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Why government agencies should embrace SharePoint

Kayla Matthews

Kayla Matthews

Kayla Matthews

Kayla Matthews

Kayla is a journalist and writer interested in professional productivity software, big data and other technologies. To read more posts by Kayla, visit her blog, ProductivityBytes.com or learn more about Kayla on her About Me page.  

Published:
3 min read

SharePoint for government sector

Although various organizations use SharePoint and adapt it to their needs, it’s especially useful for the government sector. Here are 5 reasons why.

1. Attractive and easy-to-use portals

Government portals don’t always have a reputation for being user-friendly and visually appealing. SharePoint has portal building functionality that local and national government agencies around the world can make use of.

The city of Bellingham, Washington, and the state of Wisconsin are just two of the many examples of beautiful government portals made with SharePoint. They offer full feature suites and enticing graphics, ensuring people can both access the online services they need and enjoy pretty images.

2. Automated data processing

Most government agencies work with extraordinary amounts of data every day, whether it relates to license plate numbers, housing lists, waste collection or almost anything else imaginable.

In SharePoint, images uploaded to document libraries get automatically scanned with optical recognition software. The technology also recognizes geolocation data and adds meta tags to the content to support a more efficient search.

3. Cost-effectiveness

While searching for options that would best fit their organizations’ budgets, government agencies often opt for the Office 365 suite and SharePoint Online as its part. It offers lower prices as compared to other solutions they consider, even when it is intended for large agencies with several thousand government employees.

California’s Santa Clara County, an agency with 15,000 employees, has already embraced the affordability of Office 365. They decided to switch to the cloud gradually. At first, they migrated their email systems, then other applications, such as Word.

However, if government officials realize they do not need such an extensive set of services, they can opt to invest in SharePoint alone. That degree of flexibility appeals to cash-strapped government representatives who know they need to invest in better technology and want an economical, scalable way to go about it.

4. Advanced built-in security

Security is a paramount concern for government agencies — especially if they’ve already faced breaches and want to avoid further incidents. In addition to integrated malware scanning for materials uploaded to document libraries, SharePoint includes other security perks, too. For example, there is an ability to allow network access only to specific IP addresses, plus grant sharing privileges only to people outside or inside a government organization.

Also, Virtual Identity Server (VIS) options for SharePoint can simplify identity management by permitting one-time configurations of security settings and permissions that automatically update as data goes through changes in the environment.

5. Third-party integration support

Government agencies may discover that SharePoint out-of-the-box functionality is not enough to meet their needs and, for example, opt for merging it with a GRP (government resource planning) system. SharePoint is an integration-friendly platform and easily allows for such integration. This enables government agencies to take the best of both worlds: SharePoint capabilities of document management, workflows, intranets, enterprise search and the GRP functionality like inventory management, a transparent budget cycle and more. SharePoint-GRP integration adds to creating a flexible, collaboration-driven and effective digital environment for government institutions.

On a final note

In this article, we have listed some of the most compelling reasons for government agencies to consider using SharePoint. There can be even more reasons, as besides building portals, document management and integration capabilities, SharePoint can provide effective project, knowledge and quality management solutions as well as team collaboration tools.  

Do you face any SharePoint or Office 365 challenges? We are always ready to help and share our hands-on expertise with you.