The Problem With Using Free Sharepoint for Boards of Directors

Using free Sharepoint for board director activities is a little like trying to flip a pancake using a spoon. You may eventually get it to work, but it doesn’t work that well, and it might make a bit of a mess. The buildup of free Sharepoint sounds great, and for some applications it is. Things always go easier when you use the right tools for the job. Free Sharepoint may seem like it works well for board directors, but the reality is that there are better tools out there for important work like running companies and organizations.

Why Free Sharepoint Seems Like a Good Idea

Perhaps the primary reason that people believe that free Sharepoint is a good idea is because that’s what representatives for the product will tell you. Free Sharepoint meets much of the purpose for which it was designed.

Sharepoint works with Microsoft products. That can be enticing because everyone uses them. The company promotes Sharepoint as a platform, rather than a product, where users can build a set-up to get it to perform the functions that you want it to do. It comes with a big set of tools that unifies people, processes and productivity. It’s one portal with an unlimited capability for document storage. Using one platform, users can monitor schedules, create workflows, submit reports and document procedures. The platform makes it easy to search for documents and to organize and share them.

Yet, for all its good points, Sharepoint has its share of downsides.

Why Sharepoint Isn’t the Best Tool for Board Directors

Free Sharepoint was designed for general business and personal use. For those applications, it does a fair job.

In its effort to be one product that performs many operations, Sharepoint falls short of user expectations in many areas. The fact that users can employ it as a base platform to build the user-ability they need also makes it a very complex product.

Sharepoint is complicated and time-consuming to set up, and it’s even more complicated to maintain. Most users find the program difficult to use without a lot of training.

While Sharepoint is loaded with fancy features, many people feel overwhelmed by learning how to use them, so they’re stuck with many features they don’t even use. Even if you want to use many of the features, they may not come with the free version. Some reviewers have complained that the options for features are very confusing, and when they get what they need, the price rises to a point such that many people find it out of their budget’s reach.

Software solutions nearly always must have periodic updates to keep them working well and free from viruses. Microsoft hasn’t been very consistent in offering updates on its products.

After using the platform for a while, some people have likened it to a black box where they simply can’t find their way.

Sharepoint was designed for general business and personal use, and it does a pretty good job for those purposes. It wasn’t designed with the necessary security features that boards need to ensure the confidential nature of their work.

What BoardEffect Does That Sharepoint Doesn’t

In the end, a software program doesn’t help very much if it doesn’t do the things you need it to do most and it has a host of features that mean nothing to you. Perhaps such a tool is fine for applications that aren’t all that important.

The work that boards of directors do is very important. Board directors need digital solutions that were designed with their needs in mind. They need platforms with a high level of security built into them. Board directors are too busy to waste time building systems and taking hours of training to learn how to use them.

BoardEffect’s board portal system was designed with the exact needs of board director activities in mind.

BoardEffect offers a platform that offers unlimited cloud-based document storage and customized user permissions just like free Sharepoint. But the similarities stop there. In fact, BoardEffect’s platform can be used as a rich resource library for board education and training.

BoardEffect designed a highly secure communications tool called Messenger that integrates seamlessly with the board portal so board directors never have to leave the platform. Directors can use the platform to create online board books in far less time than doing them manually. In addition, board directors can annotate board meeting materials using mobile devices to help them keep up with their busy lifestyles. They can add last-minute updates and changes so that their peers have the latest information at their fingertips at all times.

The built-in survey feature allows board directors to conduct their annual board evaluations using various question-and-answer formats. Directors can easily store the surveys and the results right on the platform for the next year’s review.

When board meetings are over, Diligent Minutes is a program that automates much of the work of taking meeting minutes. The online template is easy to modify and to use. In short order, boards can use the Minutes program to complete the appropriate rounds of approvals and set up post-meeting tasks with automated reminders for follow-up.

The best news is that board directors get all these programs and features without having to set any of them up on their own. That means there is little training involved and new users can get up to speed using all of the features of BoardEffect’s portal and software in record time.

Unlike Sharepoint, which requires many hours and months of training, BoardEffect’s programs are intuitive and easy to use.

While the current tools are perfect for boards of directors of every type, BoardEffect continues to innovate and develop programs to help boards of directors work more efficiently and enhance their efforts toward good governance principles and practices.

More than 180,000 users working in over 2,500 leading organizations rely on BoardEffect to take their organizations paperless without sacrificing money or time — or board activities. Users include board directors, executives and administrators. BoardEffect is the perfect solution for hospitals, healthcare systems, nonprofits, foundations, educational institutions, government entities and companies.

BoardEffect is the best tool that allows boards to fulfill their board duties and to take the organization to the next level of performance.