Box is the BEST. I am their biggest fan. It's easy to set up an administer... don't need an IT team to do it. It has governance modules and many ways to keep data secure. It's encrypted and passes the bar for robust security for example when we had to apply to be a reviewer of credit reports. They have nonprofit pricing and integrate with everything... well a lot. Microsoft just adds to your IT burden in my opinion.
Original Message:
Sent: 04-18-2024 08:20 AM
From: Joy Garvin
Subject: Sharepoint or not?
Hi Eliot
I have found our my organization that there are definite pros and cons based on how you are using it. For our more collaborative teams I think it works well (and I believe it was created with this type of work in mind). Our organization moved from a standard file share (we called it the "F Drive") to SharePoint so we didn't have any choice in the matter since it was an organization-wide change. Coming from a background in finance/accounting and now in operations for, essentially, a finance business I have challenges. One big challenge for us is that we work extensively in PDF and SharePoint does not interact well with Adobe. It becomes a constant exercise in uploading and downloading PDF documents. This also causes people to just work from their One Drive and documents not always making it into the share files on SP.
Other challenges (they may be organization or individual based):
-Waiting for files to load in larger folders - for larger folders (we have subfolders that house individual subfolders based on record number and there are hundreds of records
-Syncing - Most people, for ease of getting around the folders/file have synced with their file explorer and syncing can be slow which is most problematic when working on a time sensitive task with others, sometimes files don't sync because for reasons unknown they stopped syncing.
-Delayed file/folder updating - some people have experienced deleting a file and uploading a newer one and SP was still opening the old, deleted file. I had someone show me this sharing their screen and eventually it updated for the new file but it was very frustrating for them.
One big issue for us is that if you sync with the file explorer and you delete a folder, it does not just delete from your file explorer it deletes entirely from SP. We have lost many files/folders like this when people sync individual folders/files and they think it is more like a shortcut that they can get rid of when they no longer need it in their file explorer.
One other issue that our organization has limited knowledge of the full functionality of SharePoint and when we don't understand something that is happening or what to better understand how something can work there isn't always support for us.
Some of this may be more manageable through making business process changes but it is a difficult thing to do when people are so frustrated.
Like I said, I know that other parts of our organization work much differently than we do and don't have any complaints but I have found it challenging.
Sorry for the lengthy post. I may have just needed to vent to someone. (🤪)
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Joy Garvin
Direction of Lending Operations
Enterprise Community Loan Fund, Inc.
Columbia MD
Original Message:
Sent: 04-10-2024 12:50 PM
From: Eliot Pacheco
Subject: Sharepoint or not?
Hi Everyone- Just wanted to get a sense if other CDFI's are utilizing Sharepoint? What are some pros and cons you have found using sharepoint? How do you mitigate some of the fears or risks?
Currently we have been conducting interviews to change MSPs and we have learned a lot about our remote desktop environment and having been given suggestions on moving to sharepoint that we have found ourselves now wondering if we should make that leap or not. We have spoken to many different IT folks which some seem to be against but there's a larger community who are for it.
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Eliot Pacheco
Director of Audit & Internal Control
Housing Development Fund, Inc.
Stamford CT
203-883-5201
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