With over 190 million users across 200,000 customer organisations, it’s hard to believe that Microsoft SharePoint has been around since 2001. Since its launch, it’s had a massive impact on the industry, changing the way that organisations communicate, automate processes and manage and store documents.While it’s often the classics that shape our past, with time, new technology and innovation helps us to create a better present and future. One of the most significant releases we’ve seen has been around the SharePoint Framework (SPFx) which has matured considerably since launching in 2016.
After years of listening to the feedback of users (including their many frustrations), this framework has been released to enable SharePoint development to align and evolve with global trends, support client-side development and provide a better overall user experience.
For organisations not yet using the SharePoint Modern Experience, this presents an excellent opportunity to implement a solution with years of research and development behind it.
For organisations already using SharePoint Classic, think of your shift into SharePoint Modern, as less of an upgrade and more like an entirely new framework that offers solutions to many of the problems that you may have previously had.
Our SharePoint Digital Workplace Intranet Injio was already designed with features to overcome the SharePoint Classic short comings. However, we’ve redeveloped our Intranet Injio using the SharePoint Framework and React JS with great success, to create an even more powerful solution for clients.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the reasons why your organisation needs to get on board with the SharePoint Modern Experience.
User Friendly Interface
Microsoft has invested heavily in designing a user interface for SharePoint Modern that not only looks great but is far more intuitive to use. Think less cluttered pages, with clearer layouts and a greater use of images
. SharePoint Modern interface (Injio intranet) SharePoint Classic interface
SharePoint Modern pages are also far easier to edit than in Classic. In many cases, less clicks are required to reach a desired outcome. This is great for empowering content editors to invest more time in using the platform. With an easier to use interface, there may be less of a requirement for training and outside development work, saving your organisation more money in the long term. Injio has always been designed with the user in mind, and we’ve taken the opportunity to further enhance user experience as part of its redesign.
A Responsive Design
While we custom developed Injio in SharePoint Classic to be responsive to any device, this was not out of the box functionality. Has it really taken this long for SharePoint to have a responsive design that makes it easily accessible regardless of the device you’re using? Unfortunately, it has. With the rapid uptake and diversification of device usage, it has become so important for interfaces to be adaptive. Sharepoint Modern has you covered on this front, putting devices at the forefront and ensuring you won’t be trying to tap on ill rendered fonts again.
SharePoint Modern’s responsive design
Better Performance
For those that have used or are currently using SharePoint Classic, who can forget the sluggish and long loading times? SharePoint Modern addresses many of these performance issues. The interface has been built using React JS, a new JavaScript library developed by Facebook. This has many benefits including the ability for users to only refresh what needs to be edited. Much of the data caching and processing which occurred in SharePoint Classic has now shifted from the server to the client machine. Most of the pages are created in a user’s web browser with SharePoint assets stored in a Content Delivery Network (CDN). While Injio was initially developed in a way to address many of the performance issues associated with SharePoint Classic, Injio’s transition into SharePoint Modern has seen even greater performance achieved.
New Features
With the time between releases, Microsoft has had plenty of opportunity to beef up SharePoint Modern’s capabilities by including new functionality designed to make this a platform like no other. Some exciting new features include the integration of Microsoft Teams, the ability to easily embed video in pages, newsfeeds that automatically distribute links and so much more.
Easily embed video and more in SharePoint Modern
It’s worth mentioning Microsoft Graph which is now available. This is a powerful gateway to pull information across Office 365 (e.g. Task, Email, Meeting Room) allowing us to make SharePoint a centralised repository to see this information. Microsoft is continuing to roll out new features within SharePoint Modern and we look forward to making these features available through Injio.
Microsoft Graph – enabling connectivity
Flexibility
Microsoft has done a wonderful job of making SharePoint Modern far less constrained for end users than its previous iteration. Users are given the ability to customise and personalise the look and feel of sites, including lists and libraries and are no longer restricted by hierarchies. Injio Modern’s redesign enables users to easily take control and adjust page layouts as they see fit. With the integration of Microsoft Flow, new workflows can be created and integrated improving an organisation’s operational performance.
Let’s Get Modern
This is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to reasons why you should be using SharePoint Modern.
As experts in SharePoint, intranets and Digital Workplaces, we have worked with organisations around the world with our market leading SharePoint intranet solution Injio – now available on SharePoint Modern.
Get in touch so that we can work together to find the right solution for your organisation.
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