How to use Microsoft 365 for policy management

Posted on 20 October 202326 May 2024 by Dan Hawtrey

We now offer a policy management software for sharepoint called Xoralia

Xoralia policy management software helps you push out and track mandatory policies in a simple, intuitive interface.

• Target and notify users of their policy tasks

• Track policy reads

• Automate the policy lifecycle

• Keep everything in SharePoint and Teams

Find out about Xoralia ›

A key requirement for the digital workplace is for employees to be able to find the trusted, authoritative information and documents they need in order to complete tasks and fulfil their role.

This includes policies and procedural information covering everything from the staff handbook, to Health and Safety procedures, to travel expenses, to rules about how to use social media channels. Policies can also cover areas relating to professional development, as well as required reading for new joiners as part of an onboarding process.

Managing your policies in the digital workplace is very important, albeit not particularly glamorous! It requires attention to four different but overlapping areas:

Dissemination and storage: Ensuring everybody can access and consume policies and procedures easily.
Findability and discoverability: Allowing employees to find the right policy at the time of need.
Governance and workflows: Creating clear ownership and authoring processes so that policies are always up-to-date and employees trust the policies they access.
Reporting and tracking: Tracking policy authoring and consumption, including covering mandatory reading of policies.

This type of policy lifecycle management enables users to efficiently and effectively manage and streamline their entire policy lifecycle, from policy upload, reviews and approval, through to assignment, attestation and tracking.

If you do not employ effective policy management, you can run into both inefficiencies and risks, with people using out-of-date policies and not carrying out tasks correctly. The consequences of this can be anything from relatively unimportant to severe for example, health and safety policies, procedures and related information must be up-to-date so it’s critical to spend time perfecting policy management across your digital workplace.

Using Office 365 for policy management

The backbone of most organisational digital workplaces is Office 365 / Microsoft 365, so it’s unsurprising that we’ve recently been asked about the best way to deliver effective policy management within the Office 365 environment. Thankfully, there are a variety of different 365 tools that can support all four elements of policy management already detailed, and in this article, we explore your options.

Note that we’ve used many of these technologies (and relative approaches) in developing our Xoralia policy management sofiware – an easy option for organisations who want an off-the-shelf product that can fit effortlessly into their 365 digital workplace (including SharePoint and Microsoft Teams), and support best practices in managing policies across the digital workplace.

Let’s explore each of the four elements of policy management.

Dissemination and storage

Disseminating policies to employees is best done via a central policy library that can be accessed through a central channel that every employee can easily reach, such as a corporate intranet, Microsoft Teams or a mobile app. The best option for creating this library is through SharePoint, which can be integrated seamlessly with your other 365 channels. For example, LiveTiles intranet software comes with its own policy library feature based on SharePoint, while our Xoralia solution can integrate with a SharePoint intranet and Teams. If you have a frontline workforce, there is also the potential to use the intranet app or build a dedicated Power App so policies are available through mobile devices.

Because of SharePoint’s flexibility, you can disseminate policies as pages, documents or both; for example, you could present the essential points of a policy on a page for readability, along with the ability to download the document from the page to access more detail. SharePoint’s in-built version control for both pages and documents helps ensure users are viewing the very latest version of a policy.

Another essential strength of SharePoint is the ability to target policies to particular audiences based on Active Directory profiles. Just as you want to ensure internal communications are relevant to locations, divisions, roles, levels of seniority and language, policies must be targeted for relevancy. For example, in global companies that have been built up through acquisition, HR policies will often differ from country to country, and it is critical that employees see only the policies which apply to them.

Findability and discoverability

Strong findability is a foundational principle for both a successful digital workplace and a reliable central policy library. Employees must be able to find the right policy at the time of need. Here, you can use Microsoft Search to ensure your policy content appears in your intranet or SharePoint search; applying the right metadata will allow your users to filter and refine the search.

A central policy library should promote good findability, with a dedicated contextual search for the policy library with appropriate metadata and filters, as well as the right categories and labels. Applying targeting through AD profiles to personalise the search for different groups can also improve findability here.

When we came to build the Xoralia policy management tool, feedback from clients continually stressed the importance of robust findability and discoverability. Bearing this in mind, we included the ability to:

Filter results by different tags defined for the organisation, including subject categories, departmental owners or intended audience
Filter by contact name, such as the owner of a policy
Browse through policies alphabetically
Assign appropriate views for policies that must be read or need to be reviewed by a policy owner
Access a Teams app where policies can be searched for and appear as cards.

Governance and workflows

Any good policy management solution needs to have robust governance, principally around the authoring and content management processes. Here, you can use both SharePoint and Power Automate to ensure that policies are always up-to-date by applying the right permissions, and introduce workflows to make it easier for policy owners and authors to remain on top of this task.

Establishing clear ownership of a policy to drive accountability is dependent on supporting governance; the permissions that can be applied in SharePoint at the page and document level mean that only defined owners have the rights to update the policies they are responsible for. A good approach here is to display the name of a policy owner or appropriate contact on the policy itself, as this supports accountability, transparency and trust. In our Xoralia solution, there is a clear contact displayed not only on the policy itself, but also in the policy listing view.

You can use Power Automate to define appropriate workflows and automated reminders around the authoring process. This includes approval workflows where review and approval are required before a policy can go live, as well as expiry workflows which send automated reminders for policy owners based on defined review dates. These are all features we chose to build into Xoralia, as well as the views for policy owners to see all the policies they own and those that are approaching review. To further underpin governance, Xoralia also displays when a policy has expired because the policy owner has failed to check it by the review date.

Power Automate can further be used to support repeatable dissemination workflows. For example, perhaps you want to push out a particular policy to a specific audience that for compliance reasons you require to be read at a set time each year, or whenever it goes through a substantial update. You could use Power Automate to trigger this process every time the policy goes through an appropriate update or on a particular date.

Reporting and tracking

Reporting on your policy library and tracking its usage is beneficial in ensuring that employees are using it, but it becomes particularly important when you need to ensure there is a mandatory read of a policy. This could be for compliance reasons from a regulatory body, or for internal purposes such as when you need everybody to urgently read the new flexible working policy introduced to support hybrid working. Mandatory reads usually work by presenting a user with the policies they must read, and then requiring them to complete a declaration that they have read each one.

The reporting becomes important to:

Track who has read a policy so you can carry out interventions to make sure everyone has done so
Provide updates on progress to senior stakeholders
Use reporting to show external parties read rates for compliance purposes.

As you might expect, in Microsoft 365, the versatility of Power BI allows for the required tracking and reporting, enabling filtering by location and department and allowing administrators to filter based on group, specific policy or group of policies. Strong reporting is at the heart of Xoralia, with quick views for policy owners to get the headline statistics to track the progress of mandatory reads, and support the flexible reporting you need. Users also see the policies they must read.

Automating this tracking and reporting is excellent news for anyone who has had to use a combination of email and spreadsheets to keep on top of who has read a policy – a thankless and highly inefficient activity.

Going further

The beauty of Microsoft 365 is you can also integrate your policies into other areas where relevant, such as:

Creating an employee onboarding app using PowerApps that includes mandatory reads of policies
Creating a chatbot using Power Virtual Agents that references your policies
Providing access to your policies within Teams channels
And more!

If you’d like to discuss our Xoralia policy management software or managing policies across your Office 365 digital workplace, then get in touch!

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During the demo, we'll walk you through Xoralia’s various features and functionality, providing plenty of time for you to ask our experts questions along the way.

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Microsoft Viva continues to evolve: new features to map skills, deliver communications and more

Posted on 20 October 202317 April 2024 by Dan Hawtrey

One of the strengths and challenges of working with Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams, as well as related platforms like Microsoft Viva, is the level of investment Microsoft continue to plough into developing their products. It’s always exciting to discover new features and capabilities and it increases the scope of what you can achieve across your digital workplace. At the same time, it gives already busy digital workplace teams the challenge of having to launch yet another set of new features, while users may already feel somewhat overwhelmed by the tools at their fingertips. Do they really need another app?

Microsoft Viva in particular continues to expand. The employee experience platform was originally announced in early 2021 and came with four apps. Today there are nine, including Viva Engage, which was effectively a rebranding of Yammer. Technically, there were ten – but Microsoft Viva Sales which featured AI features has now been rebranded as Microsoft Sales Copilot.

On top of the apps there are some additional services that are effectively new capabilities which can be deployed across more than one app, and where the distinction between an app and a service comes a little blurred. And even on top of that, individual Viva apps continue to expand themselves with new enhancements.

There actually hadn’t been an update from Microsoft about Viva for a while, but that doesn’t mean Microsoft hasn’t been busy working in the background. But the wait is over and there has now been a recent Viva announcement as well as a more detailed Microsoft Tech Community update, with the latest details of the ever-expanding platform.

In this post we’re going to cover the main points of what’s new in Microsoft Viva. In particular, there are some features here that support corporate communicators that will appeal to IC functions.

1. Viva Amplify is now generally available

Given that Internal Communications is a key stakeholder in employee experience, its perhaps surprising that its taken this long for Microsoft to produce a Viva app that is specifically aimed at the needs of communicators, as well as business leaders looking to deliver messaging. Viva Amplify is an app that helps coordinate communications and campaigns across the Viva suite and wider set of Microsoft channels, and is now moving into general availability for Viva subscribers.

At the heart of its capability is a campaign management function that provides the ability to coordinate publishing across different apps and tools while also incorporating publication workflows and scheduling. It also features a content drafting and editing interface as well as an analytics suite to track the success of communications.

Amplify is another welcome addition to Viva, but It will be interesting to see what the take up will be initially. It seems likely that it will evolve, for example incorporating generative AI into the content editor. The multichannel publishing capability is also still expanding, as while publishing can be scheduled to Outlook, Teams, SharePoint and Viva Connections, at the moment it still doesn’t fully extend to Viva Engage (Yammer), although this is coming soon.

2. Skills in Viva has arrived

Skills in Viva is a new AI-powered service that can be deployed throughout Microsoft Viva but also more widely across Microsoft 365; although it delivers a new capability, it is branded as a service rather than a standalone app. Skills in Viva seeks to use AI to identify the skills of an organisation’s workforce, taking inputs from the Microsoft Graph and the LinkedIn’s Skills Graph, an extensive framework which maps individual skills to a highly granular level. Microsoft stresses that it only uses aggregated LinkedIn data from the framework rather than individual profiles, an important factor to allay data privacy fears, as individuals use LinkedIn outside their role, for example when they are looking for a new position.

Skills in Viva is experienced in number of different ways across different Viva apps and elements of Microsoft 365 including:

The appearance of a Skills Depth Report within Viva Insights that brings a skills dashboard to leaders and HR functions, allowing them to view skill levels and gaps across different parts of the organisation, and the workforce as a whole.
In Viva Learning where individuals can see suggestions for learning content based on the skills they are developing or interested in.
A Skills Editor facility in Microsoft Viva that provides the ability for individuals to confirm suggested skills that are then displayed in their Microsoft 365 profile.

The service also aims to be able to be used across non-Microsoft 365 systems that are already used for recording skills. No more information is given about this, but it seems likely there will be connectors to leading HR systems of record or learning platforms that house skills data.

We see this as a potentially high value-add to the Viva suite. Skills data is an important area that many HR functions don’t have a realistic handle on, and KM functions sometimes struggle to record. The introduction of data from the Microsoft Graph and therefore inferred by digital behaviour potentially looks like it can also deliver a more current and dynamic view of skills. However, it will be interesting to see how this can be deployed with organisations that are already recording skills and have a highly controlled or bespoke list of skills.

Skills in Viva enters public preview at the end of 2023, so we think this will be one to watch for 2024.

3. Improvements to Viva Connections

Given that Viva Connections along with Viva Engage are the apps that are most deployed by our customers, we’re pleased to see both get a bit of love in the new announcement with a variety of enhancements. In particular, a new release of Viva has a lot of small improvements, some of which focus on a better support for communications.

There is a new default landing page experience that aligns with some of the typical features of intranet design with an expanded hero area for corporate communications, the more operational dashboard positioned under this and then key resources and links. There are links to other subscribed Viva apps under this.

A new Announcements in Viva Connections capability allows for communicators to issue more urgent messages and tailored announcements to different groups, delivered through push notifications to the homepage of Microsoft Teams and on mobile devices via the Teams app. This is particularly designed to target messages to frontline employees, although we can see this having wider utility.

There are some additional nice-to-haves including dark mode, a desktop search for Viva Connections and some enhancements to analytics.

Also particularly welcome is a set of additional out-of-the-box cards that can be deployed to the Connections dashboard, which is accessible on mobile, but also can be integrated as a web part on a SharePoint intranet.

New cards include:

A news card, which again will appeal to communicators.
A search template card, which can deliver scoped searches for non-Microsoft repositories such as meeting room booking system, which has the potential to be very useful.
The ability to deploy cards that interface with Microsoft Sway, Microsoft Forms and PowerApps, again delivering a more integrated digital workplace experience.
A “field services” card that can bring CRM data into Viva, for example supporting sales staff.
A people search card which has obvious value.
The ability to create adaptive cards that link to bots.
Enhanced features for the Card Designer tool.

4. Articles come to Viva Engage

Viva Engage (formerly Yammer) has also had some improvements. The most significant is the ability to create and publish longer-form articles within Viva Engage. The use case here that Microsoft provides is publishing a newsletter within the Engage environment, but we can also see use here for blogs, for example from senior leaders that can be used in storylines. The article now sits as a content type within the Engage toolbar along with discussions, polls, praise and questions, so its easy for anybody to create the new content type.

Additionally, there is now the ability to schedule posts within Engage, enabling a more intentional use of it as a comms channel – for example in issuing leadership communications and news.

There are also some welcome enhancements to Engage Analytics, adding a better enterprise-level reporting (“Network analytics”) that covers usage, activity, sentiment and conversational trends, as well as high performing contributors and communities.

5. Viva Goals changes

Viva Goals is one of the lesser known apps within the Viva suite, bringing Objectives and Key Results (OKR) functionality into Microsoft Teams. Goals has now received some significant new features:

The launch of Copilot in Viva Goals that enables the AI-powered creation of goal recommendations, that can be automatically extracted from documents and refined through a conversational interface. There are also new AI-powered progress summaries.
A “goal customisation” feature that allows for the use of Viva Goals outside a standard OKR framework by changing some of the terminology used, making it a little more flexible and able to fit in with existing strategic goals frameworks.
An export of goal summaries to PowerPoint.
Enhanced integration with Azure DevOps, specifically designed for software developers using DevOps in tracking their work.

6. Viva apps on the waffle

Finally, Viva apps will appear on the waffle menu for the first time to enhance navigation to these. Additionally, there’s also a new web page which is called “Viva Home” which educates users about Viva. Arguably, both these will help Viva feel more like a connected and integrated platform than a collection of individual apps.

Microsoft Viva keeps on evolving

It’s great to see Microsoft Viva and its constituent apps and services continue to evolve, and some of the new capabilities are exciting. It will be fascinating to see how organisations will deploy these in the coming months.

If you’d like to discuss using Microsoft Viva across your digital workplace, then get in touch!

What are the risks of using AI and how to deal with them

Posted on 29 September 202317 April 2024 by Dan Hawtrey

Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the way we work and transforming the digital workplace. The release of ChatGPT has highlighted the rapid advances in generative AI, and opened the way for organisations to start to improve processes, automate repetitive tasks, supercharge productivity, reduce costs and more. AI has also received a lot of media attention – both covering its exciting potential but also some of the associated risks.

From the outset its worth acknowledging that there are some risks associated with AI. This is only to be expected for any truly transformative technology which is still in its relatively early days and will continue to evolve. This presents some challenges for digital workplace teams who are keen to extend the use of AI and enjoy the considerable benefits, but are not sure how to proceed, particularly in organisations who are risk averse. For example, some companies have chosen to ban the use of ChatGPT, for example.

In our view, there are significant actions that digital workplace teams can put in place to mitigate for some of the risks and establish the necessary guardrails and governance to extend AI into the digital workplace.

In this post, we’re going to explore some of the risks of AI and the actions and tactics that can help reduce that risk.

What are the key risks surrounding AI?

There are a number of key risk surrounding the use and implementation of artificial intelligence, some of which particularly relate to generative AI.

Data privacy and confidentiality

A major risk around the use of generative AI is around data privacy and confidentiality. As a Large Language Model (LLM) uses data submitted to help train the AI, anything submitted to at least the public version of ChatGPT is effectively no longer private or confidential. Breaking GDPR rules, submitting confidential information, and the inability to safeguard employee and customer data are just some of the reasons why generative AI is considered very risky. Thankfully, many paid AI services have guardrails in place to ensure data privacy and confidentiality concerns are met. We explore this in more detail below.

Intellectual property

A key risk of using generative AI is protecting copyright and intellectual property. A Large Language Model (LLM) like GPT-3 and GPT-4 is trained through vast amounts of content available through the internet, but does not take into account any of the intellectual property rights over that content. It is quite possible that a response generated by ChatGPT might reproduce copyrighted material; this not potentially infringes the rights of the copyright holder, but inadvertently places organisations using responses from ChatGPT at the risk of copyright infringement. Who is the true author of a piece of content?

Overall, this is a very grey and complex area, where there are legal cases in progress which will determine how things unfold in the coming months and likely years. We can expect the position to evolve as test cases, regulators, legal experts and AI providers like OpenAI all progress, take action and argue it out.

Fairness and bias

There are significant risks in fairness and bias relating to AI which can undermine processes where bias needs to be removed, for example in recruitment, and which might impact issues relating to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. The bias may reflect the material that the AI has been trained upon and the beliefs of the group that created the algorithms. Issues have been covered in the media via well documented experiments that have shown for example that AI can produce stereotyping relating to image production and facial recognition.

Ethics

AI is incredibly powerful and can be used for multiple uses, including ones which are ultimately unethical. For example, there have been widespread concerns that AI has been used to spread false news via social media, and could be used by “bad actors” for example to support cybercrime.

Accuracy

Accuracy is a significant problem with AI. Factual errors within responses from ChatGPT (known as “hallucinations”) have been well documented. What makes these errors riskier is that they are presented as fact – certainly in ChatGPT – often in an authoritative and confident way, and it becomes very difficult to know what is true and what isn’t.

Lack of explainability and transparency

One of the current issues with many AI and related products is a lack of transparency. It is understandable that proprietary algorithms are confidential, but it does get hard to have full confidence that an AI product meets various standards, for example relating to bias or ethical standards, when it is effectively a black box.

A related and more specific risk for generative AI is around a lack of “explainability” which specifically fails to acknowledge sources that have been drawn upon to create output.

Impact on roles

A lot of media speculation has centred on how AI will impact jobs. There tends to be negative in sentiment in terms of job losses across certain types of role and professions. As AI extends its influence in the way we work, it is inevitable that roles will change, leading to a significant risk of job losses.

However, this risk needs to be put in perspective. The process of automation leading to job losses has already been happening for many years, so it’s not a new issue. Secondly, AI and technology will also create new roles – many positions today simply didn’t exist thirty years ago. Thirdly, many people’s roles will be positively impacted by AI, making tasks easier and improving productivity.

Misconceptions

AI is still a very emotive topic that causes strong reactions. This can mean many have false perceptions about the promise or threat of AI, either positive or negative. Misconceptions about AI can also lead to false expectations about its impact, or an underestimation of the foundational work that sometimes needs to be done to get the best out of AI. Because of this, change management is an important factor in any AI implementation.

Reducing the risks around AI

Like any area of technology that is still evolving with the potential for dramatic impact, there are going to be associated risks. The good news is that there are solid actions that organisations can take to reduce the risks which don’t limit the opportunities for innovation and leveraging AI.

1.Create an ethical framework around use

It’s important to set high level guardrails about the use of AI. Creating an ethical framework around its use which leaders buy into and put their name to can be a powerful way to ensure AI is used responsibly. It also supports the definition of more detailed policies, guidelines and change management efforts. An ethical framework could be a manifesto or a high-level strategy that aligns with existing commitments to areas such as data privacy and existing ethical policies.

2.Provide clarity on usage by users
Within an ethical framework there then needs to be more detail about the usage of AI. Here, clarity is king. For example, this should spell out your organisation’s policy on using the public ChatGTP service. Providing the detail can be challenging and may be subject to change as this is a rapidly evolving landscape; it may be that it also leaves quite a lot up to individual judgement, based on your organisational culture. But AI is here and is being used across the digital workplace, so you need to have some guidance in place.

3.Build review processes around using AI in applications
There also similarly needs to be guardrails in place about using AI in applications, either in procuring new tools or building applications from scratch. This means ensuring that the use of AI should be considered within any existing technology due diligence or procurement process, but also be reviewed for any custom project too. The responsibility for any review will likely be within IT, but could also involve other stakeholders from compliance and risk functions. Processes may also need to cover implementation – for example around training AI.

4.Invest in change management and communications
Change management and related communications are critical when introducing AI in order to:

reduce risks around user behaviour
ensure there aren’t misconceptions about AI
raise adoption of new AI-based services.

Always invest in the change management side of things through messaging, e-learning, leadership communications, digital champions and more.

5.Create a safe environment for moving forward with AI
Creating a safe environment to experiment and use AI where you know data privacy and confidentiality issues are no longer a risk can make a huge difference in being able to leverage AI and move forward. You can create solutions that generate business value, learn what works and gain new skills and knowledge that are going to be important for the future.

One way to do this is to leverage OpenAI services through Azure and also use Microsoft products like CoPilot; here you can use generative AI through your own digital workplace knowing that data will remain on your Microsoft 365 tenant, content will still be security-trimmed and you can adhere to Microsoft’s existing governance measures that might already be in place for your digital workplace.

Moving forward with AI

AI is truly transformative, very powerful and evolving at breakneck speed. Inevitably there are associated risks. By taking the right governance and change management approach, organisations can mitigate for some of these risks and move forward with AI.

If you’d like to discuss reducing risks around AI or your individual AI project, then get in touch!

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AI in the workplace: webinar recording and key takeaways

Posted on 29 September 202318 April 2024 by Hannah Barltrop

Since the release of ChatGPT, the use of generative AI has probably been the number one topic in the digital workplace space. How can organisations best use AI both now and in the future? What are the issues they need to think about? And how do they get started?

In the latest webinar from the Content Formula team we take a deep dive into AI in the workplace, exploring use cases, trends and some practical considerations about implementation. Featuring Dan Hawtrey (Managing Director), Joe Perry (Head of Technology) and Alex Yeomans (Business Development Manager), you can watch a recording of the webinar above. In this post we’re also going to explore some of the takeaways from the session.

AI in the workplace: key takeaways

Here are some of the key takeaways from the webinar.

1. You don’t need to be intimidated by AI

At the beginning of the session, Dan pointed out that some people feel slightly intimidated by AI, partly because it is such as new and powerful technology. However, actually a lot of the AI tools that can be deployed today have had a lot of work already put into them are actually very accessible, so there is no need to be intimidated by them. It’s actually easy to get started with AI – and this was one of the central messages of the webinar.

2.There are different types of AI

AI is a wide topic and there are many different types and “flavours” of AI. One way to segement AI is thinking about its strength. Although definitions are overlapping, Dan pointed out that there were three main types of AI:

Narrow or weak AI: tools that have a very specific objective such as text to speech, sentiment analysis or a tool that identifies objects in a photograph. There are many examples of narrow and week AI services that are currently available through Amazon Web Services AI Services, and Azure Cognitive Services.
General or strong AI: AI tools that can work on many different types of task with multiple objectives. ChatGPT is an example of this. Organisations can also now leverage Azure OpenAI Services to implement their own “private” ChatGPT relating to their own Microsoft 365 digital workplace and proprietary data, avoiding many of the risks associated with using the public version of ChatGPT.
Super-human AI: The AI that doesn’t quite exist yet and is in the realm of science fiction, although it could arrive sooner than we think!

3. There are six core functions of generative AI in the digital workplace

Now that OpenAI services can be applied to the digital workplace, many Content Formula clients are asking what it can be used for. In our view there are six core functions of generative AI in the digital workplace:

Answering questions: give employees an answer on anything that they ask.
Drafting new content: writing an article, an email, meeting notes or other text based on a prompt.
Editing: the ability to tidy up and improve text, correcting any mistakes.
Summarising: summarising content, for example automatically creating a synopsis.

Classification: getting generative AI to tag documents against a taxonomy.
Advising & consulting: turn the LLM into an advisor or consultant, a use case not often highlighted, where you can program ChatGPT to support users on a particular area.

In the session Dan demonstrated this using a natural language script which detailed a role, objective, approach and fix (with set lists of questions) relating to Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) which asks pertinent questions to the user about their situation.

4.There are four key categories of use case for AI

Content Formula has categorised AI uses cases into four area, each with an ascending level of complexity and subsequent need for investment, skill required, time to implement, size of data set and potential ROI:

Using existing off-the-shelf tools such as ChatGPT. Many organisations are now working in this category.
Using an existing Large Language Model (LLM) to scan documents, perhaps with a custom UI and super prompts, effectively creating a custom KM tool for your organisation. Many customers are currently looking into this option.
Training an existing LLM with proprietary labelled data, although this can involve significant data cleaning and subsequent testing and alignment. This can be used to produce a high value solution like an effective customer-service bot; however it then requires ongoing monitoring and optimisation.
Building a proprietary AI model from scratch using a large proprietary dataset, creating a solution such as a diagnostic tool that examines X-rays. This involves the most investment and data, with significant testing, alignment, monitoring and optimisation.

5. Organisations can build their own custom solutions

In the webinar, Dan stressed that he thought organisations should be focusing on the second and third categories of AI use cases, where there is a lot of “low-hanging fruit.” To illustrate this, he mentioned some actual projects that are currently be worked upon by Content Formula.

Example #1: Document generation

Document generation for a consultancy around proposals, briefs and market analyses. With a collection of exiting documents and propriety knowledge, Content Formula is building a guided prompt builder based on Azure OpenAI services with Azure Cognitive Search.

Example #2: Querying contracts

Querying contracts for a property company, with the ability to ask common questions about specific contracts. This uses Azure Cognitive Search to query an existing database of contracts and find a specific item, and then uses Azure OpenAI Service to answer the question about that particular document.

Example #3: Department knowledge bots

Answering common questions from employees for a healthcare company. There is already existing structured departmental content on the company intranet including policies, process and contact information. The bot uses Azure Cognitive Search to find this structured content and then Azure OpenAI services to interpret and answer questions.

6. Powerful AI solutions don’t necessarily require much training

To illustrate some of the above use cases, Joe carried out two live demoes of AI solutions that don’t need necessarily need any or much training to be effective within your organisation.

The first solution helps employees interact with enterprise data, querying policies and an employee handbook. Here Azure Search finds the right documents and then ChatGPT is used to find answers within that document. For example, an employee could ask questions about a benefits plan and the solution will then come back with an answer based on the text of a particular document, with a link back to the base document too. Employees can then ask further questions in natural language.

The second solution acts a support for call centre agents. Here the agent can be on a call with a customer (for example relating to motor insurance) and get prompts from a script. The call is then transcribed and fed back into OpenAI Services, which can then offer near real-time suggestions to the agent for further questions that need to be asked.

Finally, the whole conversation can automatically be summarised and coded so it can either be stored in a database or used for analyis and reporting, for example through PowerBI. These conversations can also further train the model.

Both examples don’t necessarily require training to set them up, and demonstate the power of the AI in the digital workplace.

7. CEOs need to start thinking about AI now

Many organisations are looking at how they can best leverage AI, with CEOs needing to act now to prepare for this exciting and emerging area. Dan shared some useful insights gained from a recent McKinsey article about what CEOs need to be doing to get started with generative AI including:

The need to build a cross-functional team to identify high value use cases, consider the proprietary data that can be used, identify any risks and report back to senior leaders.
Move forward with AI education and training. For example, at Content Formula we have “AI Mondays” where the team members present things they’ve learnt about AI back to the group.
Evaluate the in-house technical resources, skills, infrastructure and access to AI models that you have at your disposal. Are there any gaps?

Evaluate the “preparedness” of your proprietary data and whether it needs to be cleaned up or prepared.
Identify some use cases and “low hanging fruit” for potential AI pilots or Proof of Concepts (POCs) so you can learn from these.
Draft appropriate AI policies and principles to manage risks, ideally building on existing policies.
Get familiar with the AI legislation that is being drafted and will impact AI in the future – for example the EU has published a draft AI framework.

8. It’s important to consider the risks around generative AI

Generative AI is still evolving and has the power to not only transform the digital workplace but also the way we work. It’s important to consider some of the risks involved. These currently fall into seven different areas:

Fairness and bias: Generative AI can include inherent bias either within the Large Language Model or based on the documents it has been trained upon. This could be a serious issue, for example, if you are using it to examine CVs and is introducing bias into your recruitment process.
Intellectual property (IP): If using a public AI like the popular version of ChatGPT it is possible that your IP is not protected in the responses that ChatGPT gives, or you could be inadvertently plagiarise someone else’s IP if publishing content generated by ChatGPT.
Privacy and confidentiality: Using ChatGPT can mean a breach of private and confidential data. Even using the non-public version within your own company, you need to make sure that private data is not exposed internally to people who should not be able to see it.

Security: The use of AI is likely to present new risks around cybersecurity with opportunities for new cyber criminals. Employees will need to be prepared for the associated risks.
Explainability: AI does not explain the source behind its output or the reasoning, although some solutions are making advances in this area.
Reliability & accuracy: There are some questions about the accuracy of generative AI – for example with some well-publicised “hallucinations” from ChatGPT with erroneous and made-up “facts”.
Cultural & social impact: As we go further with AI there will be more ethical questions that arise, especially as jobs and roles are impacted.

Our thanks to everyone who participated in the session!

Want to discuss AI in the workplace? Get in touch!

AI in the workplace is a very exciting area. If you’d like to discuss any of the issues described in the webinar, have a question or how to get your own AI project off the ground, then get in touch!

The power of SharePoint lists: 5 reasons why they are better than spreadsheets

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How AI can boost employee engagement and the employee experience

Posted on 11 September 202317 April 2024 by Dan Hawtrey

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a topic that continues to dominate headlines and generate huge levels of interest, particularly since ChatGPT was released in late 2022. Many senior executives and operational teams are actively considering how they can best use AI within their organisation to boost efficiency and improve processes, as well as support wider business objectives.

HR functions, digital workplace teams and internal communicators can see the exciting potential for AI to help in a variety of different ways. Many of them are already using AI with specific products and are now looking to deploy the next set of generative AI tools.

One question we are getting increasingly asked is how AI can be used to support employee engagement and making organisations a better place to work. We believe AI can certainly contribute to a better overall employee experience and has a role to play. In this article we’re going to explore some of the ways in which AI can help employee engagement and boost digital employee experience through the digital workplace.

What do we mean by employee engagement and employee experience?

Employee engagement is a term that describes the relationship between employee and employer, and how connected the employee feels to an organisation. It is usually measured by surveys that canvas the opinion of employees. While there is broadly a consensus around what engagement is at a high level, some people have differing and more specific definitions of employee engagement.

Employee experience is a broader term that describes the overall experience of work employees have across their daily touchpoints with their employer as well as key moments across the employee lifecycle.

Many different factors contribute to both employment engagement and experience including leadership, strategy, mission, workplace environment, role, pay levels, flexible working, opportunities for growth and development and even the experience of workplace technology.

Can AI really boost employee engagement and experience?

AI can help boost employee engagement and experience in different ways, including saving people time, supporting people in their role, improving communications and removing daily frustration. Below we cover some of the key ways AI can make a positive contribution.

However, some perspective is needed. There is a tendency by the media and some solution providers in their marketing material to paint a picture where AI can solve any problem. Employee engagement and employee experience are complex with many different elements. Using AI is neither a magic ingredient or panacea that can change employee engagement or employee experience over night; moving the needle on employee engagement requires strategic thinking, strong leadership, cultural change and a wide range of tactics employed.

AI has a valuable role to play in supporting some of the tactics that can boost employee engagement and employee experience, but it is not a replacement for the wider strategic changes that are required to really engage employees.

Six ways that AI can support employee engagement and experience

As AI solutions become more sophisticated it is likely that they will contribute to employee engagement and the employee experience in an increasing number of ways.

1. Automate repetitive tasks

In recent years a direction of travel for the digital workplace has been to increase automation in order to automate those repetitive tasks that take up time for employees and are often dull and frustrating. This has generally been referred to as “Robot Process Automation.”

AI is now being used to increase the number and sophistication of tasks that can be automated, helping making better use of employees time and potentially making their working day and role more interesting. For example, AI can be used to automate some of the more mundane tasks relating to meetings –scheduling meetings, sending out invitations, and even summarising minutes and actions.

Digital workplace teams that are able to automate frustrating and time-consuming tasks and give employees back time to carry out more interesting and valuable activities, are helping to contribute to employee engagement.

2. Use chatbots to drive employee self-service

Chatbots are now one of most commonplace uses of AI across the digital workplace, usually supporting employee self-service and relieving pressure on busy IT and HR helpdesks. A chatbot can answer common employee questions, help find particular information and even complete simple transactions, empowering employees to get things done more quickly so they can get on with their busy day, Again, this gives more time back to employees and helps avoids the frustration of not being able to find the right information or complete a task.

Recent advances in generative AI means that the performance of chatbots is highly likely to improve going forward and be increasingly accepted by employees as a good option to find information and get things done.

3. Better content targeting to support engagement

Intranets and other digital communications channels help employees stay informed, but also feel more connected to their organisation and leadership. Communication channels support effective messaging so employees can find out about a company’s overall mission and relevant activities. They can also connect to other colleagues, supporting the kind of relationships that generate a real sense of community.

AI has a role to play in helping employees better connect to the content, communications, campaigns and people that improve employee engagement and experience. Many organisations are complex with extremely diverse workforces, and it can be difficult to connect employees to truly engaging content that is relevant to a person’s role, location, division and interests.

AI can help by making more intelligent suggestions to a person for content they might be interested in, by automatically translating content into the right language, by automatically tagging content so it matches the right employee profile and even making suggestions to improve content to make it more engaging. All these can support more effective digital communications that underpins improving employee engagement.

4. Target learning and development opportunities

The ability to better target the right content to people can also apply to learning opportunities, with AI making suggestions for relevant learning material and courses to individuals across a very diverse workforce. Increasing support for learning and development, and making relevant training more visible that drives personal, professional and career growth, can again support wider efforts around engagement and employee experience.

5. Helping people in their role

AI is going to have an increasing influence on different aspects of our daily work, supporting different processes throughout an organisation. Ultimately AI should help people in their role and make them more effective, allowing them to overcome barriers and achieve more. For example, generative AI is already helping people write better text, solve coding issues, identify insights from data and more. Specific AI-powered solutions can make complex tasks like recruitment and sales activity that much easier. Naturally, when people are better supported in their role, this can influence their daily experience of work.

6. Sentiment analysis and identifying pain points

Successful interventions and initiatives to improve employee engagement and the overall employee experience rely on data about how employees are feeling about specific aspects of working life; for example, where there are pain points then some kind of action will be required. However, even though there is an increasing amount of data across the digital workplace that can yield valuable insights, spotting trends relating to employee sentiment is far from straightforward.

AI can play a role in more accurately identifying employee sentiment and trends across multiple datasets as well as unstructured content. It can uncover insights that might otherwise remain hidden, spot early trends and provide clues about wider issues, that can ensure HR and employee experience teams can then take the necessary actions.

Using AI to boost employee experience

AI will continue to play an active role in the workplace. While AI cannot transform employee engagement and employee experience on its own, it can help boost engagement in several different ways. If you’d like to discuss the role AI could play in your efforts to improve employee engagement and employee experience, then get in touch!

AI in the Digital Workplace

Webinar date: Wednesday 13 September 2023

Join us for this Free webinar, for an introduction into AI with a specific focus on the digital workplace, the opportunities it has to offer, and how your organisation can get started.

What is Microsoft Copilot and how will it impact the digital workplace?

By Joe Perry

In this article we going to explore what Microsoft Copilot is, the benefits it will bring, how it will navigate risk concerns and when it is going to be released.

Why the Vision Pro will be a hit in the digital workplace

By Dan Hawtrey

Apple has formally announced its entry into the AR/VR market with the announcement of the Vision Pro headset. Advanced mixed reality technology that revolutionises the way users interact with digital content.

How to use the SharePoint Lookbook

Posted on 1 September 202317 April 2024 by Joe Perry

How to use the SharePoint Lookbook

Modern SharePoint is an extremely flexible tool that can meet multiple use cases to support communication and collaboration inside an organisation. This means intranet teams and site owners have a lot of choice in how they structure and design individual sites and pages. Recognising this, Microsoft has created the SharePoint Lookbook, a collection of site templates and designs that can be viewed and then actually deployed on to your SharePoint tenant. The Lookbook is an extremely useful resource that both provides inspiration and a way to give teams a head start in setting up a site.

In this post we’re going to explore what the SharePoint Lookbook is, why it is useful, the kind of templates it contains, and what to consider when using it.

The flexibility of SharePoint

One of the strengths of SharePoint is its flexibility and versatility to support multiple use cases, usually as part of a wider intranet. A strategy page for leadership communications, a departmental site for the sales function, a site for onboarding employees, a place for your volunteering community to come together. All these and more can be achieved using modern SharePoint.

One of the reasons for this flexibility is the ability to add, arrange and configure multiple web parts – the basic “building blocks” of SharePoint – on any given site and page. This means you can have multiple combinations on a page to create different experiences that meet various needs. It also gives intranet teams and individual site owners a lot of choice in how they design and structure individual sites, which are either standalone or sit within a wider intranet structure.

Of course, design flexibility has limits unless a site is customised, retaining some of the standard look and feel of modern SharePoint. While this means it’s not always possible to meet all design and branding needs, in our view this is generally not a problem, as modern SharePoint has an attractive, intuitive and consistent interface.

This flexibility can leave some teams wondering what the best structure and design is for their site. This is where the SharePoint Lookbook can act as a useful resource for both reference and deployment.

What is the SharePoint LookBook?

The SharePoint LookBook is a publicly available site provided by Microsoft that can be reached at https://adoption.microsoft.com/en-gb/sharepoint-look-book/. As Microsoft itself describes it, it provides an opportunity to “discover the modern experiences you can build with SharePoint in Microsoft 365” and to “get inspired with these designs or add them to your tenant to start building your next stunning site with them.”

Within the Lookbook there is a gallery of SharePoint templates divided into different categories. You can explore the themes and view each template in more detail. As well as the showing the design on the page, the Lookbook contains template-specific information on site features, web parts used and content included.

There is then a call to action for administrators to deploy a Lookbook template to their tenant, an automated process which takes minutes, as long as an administrator has the necessary rights and your tenant meets the minimum system requirements.

What type of templates are available in the SharePoint Lookbook?

The Lookbook is divided into a number of different browsable categories that explore a wide range of useful use cases. However, the differences between some of the categories are pretty narrow, so it’s worth taking a look through the entire library of templates.

Current categories are:

Organisation: covering key organisation-wide types of communication site including initiatives for leadership communications, crisis comms, a news centre, Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) and more.
Department: examples of department-specific sites or hub covering areas such as sales, HR, training, marketing and even a key conference.
Team: this covers team-specific sites for four different use cases covering a project, a collaboration need, a product team and general team communication.
Community: this covers two examples of a community site, one being a brand and resources site, and another relating to a charity or CST initiative.
Solutions: templates for a range of useful business scenarios including providing Microsoft learning resources, employee onboarding, pre-boarding for new hires, workplace transformation, dealing with a freelance community and more.
Schools: templates for schools and colleges.
SharePoint Syntex: two templates covering key Syntex user cases including contracts management and promoting the use of Syntex inside your organisation.

What are the benefits of using a SharePoint Lookbook template?

There are a number of benefits in using templates from the SharePoint Lookbook.

Providing inspiration

As already noted, SharePoint is highly flexible and sometimes it is hard to know where to start when designing a site. The Lookbook is an excellent place to start because it provides tangible and achievable examples of site designs across multiple use cases and scenarios. If you need a place to simulate ideas and provide inspiration, then the SharePoint Lookbook is a great starting point.

Increasing speed to market

Using a Lookbook template gives any site owners a huge head start in providing a template that can be deployed in minutes and then modified to suit your needs. It can significantly reduce the “speed to market” if you need to get a site up and running quickly.

Supporting new and busy site owners

Site owners for many areas of an intranet (or for specific intranet sites) can lack confidence in using SharePoint or can be very time-stretched. They are unlikely to be trained communicators. The head start given by a Lookbook can support confidence and resourcing.

Encouraging good use cases and adoption

Lookbook templates reflect good practices and showcase the best of what SharePoint has to offer. They demonstrate the art of the possible and also highlight the range of different web parts that can be deployed. Using templates can help encourage using SharePoint for some use cases that might not have been considered, and generally support adoption from potential site owners across an organisation.

No costs involved

The use of the SharePoint Lookbook is completely free so does not come at any additional cost on top of your normal Microsoft 365 subscription.

Things to consider when using the SharePoint Lookbook

However, there are some considerations in using the SharePoint Lookbook and its templates.

A template is not a finished site

A Lookbook template is not going to be complete. It will likely need more work on it to truly optimise it to meet a particular business need within your organisation. For example, it might be missing a particular web part. However, site owners might consider a site “complete” because it is a Microsoft template and therefore reflecting best practices. It is likely that content owners still need additional guidance and support from the central intranet or communications team to complete a site.

Still needs to fit in with your Information Architecture and security

A deployed template site also needs to fit into your existing Information Architecture and align with your security policies, so any site generated from the Lookbook will need further configuration.

Might bypass governance processes

Many intranet, communication and digital workplace teams want to establish governance about the use of SharePoint sites to deliver business value, minimise duplication, ensure adherence to standards and support alignment with a content strategy. This often means having some kind of approval workflow on site provisioning to stop site proliferation.

Automatically deploying a template on your tenant could bypass provisioning and other governance processes, particularly if your IT function carries out SharePoint administration duties but has a different view on site creation to the intranet team. For example, it can encourage the creation of a lot of standalone sites that can start to get out of control leading to problems with findability.

Not aligning with custom branding

Some organisations want to establish specific designs for their digital workplace or intranet so choose to deploy custom branding or use an “in a box” product that extends the design options of SharePoint. A Lookbook template will not align with that branding.

Getting the best out of the SharePoint Lookbook

In our view the SharePoint Lookbook is an excellent resource that used properly can help save time, and encourage the best use of SharePoint.

However, to get the best out of the templates in SharePoint Lookbook there are other things you need to consider. We regularly help intranet and digital workplace teams in certain areas.

1. Strategy

Defining a digital workplace and intranet strategy, or a related content strategy, that can help define the use cases (and therefore templates) you’ll need in your SharePoint tenant.

2. Design

Helping establish the best design for sites, that can potentially leverage the site and page templates contained in the Lookbook.

3. Additional web parts

Providing the additional web parts that you need to add to Lookbook templates in order to drive business value. Sometimes these are completely custom, or are provided as part of our Lightspeed365, a collection of high value web parts that fill many of the gaps in SharePoint.

4. Information architecture

We can help you design your information architecture to ensure sites created by Lookbook templates are truly findable.

Need help? Get in touch!

If you’d like help in using the SharePoint Lookbook and design, or want to discuss other aspects of your Microsoft 365 powered digital workplace, then get in touch!

SharePoint intranet design examples

Content Formula

At Content Formula, we’ve delivered hundreds of SharePoint design and development projects that have helped organisations achieve high impact intranets and digital workplace solutions. Browse our gallery of SharePoint intranet design examples.

Intranet design and architecture

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At Content Formula, we can help ensure your new intranet delivers on both style and substance. We practice a holistic and data-driven approach to planning and designing an intranet, which can help ensure it delivers on the style element, as well as providing functional efficacy.

8 great examples of intranet homepage design

By John Scott

Intranet homepages are important. They are often the place employees pass through to other pages or apps and also where news is consumed. In this article we look at eight great intranet designs that we hope will get you inspired.

The ultimate guide to Microsoft learning management systems

Posted on 30 August 202317 April 2024 by Dan Hawtrey

Introduction

Within every organisation, learning and training is a key activity. It’s a factor in both enabling employees to perform their role to the best of their ability, but also in engagement, with learning opportunities regarded as an element in the overall employee experience.

Learning takes many forms including gaining experience on the job and more “social learning”, but also offering formal opportunities to take classroom and online-based courses. Within most organisations, employees take a variety of courses in order to learn new skills, gain professional qualifications, meet compliance needs and support personal and professional growth.

Acquiring a Learning Management System (LMS) is essential in supporting more formal learning opportunities through the organisation. An LMS allows employees to view and take courses, access a record of their learning and does much of the heavy lifting on the administration of learning throughout the enterprise. However, despite its importance, the LMS can sometimes be peripheral to the digital workplace, and have a poor user experience. Moreover, not every organisation has chosen to invest in an LMS.

However, increasingly there are opportunities to integrate the LMS much deeper into the everyday digital workplace and flow of work, particularly if the LMS is based on Microsoft technologies such as SharePoint. In this article we’re going to do a deep dive into Learning Management Systems, especially those based on Microsoft.

We cover what an LMS actually is, its essential features, and the benefits of using an LMS. We then explore the kind of LMS solutions that are available and the advantages of using an LMS based on Microsoft technologies. We also cover Microsoft Learning Pathways and Microsoft Viva Learning and how these relate to your LMS.

What is a Learning Management System?

A Learning Management System is a platform that helps to manage, administer and deliver learning through capabilities such as learning registration, course discovery, e-learning, course creation, automation and more. It also provides analytics and reporting, and often is the system of record for a person’s learning and training within an organisation. An LMS is sometimes called a Learning Platform.

Who uses a Learning Management System?

Most medium and large enterprises choose to invest in an LMS regardless of their sector. Many smaller organisations may also choose to use an LMS, particularly if learning is a key part of their employee experience or they have mandatory training that employees need to take. The good news is that many LMSs are flexible and can support the needs of very different types of organisations, regardless of size and industry sector.

What are the essential features of an LMS?

There are a number of common features of an LMS that help to deliver a strong learning experience and also support learning teams in administering training.

Course catalogue

At its core, an LMS offers opportunities to provide a course catalogue for employees to access where they can search or browse to view different training opportunities available through the organisation. This can include e-learning, classroom-based learning and even formats like webinars, and also cover learning created internally or externally.

Course registration

As well as viewing training, an LMS should also handle the registration process for training, allowing employees to book their place, and for administrators to view who has registered, manage the numbers and even provide additional features like waiting lists.

E-learning

An LMS will generally also provide an environment for users to carry out e-learning within the platform, usually via the desktop or through a dedicated mobile app.

Learning records and required learning

An LMS will have the ability for users to view their learning record, covering the training they have already taken. The LMS may be the system of record for learning. The LMS should also include details of any learning they need to take, for example covering courses that are mandatory.

Personalisation and targeting

An LMS needs personalisation and targeting to enable the ability for users to view relevant courses to their role, level or tenure.

Course creation

A comprehensive LMS will also have the ability to create courses within it, for example providing access to different materials, building quizzes and more. Ideally these should allow employees outside the learning team to create their own courses, effectively democratising learning and encouraging knowledge sharing.

Importing SCORM content

Many organisations choose to use third-party content in their LMS. An LMS should have the ability to import course material that is in the SCORM format, a technical standard for e-learning courses. Some LMS providers even have agreements with popular course providers to enable even easier access to third-party material, usually at lower cost than acquiring a separate subscription.

Automation and notifications

An LMS brings automation to learning administration, saving huge amounts of time and effort for learning teams and course administrators. For example, an LMS should automate tasks such as enrolling new hires on to mandatory courses, sending out notifications and reminders related to learning, tracking completion rates, requesting feedback on a course and more. Some of the automation relates to notifications sent to learners, another key feature.

Certification

Certification is another feature of an LMS, for example allowing for the issuing of certificates for mandatory learning passed, as well as managing an annual certification process.

Analytics and reporting

Analytics and reporting are critical features of a good LMS, ensuring there is reporting relating to course take-up and completion, tracking mandatory learning, gathering learning feedback from users and even performing an analysis of skills.

Learning paths

Learning or training paths allow users to take a series of connected courses that support a particular training path, for example related to a particular role, topic or career.

Mobile app

Mobile access to learning is important, especially for frontline staff who may not have access to a desktop during the working day, or for employees wanting to carry out training in downtime where mobile access is often more convenient. A good LMS should have a dedicated mobile app so it can be accessed on both corporate and personal devices.

Additional features

Different LMSs may also have additional features such as support for multi-language, gamification points, additional reporting features, the ability to integrate with different systems and more. Many LMS products are mature and feature-rich, having accumulated functionality over the years.

What are the benefits of using an LMS?

There are numerous benefits of using an LMS that have a positive impact at an individual, team and organisational level.

Easier administration

A LMS will significantly reduce the time and effort involved in administering a learning programme. For example, teams that have to use email and spreadsheets to manage course registrations and update learning records waste huge amounts of time and are prone to making incomplete or incorrect records. It’s also extremely dull and repetitive work. An LMS can automate the registration process, build learning records, report on course completions and more, freeing up learning administrators to spend their time on more valuable and interesting activities.

Supporting employee onboarding

An LMS can support employee onboarding by presenting new starters with a list of courses they need to complete based on their role. The LMS will automate registration, send reminders and more, and often proves to be an essential component of any onboarding programme that needs to scale. Again, it saves huge amounts of time and effort for the learning or HR team.

Mandatory training and compliance

Most organisations have mandatory training that needs to be carried out, sometimes on a reoccurring annual basis. This may have to be done for compliance reasons. An LMS does all the heavy lifting on mandatory training, including monitoring completion rates and reporting on these, including reporting required by third parties.

Standardising learning opportunities

In large and complex global companies, often the learning opportunities for staff can differ from location to location. An LMS can help standardise access to learning right across the enterprise, helping provide a level playing field for all employees regards to training and development.

A more skilled workforce

Ramping up training via an LMS supports a more skilled workforce that can lead to better performance in roles. Because an LMS can also help you to identify which training is being completed and spot potential gaps, it also means you can start to provide training where in-house skills are less prevalent, for example in various digital skills.

Faster roll-out of training

An LMS can help you to roll-out training quickly to meet urgent needs right across the enterprise, for example in how to use ChatGPT or for the sales team to get acquainted with a new product.

More targeted training

Personalisation is an important feature of an LMS as it allows teams to deploy targeted training to different groups based on role, division, language and so on. The ability to provide more targeted training means it is more relevant, increases adoption and ensures it has value.

Greater uptake

Because an LMS allows learning teams to scale up learning in their organisation by reducing the administration overhead and also presenting a wider set of courses, it can lead to a greater uptake in learning. Adoption also increases because it is easier for employees and their managers to view the learning opportunities available. An LMS will also tend to allow more e-learning to take place which is usually easier for employees to complete, so again this increases adoption of courses.

Reduced learning costs

A well-implemented LMS can result in overall reduced learning and training costs. This is usually achieved through time saving on administration costs through automation, reporting and other management features. Overall cost savings can also be as a result of using the LMS to introduce more e-learning to replace inefficient and costly classroom-based training.

Knowledge management (KM)

By providing an easy platform for employees to access learning but also for internal teams to create specific courses, some LMSs can end up becoming very effective platforms for knowledge sharing. For example, a product team might create a new product and then create learning to introduce it to the rest of their organisation, or a sales team might create learning around best practices. An LMS allows this process to be far more straightforward, supporting knowledge sharing and KM practices.

Employee engagement

Opportunities for learning are attractive for employees, and can be a factor in engagement, as well as retaining and attracting talent. Learning is also generally regarded as part of the overall employee experience. An LMS can help formalise learning and training opportunities, which in turn supports efforts to improve employee engagement and provide a great employee experience.

A culture of learning, development and growth

Over time introducing an LMS can support an overall culture of learning, development and growth. This has huge benefits across any business, leading to a commitment to continuous improvement, sharing knowledge and investing in people, with multiple benefits flowing including improved customer experience, innovation, high performance and more.

What different Learning Management Systems are on the market?

The LMS market is very mature, with a huge amount of choice to suit a different range of needs and budgets. Products include:

Highly established dedicated enterprise learning management systems such as Cornerstone.
An LMS that also come with bundled with opportunities to subscribe to e-learning courses, for example Skillsoft.
Learning modules that are part of a wider HR system such as SAP, PeopleSoft or Workday.
Smaller and more flexible learning management systems that are often designed for smaller and medium-sized companies.
Learning platforms that are based on SharePoint and Microsoft 365 technologies such as LMS365.
Different learning apps like Microsoft Viva Learning that aren’t actually learning management systems but complement deeper learning platforms.

What are the advantages of using an LMS based on Microsoft 365 technologies?

The LMS market includes solutions based on Microsoft 365 technologies. For example, LMS365 is a solution that is built on SharePoint and ensures all data sits within your Microsoft 365 tenant. Using a Microsoft-based learning management system has a number of advantages.

Seamless integration with a Microsoft 365 digital workplace

An LMS that is based on SharePoint such as LMS365 has the advantage of seamless integration with any Microsoft 365-powered digital workplace, making it much easier for employees to access courses, for example through a SharePoint intranet or Microsoft Teams, It can also integrate with Microsoft-powered search, Power BI dashboards and more. This means that learning can be in the flow of everyday work where employees spend all their time, helping to drive up the usage and take-up of courses.

Using a Microsoft 365-based LMS also means you can create a more consistent user experience across your digital workplace. For example, some teams that implement LMS365 create a SharePoint page on their intranet as the entry point into the LMS, with users not even knowing that they have entered a different application.

Configure and customise the system to your needs

SharePoint and Microsoft 365 are incredibly flexible, so a Microsoft-based LMS allows you to configure and customise the learning experience to the needs of your employees. For example, you may want to add additional custom workflows using Power Automate or add additional webparts to provide additional access to SharePoint content or Viva Engage / Yammer discussions.

Include Microsoft-based files

Most course material for e-learning is in SCORM format, but using a SharePoint-based product like LMS365 allows you easily provide access to existing Office files such as in Word or PowerPoint formats through the LMS, effectively lowering the barrier to course creation for non-learning professionals.

Easier governance and compliance

Because a SharePoint or Microsoft 365-based LMS can sit within your Microsoft 365 tenant it means it is much easier to comply with your existing governance, security and compliance requirements that are already in place for your Microsoft 365 digital workplace. For example, access for starters and leavers to your LMS will align with your existing Microsoft 365 set-up.

Use Active Directory profiles and groups

A huge advantage of a Microsoft-based LMS like LMS365 is that it can leverage Active Directory profiles and groups for learning enrolment, targeting for learning opportunities, and providing seamless and frictionless access to courses.

Better placed for future changes

Microsoft continues to invest in Microsoft 365., Microsoft Teams and the Microsoft Viva suite of employee engagement tools, including Microsoft Viva Learning. Having a SharePoint-based solution ensures you are future-proofed to continue to integrate with other tools across the digital workplace and take advantage of other features such as the Power Platform to enhance the learning experience.

A happier IT function

Many IT functions are committed to a Microsoft 365 digital workplace and Azure hosting, with the relevant tools, governance, processes and knowhow in place. Most IT functions are very comfortable with the idea of an LMS that is based on SharePoint or Microsoft 365, as it will be much easier to implement, manage and support. Our experience is that they also are more likely to sign-off on any business case for it. A solution like LMS365 leads to not only a happier learning team but also a happier IT department.

Can I use an LMS with Microsoft Learning Pathways?

Microsoft Learning Pathways is a valuable collection of course material provided by Microsoft that can help users get the best out of Microsoft technologies and support adoption. This ready-to-go material can usually be made available via an LMS – this is especially easy with an LMS based on Microsoft technologies.

Can I use Microsoft Viva Learning as my LMS?

Microsoft Viva Learning is a module within the Microsoft Viva employee experience suite, that is designed to open up easier access to learning materials from Microsoft Teams. While the number of features within Viva Learning are increasing, it is worth nothing that the application is not designed to be an LMS in its own right, and is not really an alternative for it.

In fact, Viva Learning works better when it is implemented alongside an LMS, providing easier access to the course catalogue and related e-learning opportunities. Microsoft has also worked with leading LMS providers including Skillsoft, SAP Success Factors, Cornerstone and LMS365 to deliver out-of-the-box integrations Viva Learning and these learning management systems.

What is LMS365?

LMS365 is a leading learning management system that is built right into Microsoft 365, SharePoint and Teams. It is a mature, feature-rich platform that has everything learning teams and employees need to manage and access learning across the enterprise. It is also very reasonably priced. Content Formula has partnered with LMS365 to offer this robust and popular solution.

Because the platform is based on of Microsoft 365, it can also integrate seamlessly with the rest of your digital workplace, which provides a range of additional benefits, some of which have already been explored above.

How can Content Formula help me?

Our experienced Content Formula consultants can help you in a number of different ways.

Implement LMS365

LMS365 is a leading learning platform built on SharePoint that integrates seamlessly with your Microsoft 365 digital workplace. Content Formula has partnered with LMS365 to provide a full implementation of this mature, feature-rich LMS.

Integrate learning into your digital workplace

Access to learning should be a key ingredient of every digital workplace, but that is not always the case. We can help integrate learning into your Microsoft 365-powered digital workplace so it is in the flow of work, starting by defining a strategy and roadmap, and then supporting your implementation.

Microsoft Viva Learning

Microsoft Viva Learning is an exciting module within the Microsoft Viva employee experience platform that can open up access to learning through your digital workplace through Microsoft Teams. We can help you to implement and launch Viva Learning, making it work with your existing LMS including with LMS365.

Build custom learning solutions and integrations

Some organisations have particular learning needs, for example integrating a particular LMS with their SharePoint intranet, or requiring custom workflows or dashboards. We can help build custom solutions and integrations across your Microsoft 365 digital workplace or SharePoint intranet that can elevate learning for employees.

Knowledge management strategy

A platform like LMS365 can also prove to be a highly effective knowledge sharing platform. We can work with you to define a knowledge management strategy that can use LMS365 in conjunction with other Microsoft 365 tools such as Viva Engage and SharePoint.

Seven reasons why a SharePoint LMS will be your best option for learning

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There are multiple reasons why an LMS mshould be part of any learning and development strategy. They can help to support a blended learning programme, put learners in control of their own learning and help to deliver remote learning.

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One of the many advantages that LMS365 has over other Learning Management Systems is that it can integrate seamlessly with MS365. It can also drive better learning adoption, easier course creation and far easier administration. Watch our webinar video to find out more.

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LMS365 provides all the headline features of a mature LMS that youd expect such as SCORM compliant material, with great, intuitive interfaces both for users and admins, as well as seamless integration with your Office 365 environment.

Seven must have SharePoint web parts

Posted on 28 July 202317 April 2024 by Hannah Barltrop

Intranet teams often ask us questions about how to design an intranet homepage and which SharePoint web parts (widgets) or features they should include on it. Of course, there is no right or wrong answer; no two intranet home pages are the same, and depending on the needs of your users, the web parts to include will vary from organisation to organisation. However, it’s also safe to say that there are some web parts that are extremely common to find on a homepage, with some appearing on the majority of intranets.

In this post we’re going to look at seven must-have SharePoint web parts or features that appear on multiple homepages. To help illustrate these, we’ve included a screenshot (with dummy content) of a global intranet based on SharePoint Online. Let’s explore seven of the key web parts or features that are featured on the intranet, and are likely to feature on your homepage too.

1.Personalised greeting

Many intranets now choose to display a personalised greeting at the top of the page. For example, in this screenshot “Good morning, Kelly” is displayed. This personal greeting has three main functions; firstly, it helps to make the intranet feel less formal and corporate, with a friendly greeting. Secondly, it confirms to the user that they are authenticated into the intranet and it recognises who they are, critical if a user is expecting some level of personalisation. Thirdly, it can also be a place for some hyper-local content that perhaps sits less well elsewhere – a link to the local weather forecast, for example.

2. Hero area

Virtually every intranet homepage has a hero area which will display major news or campaign items – this should be a much sought after spot to promote and spotlight important content. This intranet contains four items, but other intranets can display five or six. In some intranets this has been displayed as a news carousel in the past.

Using attractive images in the hero area helps to draw attention to these pieces, but also gives some balance to the overall intranet design. In many organistions, the news or content presented in the hero area is relevant for all employees, although it can also be personalised to ensure relevance.

3.Personalised news feed

Personalisation is key to the success of an intranet in a global, large and complex organisation. A news feed for personalised news (“My news”) should aggregate items that are the result of content targeting based on user profile, but also include additional items subscribed to by a user. Subscriptions might be extra additional targeted content that a user wants to see – for example for another division or location – as well as topic-related items that are of interest. In the screenshot, labels on each story show their intended audience. Other metadata to consider displaying here can relate to engagement including the numbers of views, likes and comments of each news item.

4.Other communication feeds

Sometimes you’ll also want to display other kinds of news on your homepage that you want to distinguish from the more general items. In this example there is a “People focus” area with items that are more focused on highlighting the specific work of different teams. But in your organisation this may be product news, something relating to your values, more blogs and user-generated content, customer success stories or perhaps something else entirely.

5.Links to apps and sites

A major use case for your intranet is as a convenient gateway to all the apps and sites that people need to access during the week to complete tasks and carry out their role. When intranet teams ask a user what they rely on their intranet for, this feature is always near the top of the list.

Including useful links is a must-have for any homepage. In this example there are links to “My tools” and also “My sites”. Ideally, users should be able to configure their own list of links, with the aid of a central directory of apps to choose from to help them, and existing default links to get people started, ideally personalised to different sections of the organisation to ensure relevance.

6.Content spotlights and promotions

Intranets are there to guide people to the most important content, so content spotlights and promotions that reflect priorities and campaigns are a common part of any homepage. These might be an organisational priority (COVID-19 updates) or be important because they are timely (Black Friday deals for employees).

7.Yammer / Viva Engage feed

Many intranet teams choose to include a feed from their social collaboration platform on their homepage. This could be a general personalised feed for users, or from a specific community, although the latter will usually be company-wide if appearing on a homepage.

Including a social feed helps to encourage adoption of the social platform, supports the role of the intranet as the “front door” to the wider digital workplace and also brings the employee voice into the homepage to balance more “top-down” internal communications messaging. With a SharePoint intranet including a feed from Yammer (now being rebranded as Viva Engage) is super easy with web parts that are available out of the box.

Need help with your homepage or looking for SharePoint web parts to help you build your intranet?

Lightspeed365

Lightspeed365 makes it easy to create a beautiful and powerful employee intranet in SharePoint and Teams.

How Lightspeed 365 intranet solution adds most of the web parts you need

Content Formula’s Lightspeed 365 intranet is a product from Content Formula that adds many of the custom web parts that you need for your intranet, effectively extending the value of SharePoint, and filling many of the gaps in functionality. Lightspeed 365’s web parts are based on the work we’ve done across hundreds of projects over the years. These are easily added to your tenant and can then be added by your content editors just like all the other standard SharePoint web parts

Because intranet and internal communication teams now have a more complete set of web parts to support a SharePoint Online intranet, it can prove to be highly cost effective, because it reduces the need to purchase a more expensive “in-a-box” intranet solution.

Examples of some of the most popular Lightspeed 365 web parts include:

A page tour, highlighting key intranet features for new staff.
Branding customiser, extending branding and theming options for SharePoint.
Share price, allowing teams to embed a stock price on the homepage.
App launcher, allowing users to personalise their own links to apps.
Tabs, allowing multiple web parts to be displayed in a tabbing format to save page real-estate.
Table of content to appear at the top of a page to support findability for long-read content.
Site provisioning, to embed the provisioning process for different Microsoft collaboration sites including Teams.
External social feeds from different sources.
Floating search, providing the ability to add a contextual search anywhere on a page.
Feedback, allowing structured feedback on the intranet and its content from any page.
Welcome bar, for personalised welcome messages to users to create a more engaging experience.
Noticeboard, for employee classified adverts and notices.
And more!

Want to know more about SharePoint web parts? Get in touch!

Web parts are one of the elements that make SharePoint such a valuable and flexible platform. If you want to know more about using web parts, or want more information on our Lightspeed 365 offering, then get in touch!

Lightspeed 365 Features

Content Formula

Lightspeed 365 Features provide a powerful toolset of web parts with features and functionality that enhance and fills the gaps found in the Microsoft out-of-the-box SharePoint intranet.

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Lightspeed 365 - SharePoint intranet build services

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SharePoint vs OneDrive: what is the difference and when should I use each?

Posted on 5 July 202317 April 2024 by Joe Perry

Sometimes it can be difficult to keep up with Microsoft 365 with its multiple tools, features and capabilities, as well as its continuous roadmap of improvements. That’s hard enough for administrators, but also for users too; one of the main roles of a digital workplace team is to be able to help users understand how they can use Microsoft 365 and get their heads around its different elements.

One of the biggest areas of confusion is the difference between SharePoint and OneDrive. Both can be used to share documents, and sometimes it can be hard to know what the difference is or when to use which tool based on different scenarios. Searching for documents across both SharePoint and OneDrive can also cause some confusion.

In this article we’re going to do a deep dive into the differences between SharePoint and OneDrive. We’ll explore what each is, we’ll look at the similarities and differences, and then which is the best system across different use cases. We’ll also look at the relationship between the two systems.

What is SharePoint?

SharePoint is a very mature collaboration and communication solution from Microsoft that can be used across a variety of different use cases, including building intranets and employee portals. Microsoft itself describes SharePoint as a platform that allows you to “share and manage content, knowledge, and applications to empower teamwork, quickly find information, and seamlessly collaborate across your organisation.”

SharePoint is highly flexible and feature-rich; it includes multiple different capabilities and components, including pages and document libraries. Every SharePoint page is made up of a series of different “web parts” – effectively the building blocks of SharePoint – that can be put together in ways that support communication as well as collaboration. There are many useful features in SharePoint including SharePoint Lists, support for video via Stream for SharePoint, and more.

SharePoint is also highly integrated with other key elements of Microsoft 365 including supporting document sharing on Microsoft Teams.

What is OneDrive?

OneDrive is a file storage system that is bundled as part of Microsoft 365. It can store Word, PowerPoint and Excel files, but also other file types too. Microsoft itself describes it as a “Microsoft cloud service that connects you to all your files” allowing access and sharing, including across different devices.

There are essentially two different types of OneDrive – one intended for personal use that you might use at home, and another for work or school. In this article we’re mainly going to focus on the version of OneDrive we might use at work.

What are the similarities and differences between SharePoint and OneDrive?

The main similarity between SharePoint and OneDrive – and often the point which causes confusion for users – is that they are both used for accessing and sharing files, principally Microsoft 365 files including Word, PowerPoint and Excel documents. You might access a file that is stored on OneDrive or SharePoint and then proceed to edit it, for example.

The underlying Microsoft technology that supports OneDrive and SharePoint is also the same – and both are using Microsoft’s servers to store the relevant data and files. And just to make things complicated, it is also possible to view SharePoint document libraries that you have the rights to access, within OneDrive.

What are the differences between SharePoint and OneDrive?

However, fundamentally SharePoint and OneDrive have different business uses and are different platforms. SharePoint is a much broader collaboration and communication solution than OneDrive and is principally used across organisations and teams. OneDrive is used only for file storage – you can’t build intranets with it

Secondly, OneDrive is essentially a personal document library for each individual user. Every Microsoft 365 user in your organisation will have their own OneDrive to store files. While overall Microsoft 365 administrators do have power to view somebody’s OneDrive, none of your colleagues can see what’s on your OneDrive, unless you choose to share an individual file or folder with them. OneDrive is essentially a personal file repository.

However, files on SharePoint are not personal to the user. Files in SharePoint libraries are meant to be shared with a wider audience, for example across a team, department or even entire organisation. These files might be accessed through an intranet, a communication site or through Microsoft Teams, ideally providing “one source of truth” for documents that need to be accessed by groups of people.

When should I use OneDrive rather than SharePoint?

Typically, OneDrive will be used for personal documents that are not intended to be shared with a wider audience – for example:

files that you are working on and are in draft, such as an early version of a presentation.
files that only you use, such as a spreadsheet to keep track of your expenses.
files that you have downloaded and want to keep on referring to, such as an analyst report or whitepaper
files that you want to keep for future personal reference, such as older useful documents that are no longer available in SharePoint.

OneDrive is also very useful when you want to share a document with another person, or just a handful of people, for example when:

you want to share a draft report or work-in-progress presentation for comment.
a confidential document that cannot be shared with a wider group.
you need to share a document with people outside your organisation (if this is permitted).
you just need to share a file that is only intended for a small number of people.

When should I use SharePoint rather than OneDrive?

On the other hand, SharePoint should be used when a document or file needs to be shared with a wider group, beyond just a few people. This could be a team, a working group, a community, department or even an entire organisation. It may also be a document or file that needs to be accessed on an ongoing basis, for example through your intranet.

Examples of the type of files that would be shared using SharePoint rather than OneDrive might include:

a policy that needs to be referred to, for example relating to travel.
a user guide to an application.
digital assets such as a presentation template.
working documents as part of a project that several people are working on.
any document that is accessed via the intranet, communication site or Microsoft Teams space.

SharePoint vs OneDrive: Issues for digital workplace teams to watch for

As already noted, there can be some confusion between SharePoint and OneDrive, and digital workplace teams need to be able to support users who have questions about it. Typically, you may also need to explain the difference in any communications relating to “which tool to use when”, which is often part of a Microsoft 365 roll-out or ongoing support site.

In particular, there can be issues where:

users don’t realise they are sharing a personal document in SharePoint to a wider group when it should actually be in OneDrive.
when users see personal OneDrive documents come up in a search and they believe a wider group of people can see this, when that is not the case.
when the link to documents shared in OneDrive expires, for example after a month.
when a person leaves an organisation and OneDrive files that have been shared wit.h a wider group of people are no longer accessible
when users are also accessing SharePoint folders via the OneDrive, and the differences are harder to convey.

SharePoint Vs OneDrive

SharePoint and OneDrive are both critical parts of Microsoft 365 that employees are likely to use each day. We hope this article has helped you understand the difference, or help you explain to users. Still confused about the difference or want help in explaining the difference to your employees? Then get in touch!

Five tips for migrating Jive to SharePoint Online

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While Slack can coincide with Teams, it’s less than ideal, and often teams find themselves needing to migrate content between the two. In this article we explore some of the things you need to think about when planning a Slack to Teams migration.

The power of SharePoint lists: 5 reasons why they are better than spreadsheets

Posted on 3 July 202317 November 2023 by Elisabeth Schloemmer

A SharePoint list is one of the most powerful and flexible features of SharePoint, but its potential is often overlooked. One of the reasons for this is that lists are often regarded as a feature that only IT professionals or those with sufficient technical knowledge are able to exploit, but actually, SharePoint lists are not that difficult for power users and citizen developers to utilise.

Another potential reason that lists get side-lined is because they have been around for so long and are not really the focus of attention. SharePoint lists are far from being shiny and new, but used in the right way, they can deliver great value and play a key role in business apps and solutions. Read more about SharePoint lists and the key benefits and features, in our article: SharePoint lists: The Beginner’s Guide.

SharePoint lists vs Excel sheets

A SharePoint list is simply a collection of data that has some kind of structure to it: it is essentially like a table, a spreadsheet or a simple database. It can include many different types of information including numbers, text and even images.

Within organisations, information that is regularly updated by a number of people and also acts as a wider reference point is often managed on an Excel spreadsheet. Typically, this might be a list of suppliers, a list of employees who are qualified to give first aid or a list of business publications that an organisation subscribes too. Excel is a great solution that we all rely on, but there are times when a SharePoint list provides far more value for storing, managing and visualising information.

Lets explore five reasons why SharePoint lists can work better than Excel spreadsheets.

1 Ensuring there is one source of truth

When a team or a number of different users enter data into a spreadsheet, there can often be issues with version control. Even when Excel online is being used, users are still liable to save local versions onto their own drives. Sometimes, to avoid these issues, one person ends up being responsible for entering data into the spreadsheet, with different people emailing that person with updated information. This long-winded process is inefficient and prone to errors.

A SharePoint list avoids many of these issues; it is online so there is only ever one version and therefore one source of truth. Multiple users can update information as required without the danger of creating multiple copies.

2 Maintaining control over certain areas

Excel spreadsheets can get complex, for example with formulae in particular cells, or with various different formatting. People also want to sort data and potentially manipulate it within the spreadsheet. With multiple users involved, it can be easy for an individual to inadvertently delete a cell or make unwanted changes, maybe even ruining the spreadsheet or altering information that might not be noticed before problems arise down the line.

Part of the problem is that it is impossible to assign permissions to different parts of a spreadsheet – people can either access everything or nothing. With a SharePoint list, you can designate permissions for each item in the list and protect any formulae or controlled lists, helping to ensure you do not lose valuable information or compromise the lists integrity.

3 Guiding users to enter the right data

With a SharePoint list, you can also nudge and guide users to provide the information you need by creating a form as a more user-friendly interface for data entry. Instead of adding information directly into cells on a spreadsheet, users can be presented with explanatory text, help options, drop down lists, validation criteria, custom error messages and so on.

While some of these features are available on a spreadsheet, there is no comparison when it comes to easily creating a form to help users and ensure you can control the data that is entered into the SharePoint list. Here, values in drop down lists and validation criteria can be targeted to different AD groups and even reference other SharePoint lists, allowing you to manage sophisticated data collection processes online with a level of control that is largely lost when you use a spreadsheet.

4 Better data integrity

The combination of permissions, forms, targeting, and data validation which can be applied to different parts of a SharePoint list, along with the ability to collate one source of truth, means that, overall, you can manage data integrity better via a SharePoint list than an Excel spreadsheet. This is also supported by audit trails for each item in the list with an edit history for every single item in it, as well as related version history.

5 Integration with Microsoft 365

A SharePoint list also has the ability to easily integrate with the rest of the Microsoft 365 suite in ways that can deliver more value than Excel. For example, it is very easy to integrate a SharePoint list with Power BI to feed custom reporting, as well as trigger workflows defined within Power Automate based on values that are entered into the SharePoint list. It is also straightforward to present the data in visually appealing ways in your SharePoint intranet.

When you start to combine these elements, a SharePoint list can be at the centre of a business app or solution, where it provides an easy place to maintain dynamic information that in turns powers a data visualisation layer with Power BI, and a data processing layer with Power Automate. Find out more about integrating SharePoint lists with other components within the Microsoft 365 suite in our article: Should I synchronise SharePoint lists with SQL server database?

Use cases

There are numerous use cases for SharePoint lists, often involving the intranet. For example, a SharePoint list is perfect for keeping an often-changing list of suppliers up to date, with different functions adding information, and the results available for everybody to view on the corporate intranet. Another key use case might be maintaining a central catalogue of apps used throughout the enterprise.

A potential more sophisticated use case that could be powered by a SharePoint list relates to managing the reopening of offices during the pandemic. Here, employers will need to keep a record of everybody who attends an office in person for the purposes of any track and trace processes in case anyone tests positive for coronavirus. In this circumstance, a SharePoint list can potentially provide:

A place to manage a dynamic set of data with numerous people regularly adding information
The potential to provide multiple views of the data – by location, division etc.
The ability to provide overall reporting of working patterns through a Power BI dashboard
The ability to have a check-in form with approval workflow so that employees require approval of plans to visit the office, providing a simple structure through which to manage strict limits on numbers
The potential to extend this form to a PowerApp available on a mobile device
Having one source of truth for all this critical information with audit trails etc.

Here, a fully working business solution is seen with a SharePoint list right at its centre.

We love SharePoint lists!

OK, we know it sounds a bit geeky, but here at Content Formula, we really do love SharePoint lists, and you should too. They are simple to use and provide an excellent way to keep control over and present dynamic collections of information that are frequently updated by a wide group of people. They can also power various Microsoft 365-based apps and solutions. If you’d like to discuss how you can use SharePoint lists in your organisation, then get in touch!

What is the difference between SharePoint Lists and Microsoft Lists?

29th January 2023

Lists are one of the most longstanding and useful elements of SharePoint and the now the wider Microsoft 365 environment. In this post, we look at the differences between SharePoint Lists and Microsoft Lists.

SharePoint lists: The Beginner’s Guide

29th January 2023

Should I synchronise SharePoint lists with SQL server database?

29th January 2023

Using Office 365 for policy management

Dissemination and storage

Findability and discoverability

Governance and workflows

Reporting and tracking

Book a live demo

Why use SharePoint policy management software?

7 reasons to use SharePoint for policy management

Policy management software

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2. Skills in Viva has arrived

3. Improvements to Viva Connections

4. Articles come to Viva Engage

5. Viva Goals changes

6. Viva apps on the waffle

Microsoft Viva keeps on evolving

Find out more about using Microsoft Viva for your organisation...

What are the key risks surrounding AI?

Data privacy and confidentiality

Intellectual property

Fairness and bias

Ethics

Accuracy

Lack of explainability and transparency

Impact on roles

Misconceptions

Reducing the risks around AI

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Providing inspiration

Increasing speed to market

Supporting new and busy site owners

Encouraging good use cases and adoption

No costs involved

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A template is not a finished site

Still needs to fit in with your Information Architecture and security

Might bypass governance processes

Not aligning with custom branding

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Introduction