Microsoft SharePoint Online Review – PCMag

An effective combination of workflow, team collaboration, and document management, Microsoft SharePoint Online is an easy pick for our Editors' Choice designation. But make sure you need all this power because its price can be significant.
Microsoft has had to fight harder in the past few years to maintain its leadership in the productivity space; something that Microsof Office platform used to manage almost effortlessly. To help set it apart, the company has developed several back-office enhancements for Office and made them available in the cloud. Chief among these is Microsoft SharePoint Online, a very powerful combination of customizable workflow, team collaboration, and document management. In combination with Microsoft Office and Office 365, SharePoint Online can quickly implement broad productivity improvements in many organizations. While it carries a potentially high price tag once all users and options are accounted for (though it starts at just $5 per user per month), it’s still an easy pick for our Editors’ Choice in document management, along with Ascensio System OnlyOffice.
Microsoft doesn’t offer a free trial of Microsoft SharePoint Online, though the 30-day trial for Microsoft Office 365 Enterprise E3 does include access to Microsoft SharePoint Online (make sure you sign up for the Enterprise E3 trial as Microsoft also offers trial versions of Office 365 Home Premium and Business Premium but neither of these tiers includes Microsoft SharePoint Online). Microsoft SharePoint Online has two paid plans, named simply “Plan 1” and “Plan 2.” Plan 1 (which begins at $5 per user per month) includes really everything you would expect from a document management platform: support for multiple document libraries, collaboration tools, sharing with internal or external users, content management, records management, and workflows. Plan 2 (which begins at $10 per user per month) adds a number of advanced features, including customizable search capabilities, e-discovery, and compliance tools such as auditing and in-place hold.
You can also gain access to Microsoft SharePoint Online through any of the Enterprise tiers in Microsoft Office 365. The Office 365 Enterprise E1 tier provides Microsoft SharePoint Online access equivalent to Plan 1 as well as access to Exchange Online with 50GB mailboxes, Microsoft Teams ($5.00 Per User Per Month, Billed Annually at Microsoft 365 for Business)(Opens in a new window) , and online versions of Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Microsoft Word.
Office 365 Enterprise E3 adds desktop versions of Office 2016 (up to five installations per user) as well as mobile apps, unlimited Microsoft OneDrive ($5.00 Per User Per Month at Microsoft 365 for Business)(Opens in a new window) storage, and the addition of document management capabilities. Such capabilities include manual retention and deletion policies, manual document classifications, and eDiscovery (a suite of tools that lets you find documents related to litigation or information requests, and take appropriate action such as placing a hold on the documents or exporting the files). Office 365 Enterprise E5 adds to the eDiscovery toolset with analytics, automated document classification, and import through Advanced Data Governance. Pricing for Office 365 Enterprise tiers is calculated as a monthly rate per user with an annual commitment. Pricing begins at $8 per user per month for E1, $20 per user per month for E3, and $35 per user per month for E5.


It’s simple to sign up with Microsoft SharePoint Online. Just pick a plan and provide your name, email, phone number, company, and address. Then, create a user ID, password, and a unique URL (e.g., yourname.onmicrosoft.com). After that, verify that you’re not a robot by inputting a code that will be sent to you via a text or phone call. Finally, input your payment information and choose whether to pay monthly or annually. Payment information is not required if you opt for the free trial.
If it’s your first experience with Office 365, then you may encounter a bit of information overload when you first log in. If you have signed up for the free trial of Microsoft Office 365 Enterprise E3, then your dashboard will include over a dozen tiles linked to various Microsoft programs and features included in the Enterprise E3 tier. One of these tiles is Microsoft SharePoint Online. In addition, you can access the administrative aspects of Microsoft SharePoint Online under the Admin module by using the Admin Centers menu on the left-hand side.

Microsoft SharePoint Online lets users create individual sites as an organization and management entity. Each SharePoint site can have its own document library, notebooks, security, and design. In addition, sites can be organized as standalone sites or in a hierarchy through the use of subsites. When creating a site, you’re prompted to choose between a Team site or a Communication site. Team sites are the traditional SharePoint sites, intended for collaboration within an organization, particularly where a significant percentage of the users will be involved in document management. Communication sites are useful for scenarios in which an individual or small group is creating content to be consumed by a larger group of users; think of it as a cross between a document library and a blog. Both site options can be used to share documents and are highly customizable.
Team sites in Microsoft SharePoint Online are flexible, provided someone is willing to navigate the learning curve. A site’s document library, for example, can be configured with numerous metadata fields, which can be leveraged for a number of different functions. A document view can be customized to show specific fields for you to use to search and sort. A view can also be filtered to only display documents with matching metadata, which would let you create multiple views, each customized to show a specific set of documents.

Microsoft SharePoint Online document libraries can be synchronized with your computer or mobile device by using the Microsoft OneDrive client. Desktop users can simply click the Sync button within the document library to configure the connection (or download the software). New files can be added to the document library through drag-and-drop, copying files into a synced folder on your desktop, or by using various Office apps on desktop or mobile devices. One knock against Microsoft SharePoint Online for many years was due to the unpredictability of the OneDrive sync client. Microsoft has since released a new OneDrive client, which seems to do a much better job of keeping your files in sync.

At its core, Microsoft SharePoint Online is a document management platform. In addition to basic document management capabilities, such as file uploads and downloads, editing, and sharing, Microsoft SharePoint Online handles change tracking, too. Keeping a log of who made edits and letting you download previous editions of your document to review changes or return to a previous revision lends quite a bit of flexibility to Microsoft SharePoint Online. Users can also configure alerts on a document library to receive a notification when changes are made. Documents can be checked out to prevent issues with multiple people editing the same file, though co-authoring (multiple users editing the same file simultaneously) is also supported for modern Office docs, assuming all users are using Office 2010 or later.
Microsoft offers some fairly hefty security and compliance features in Office 365, many of which can be leveraged against Microsoft SharePoint Online. Most other business-grade document management suites, such as Ascensio System OnlyOffice (40.00 Per Year at ONLYOFFICE)(Opens in a new window) , offer basic security features such as permissions and audit tracking. Microsoft SharePoint Online supports these features as well but also includes features an order of magnitude above the competition. For starters, you can create policies that handle things such as document labels, data loss prevention, document retention, and supervisor access. Document labels are used to identify documents that may have sensitive data, such as credit cards, social security numbers, or customer data.

SharePoint offers tools to not only create and manage these labels, but to apply them to existing documents (or even emails if you’re using a full Office 365 suite) based on the contents of the document. Similar tools are available to prevent data loss, such as preventing documents that contain sensitive information from being shared outside your organization. Tools are also available for managing document retention, both for preventing users from permanently deleting documents and for enforcing archival or removal after a defined period of time. In many of these cases, Microsoft offers a predefined set of filters designed to facilitate compliance with regulations in various countries, including the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act(Opens in a new window) (HIPAA) and corresponding regulations. You can also configure policy application by using search terms. These policies can be applied across Microsoft SharePoint Online or to individual sites.
Audit logging can be used to track user-level activities or administrative changes. Once logging is enabled, you can search the audit log for specific actions, users, time windows, or search terms in order to focus your view. One feature that was mentioned previously, eDiscovery, is a comprehensive tool for locating documents related to a specific topic such as a legal action. By using eDiscovery, you can locate documents that are within the scope of a subpoena or other information request, protect relevant documents by placing a hold on them, or even export relevant files in order to comply with the request.
If these security features sound intimidating, then know that they are completely optional and won’t get in your way if you choose to ignore them. More standard security options, such as group- or user-based permissions, are also available. You also can configure how file sharing outside your organization works, such as sharing only to authenticated users, setting expiration periods for anonymous access, or using groups to manage who can share documents externally. You can also configure share links to provide read-only access to your documents.

Microsoft SharePoint has supported workflow creation for some time now and SharePoint Online is no exception. While most document management systems with a workflow module support basic document management tasks, such as review routing or signature requests, Microsoft SharePoint Online tightly integrates with Microsoft Flow, a tool for creating workflows between disparate platforms. By using Flow, you can send approval requests when documents are loaded to a library, integrate with Microsoft Forms to route information to the appropriate contact, or link a document library with a third-party cloud storage platform such as DropBox Business or Google Drive for Work. Microsoft offers over a hundred Flow templates, or you can roll your own.
Another area Microsoft is pushing as an integration point into their holistic information management platform is Microsoft PowerApps (7.00 Per User Per Month at PowerApps)(Opens in a new window) . The intent behind PowerApps is that users can very easily (in relative terms) create an app that can capture and store data in Microsoft SharePoint (even using Flow). These PowerApps can be listed in the Microsoft Store and used for either internal business processes or as customer-facing portals.
Speaking of apps, Microsoft’s long-standing relationship with developers means that the Microsoft SharePoint app catalog is chock-full of apps you can integrate into your Microsoft SharePoint sites. These apps come in both paid and free options but you should be aware that even the free apps come with a price. Microsoft SharePoint app permissions are much like you’d expect on your mobile device, and each app includes a list of things that the app will be able to do with your documents and data, so they should be handled with the appropriate care. Under the right circumstances, Microsoft SharePoint apps can add functionality such as enhanced notification capabilities, additional calendar options, integration into other services, and a host of other options.
Microsoft SharePoint’s reputation for being difficult to manage or even use is the result of its focus on features over usability. With Microsoft’s increased focus on making Office 365 and its various components accessible to part-time admins (particularly those thrust into the role out of necessity), Microsoft SharePoint Online is a revelation in terms of offering advanced features that appeal to enterprise customers without delivering a solution so complex it can’t be used by smaller IT shops. To be fair, there are still some intricacies of managing Microsoft SharePoint, including multiple locations for administrative settings. But most of the features are much more straightforward to configure than they’ve been in the past.
Microsoft’s Office 365 pricing is aggressive and Microsoft SharePoint Online can be had for a very reasonable $5 per user per month. But that’s still a far cry from the $1-per-user-per-month pricing you can get from competitor Ascensio System OnlyOffice, our other Editors’ Choice. Still, based on its new ease-of-use focus, the advanced collaboration and security features offered with Flow, eDiscovery, and the wide variety of configurable management policies, Microsoft SharePoint Online easily earns one of our Editors’ Choice awards in the document management category.
An effective combination of workflow, team collaboration, and document management, Microsoft SharePoint Online is an easy pick for our Editors' Choice designation. But make sure you need all this power because its price can be significant.
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Tim Ferrill is an IT professional and writer living in Southern California. Follow him on Twitter @tferrill.
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