranets, I was continuously asked to implement a Staff/People Directory, and could never find a good one on the market. Therefore, I decided to develop my own and publish it on the SharePoint app store.

This retrieves user data from People Search, User Information List, or a custom list and displays it using the excellent Datatables plugin. This gives it very rich functionality such as search as you type, filtering, sorting and exporting.

Notable Mentions

The ShareGate team have an excellent blog on how to create your own People search in SharePoint

This is certainly not a comprehensive list of the tools available. I will look to produce this in a future article. However, I hope it gives you a few ideas and tools to look at.

If you need any assistance or advice on these tools or general SharePoint advice, don’t hesitate to get in touch

A requirement we have had several times from clients is to implement a Lessons Learned Database in SharePoint.

This provides a system where users and key stakeholders can record good and bad experiences throughout the company and hopefully learn from them and embrace a culture of continual improvement.

This sort of application is where SharePoint can shine. We have implemented very simple Lessons Learned applications to very complex ones.

Components would usually include:

• A source list (example columns – Title, Description, Status, Created By, Raised Date, Category, Responsible User)
• Workflow to notify responsible person, and possibly approval to accept the lesson
• Custom Views
• Custom Permissions
• Reporting
• Custom search (often a bespoke
• Lessons Learned tab in the search centre)
• Branded landing page
• Latest lessons learned displayed on intranet homepage

We now offer a simple lessons learned application as a micro job. Alternatively get in touch today to discuss your bespoke requirements

Get your own custom developed SharePoint search display template and enhance the SharePoint search experience of your users

We are now registered on Collab365 MicroJobs – the brand new marketplace dedicated to Microsoft professionals.

We have posted a project to help improve your search experience for your users with a custom display template.

This can include specific information relative to the results, giving the users a lot more detail before clicking through.

For example, you may want to create a specific search template for invoice content types. This could then display PO number, customer name, invoice date, etc within the search results.

Please get in touch first to briefly outline your search display template requirements.

Here are 4 reasons that the Collab365 Team have spent months building the site:

1. You often need expert Microsoft help just for a couple of hours.
2. You can’t keep up with everything Microsoft is releasing.
3. You find it hard to find Microsoft experts on other non-dedicated sites. There are just too many other subjects covered.
4. You don’t have time to go through a lengthy interview process.

How does it work and what about payment?

Paying for online services with people that you don’t know can be worrying for both parties. The buyer often doesn’t want to pay until they’re happy that the Freelancer has completed the work. Likewise the Freelancer wants to be sure they will be recompensed for their time and commitment. Collab365 MicroJobs helps both the buyer and the Freelancer in these ways:

1. The buyer pays up front and the money is securely held in the MicroJobs Stripe Connect platform account.
2. The Freelancer can then begin the work in the knowledge that the payment has been made.
3. Once the buyer is happy that the work is complete and to their satisfaction, the funds become available to the Freelancer.
4. There’s even a dispute management function in case of a disagreement. But it won’t on my MicroJob! As long as we agree what’s needed up front and keep talking the entire way through, you won’t be disappointed.

Note: Once I’ve completed the work, we’d love it if you could write a review for us. This will allow others to see what a fantastic job we did for you.

What if we need to add extra’s to the job after we’ve started?

It’s really easy for us to discuss your extra requirement (using the chat feature on the site) and for us to agree a price and add it to the order.

If you’d like us to help you with a custom search display template, here are the steps to hire us …

1. View MicroJob.
2. On that page click the “Buy” button.
3. You’ll need to register as a buyer on the MicroJobs site, but this only takes a minute and will also allow you to purchase MicroJobs from other awesome Freelancers.

If you need to contact us then please use the “contact” button and ask me any questions before purchasing.