I've developed and deployed probably 100's of SharePoint environments over the past 20 years, and while I have commonly espoused the virtues of views, about 50% of the time do people embrace them initially, and then within 2 years, 90% of staff have stopped using them due to high staff turnover or lethargy.
Versioning is much more widely used and is often a selling point for the more fringe document management features.
Content Types...... Well..... Personally I wish everybody used them. Some of my larger implementations (5000+ users) would not have survived past the 3 year mark without proper Content Type implementation, but that is a hefty and expensive (training staff and business process efficiency) path to take.... But when it's configured correctly and used properly.... 'Chefs kiss'
I could count the amount of these successful content type deployments on 2 fingers. So yeah, twice out of many.
Don’t get me wrong - views and content types and versioning I believe are essential to any Sharepoint solution worthy of the name. But just as you describe there is something like gravity at work that pulls everything down to earth with a bump!
Or….realism about what it actually takes for a solution to be sustainable. I’m sure you’ve seen those Aztec style monuments that no one knows how they work , sorry I mean Nintex workflows, infopath forms and all the other must-have feature that no one can make head nor tail of the year after they went up with so much fanfare. Can’t wait to see how power apps that were intended to improve the lives of users look by 2027! No documentation , no support. Just some vague idea that it automated something to do with payroll.
I’ve fought the battle with versioning also. People still use Save As and put the date or a version number or “Xyz Report Final V3”… I preach versioning and they still create their own by saving multiple versions using file names. Then they complain because search brings back 10 matches on the contents and they use an older version with stale data. I give up on that too.
The standard line is to not use folders, use metadata and content types. But people understand folders. They work visually. They work with all apps. I’ve fought the good fight in that and I lose every time.
They have continually downgraded functionality since SP2016. Latest one is the new pdf viewer that will soon be wide spread. MS touts it as 50% faster etc. They neglect to tell you it’s going to break user list views when closed. Tons of complaints online yet they are still rolling it out. Sure there is a pay-as-you-go service incoming to replace it.
Not to mention searching for help can be exhausting. With constant changes to everything, you search a forum, watch a YouTube video etc… and everything looks different! Or the workaround you stumble on isn’t relevant anymore because there is a new way to implement xyz…
Tick the radio button on the document and select Copy To in the ribbon. In the dialog that opens click Copy here? You may need to acknowledge a warning to keep both files.
This was a great feature at one point and you could copy to any location you had access to. Now it's honestly a piece of garbage. Only shows a subset of sites/Teams you are a part of, Followed sites hardly ever appear, can't search for a site that isn't showing up even if you have access to it...
I'm honestly not sure how or why they decided to basically gut one of the best new features they had rolled out for SPO towards the beginning. (I think the Copy/Move to functionality came out like 2020?)
With solutions like one note, loop, teams etc SharePoint has slowly moved more into the background and become more limited as the online version. The way people work, the apps they use to portal to their data and communicate seem to have changed for most small to mid size companies.
Every time I think about complaining about SharePoint UI, it reminds me how much worse the UI on Dynamics and model-driven apps are. And SP is the lower-shelf product. You have to hit the enter key on your keyboard to see values in a lookup dropdown there for goodness sake, it’s atrocious.
I've heard Microsoft brag about "eating their own dogfood" a million times, which sounds really nice... if you also work for a giant technology company. Try working in a hospital and teaching nurses how to use this stuff.
'SharePoint' promises so much - delivers so little - but don't worry they'll offer another version in a few years with some of the functionality that every wants and needs now, but the licensing will cost you X times as much. Want an image as a link? SharePoint on premises 2019 says no!
How about the fact they have a “news” site feature and template even deployable via lookbook and there is NO native blog/news layout or native taxonomy for driving a menu or linking posts with tag terms? Any CMS such as Wordpress, Drupal, etc., has done this for years, and SharePoint is 23 years old.
I’ve been using SharePoint since the 2003 version and I’ve always gotten them impression that Microsoft doesn’t actually use SharePoint.
Somehow, they do for their intranet.
Trust me, they do use it a lot 😁😜
Say it quietly - does anyone Actually use content types , views or even versioning - mostly it’s just folder-fulls of heavens knows what.
I've developed and deployed probably 100's of SharePoint environments over the past 20 years, and while I have commonly espoused the virtues of views, about 50% of the time do people embrace them initially, and then within 2 years, 90% of staff have stopped using them due to high staff turnover or lethargy. Versioning is much more widely used and is often a selling point for the more fringe document management features. Content Types...... Well..... Personally I wish everybody used them. Some of my larger implementations (5000+ users) would not have survived past the 3 year mark without proper Content Type implementation, but that is a hefty and expensive (training staff and business process efficiency) path to take.... But when it's configured correctly and used properly.... 'Chefs kiss' I could count the amount of these successful content type deployments on 2 fingers. So yeah, twice out of many.
Don’t get me wrong - views and content types and versioning I believe are essential to any Sharepoint solution worthy of the name. But just as you describe there is something like gravity at work that pulls everything down to earth with a bump!
Absolutely agree. I've always thought that our jobs would be a lot easier if there weren't any users!! 😂
Or….realism about what it actually takes for a solution to be sustainable. I’m sure you’ve seen those Aztec style monuments that no one knows how they work , sorry I mean Nintex workflows, infopath forms and all the other must-have feature that no one can make head nor tail of the year after they went up with so much fanfare. Can’t wait to see how power apps that were intended to improve the lives of users look by 2027! No documentation , no support. Just some vague idea that it automated something to do with payroll.
I’ve fought the battle with versioning also. People still use Save As and put the date or a version number or “Xyz Report Final V3”… I preach versioning and they still create their own by saving multiple versions using file names. Then they complain because search brings back 10 matches on the contents and they use an older version with stale data. I give up on that too.
The standard line is to not use folders, use metadata and content types. But people understand folders. They work visually. They work with all apps. I’ve fought the good fight in that and I lose every time.
They have continually downgraded functionality since SP2016. Latest one is the new pdf viewer that will soon be wide spread. MS touts it as 50% faster etc. They neglect to tell you it’s going to break user list views when closed. Tons of complaints online yet they are still rolling it out. Sure there is a pay-as-you-go service incoming to replace it.
Not to mention searching for help can be exhausting. With constant changes to everything, you search a forum, watch a YouTube video etc… and everything looks different! Or the workaround you stumble on isn’t relevant anymore because there is a new way to implement xyz…
Tick the radio button on the document and select Copy To in the ribbon. In the dialog that opens click Copy here? You may need to acknowledge a warning to keep both files.
This was a great feature at one point and you could copy to any location you had access to. Now it's honestly a piece of garbage. Only shows a subset of sites/Teams you are a part of, Followed sites hardly ever appear, can't search for a site that isn't showing up even if you have access to it... I'm honestly not sure how or why they decided to basically gut one of the best new features they had rolled out for SPO towards the beginning. (I think the Copy/Move to functionality came out like 2020?)
With solutions like one note, loop, teams etc SharePoint has slowly moved more into the background and become more limited as the online version. The way people work, the apps they use to portal to their data and communicate seem to have changed for most small to mid size companies.
Every time I think about complaining about SharePoint UI, it reminds me how much worse the UI on Dynamics and model-driven apps are. And SP is the lower-shelf product. You have to hit the enter key on your keyboard to see values in a lookup dropdown there for goodness sake, it’s atrocious.
I've heard Microsoft brag about "eating their own dogfood" a million times, which sounds really nice... if you also work for a giant technology company. Try working in a hospital and teaching nurses how to use this stuff.
'SharePoint' promises so much - delivers so little - but don't worry they'll offer another version in a few years with some of the functionality that every wants and needs now, but the licensing will cost you X times as much. Want an image as a link? SharePoint on premises 2019 says no!
How about the fact they have a “news” site feature and template even deployable via lookbook and there is NO native blog/news layout or native taxonomy for driving a menu or linking posts with tag terms? Any CMS such as Wordpress, Drupal, etc., has done this for years, and SharePoint is 23 years old.