SharePoint, Office 365 and Projects in the Construction Sector: Part Two: Solving Governance Challenges

In the first post in this series, I described how organisations in the construction sector use Office 365 and SharePoint. I further explained there were many governance challenges faced by these organisations managing SharePoint project sites.

In this second post, I will explain how ProvisionPoint 365 resolves a number of these governance challenges. This will include summarising how ProvisionPoint 365 allows authorised users to request pre-defined templates. In addition, I will explain how ProvisionPoint 365 can be used to control site addresses, classify objects, and to improve compliance.

Managing Self Service

It is often the case that organisations in the construction sector will want to restrict users from creating certain types of sites. It might be that only certain project managers can create an externally shared site. ProvisionPoint 365 can apply this added governance layer to user self-service, by restricting the creation of certain site types to specific active directory groups.

While controlling who can request new project sites may be enough for some organisations, others may want an added level of authorisation. For example, it may be that a programme manager must authorise new projects sites requested by project managers. This example and others can be achieved in ProvisionPoint Enterprise by adding approval workflows as part of the site request process.

Another essential side of governance is controlling what will be created when a user requests a new object in Office 365. It might be that just a SharePoint Site is needed, but in some cases, a Microsoft Team will also be required. By using ProvisionPoint 365, administrators can configure templates for new project sites, defining what will be created including site structures such as Document Libraries, Content Types, and Task Lists.

Classification

Governance is not just about controlling who can create project sites, it is also about applying proper classification. In the construction sector, this could mean allocating a project site a code, a cost centre, or a business division. Customisable site request forms in ProvisionPoint Enterprise can be used to capture exactly this sort of business data. This classification information can be further used to improve discoverability of project sites by populating a SharePoint site directory.

Compliance

For an organisation with a high number of project sites created in Office 365, a significant security risk can be posed. It is relatively easy for someone to accidentally share a site with the wrong users or make sensitive content visible to the whole organisation. By using ProvisionPoint 365, it is straightforward for administrators to define who will have access to new SharePoint sites and whether they will be private. Visibility of the Owner of each site in ProvisionPoint 365, also improves ongoing management of that site by proving clear responsibility.

Classification information in ProvisionPoint 365 can also be used to enforce specific business rules. This includes setting intuitive and consistent URLs for SharePoint sites and applying meaningful email addresses to Office 365 Groups.

Next Steps

In this blog post, I outlined the benefits ProvisionPoint 365 brings for governance over Office 365 and SharePoint, especially for organisations in the construction sector. If you are interested in finding out more, please contact ProvisionPoint for a Office 365 provisioning demo for project sites.