Can The AEC Mend Its Relationship With SharePoint?

A Closer Look At The SharePoint Challenges AEC Firms Face

Companies across all industries are united in their love/hate relationship with SharePoint.

Easily customizable and tightly woven into the Microsoft 365 stack (Teams, OneDrive, etc.), SharePoint is undoubtedly a powerful business tool. But getting it setup correctly out of the gate and managing ongoing administration and governance can be frustrating and expensive. So, naturally, we weren’t surprised to hear so many construction professionals expressing their frustration regarding SharePoint during Procore’s Groundbreak 2022 event in New Orleans.

Good News, You Don’t Have To Settle

We’ve worked in the SharePoint space for long time. Therefore, we can attest that the angst company leadership and employees feel when using SharePoint is valid. Unfortunately, because M365 is so ingrained in nearly every business, users mistakenly believe that they have no choice but to just “deal” with the downsides. They believe an ideal solution is either nonexistent or unaffordable.

As a result, countless organizations try to power through the pain. In an attempt to make the best of a subpar solution, nothing ever changes.

Stop The Insanity

The definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing over and over and expecting different results. And as it relates to the use of SharePoint across the AEC, we’re all mad here.

The first step toward stopping the insanity is to stop pretending that your business is like every other business in the world. It’s not.

Say ‘No’ To Generic Content Repositories

General contractors, construction management consulting firms, and architecture and engineering firms don’t need or want a generic content repository for every piece of information that comes across their desktops. This way of thinking is actually a great way to ensure that:

1. 1. Employees will never be able to find the right content – ever.
   2. Content will be repeatedly recreated because original documents have become buried (and ultimately lost).
   3. Confidential information isn’t secure because managing permission is IT intensive and expensive, driving ineffective governance. Meaning you don’t actually know who has access to your most confidential information.
   4. Your organization’s most vital collaboration and document management tool, isn’t connected to the other systems you need during the lifecycle of the project, such as Procore and Autodesk Construction Cloud (ACC). Failure to integrate results in disjointed processes, poor efficiencies and dismal productivity.

SharePoint, “out of the box,” is not built to support the AEC’s content management strategy at the project level. Your SharePoint strategy should be one that’s built to work the way you and your project teams work.

How the AEC Can Use SharePoint Better

Built to maximize the way the AEC uses their existing M365 investment, ProjectReady allows project managers to automate SharePoint provisioning and security. All it takes to set up a new SharePoint site is a few clicks of the mouse. When you’re done, you have a new site will operate appropriately –  in the context of the project.

Infusing your SharePoint strategy with ProjectReady allows users to:

• • Spin up new project-specific SharePoint sites in minutes.
  • Choose the site template that’s right for the job, which reinforces repeatable standards.
  • Invite internal and external users easily and securely to drive collaboration and transparency on content stored in SharePoint.
  • Easily manage roles-based security at the library level to ensure that only the right people have the right access to the right information. Imagine being able to administer your own projects without IT interference!
  • Register content directly to the SharePoint site from external systems, including email.
  • Sync content from SharePoint to external systems like Procore and BIM360/ACC for improved external collaboration.
  • Sync content from external systems like Procore and BIM360/ACC for ongoing access to project information – and automate project closeout.
  • Maintain an audit record of every action taken in the context of a project and log reports back to your Azure SQL.
  • Automate the generation of documents instantly or on a schedule.
  • Liberate IT from routine grunt work so they can focus on high value work for the entire organization.

A Better Experience Is Closer Than You Think

ProjectReady provides an intuitive and modern user experience. This means team members will always have quick and easy access to the right SharePoint site and other connected systems in the context of the projects they are a part of. Furthermore, our unique search functionality allows users to locate the content and information needed about a project quickly, and across connected systems.

The Best SharePoint Alternative Is A Better Approach To SharePoint

We agree, SharePoint can be a pain to govern and maintain, and tough to get right. That’s why we built ProjectReady, to transform SharePoint into an easier and more powerful content management tool for the AEC.

Click on the button below to learn more. Or, click here to see just how easy it is to spin up a new site and manage users in SharePoint with ProjectReady – all without having to call on your company’s IT team for help.

Stop Losing Your Files

ProjectReady makes finding the right files and folders in SharePoint fast and easy by bringing all your project information together in the context of the project. Let us show you how we do it. Click here to schedule your free demonstration today.