Microsoft’s NextGen Portals – are they on your company’s radar as an intranet solution? If so, it can be difficult to know where to look for advice. Since the Portals themselves are so new and are only being released one at a time, they might seem disjointed and could be frustrating to use. Below you’ll find our tips for best practices on working with NextGen Portals, based on our research and the experiences of our clients so far.
Be Aware of Capabilities and Limitations
To begin with, your business should understand the extent of what’s possible with NextGen Portals before choosing to rely on them as a solution. Conversely, you should also understand their limitations.
For example, the Office 365 Video portal is essentially a “YouTube channel” for your enterprise – a way for you and your colleagues to show and publish videos internally. You can create video channels inside your organization and make them available to the users that need them. However, one of the drawbacks of the Video portal is that it not connected to the rest of SharePoint, so it may not offer all of the features that you expect or require.
Another drawback worthy of mention is that you will not be able to apply any organizational branding to your portals. If this level of customization is a priority, a more tailored intranet solution may be more appropriate.
Be Willing to Wait
Since Microsoft is releasing the NextGen Portals one by one, they cannot be leveraged as a unified intranet solution. The features and portals that you need could arrive soon, or you might be waiting a very long time. Even more frustrating, Microsoft doesn’t announce when exactly it will deploy new features.
If your organization likes to be agile and stay on the bleeding edge of new technologies, working with NextGen Portals could be a challenging experience. Your managers will have to plan your organization’s internal governance around these waiting times and unpredictable release dates.
Be Ready for Changes
Microsoft is continually rolling out new portals, as well as new features for the existing portals. However, you will have no say over when or how they are added. In order to stay ahead of the game, you should be able to anticipate any new changes and understand what they will entail for your business.
This is especially true since the implementation of many of these changes is not optional. For example, Microsoft recently released a new feature in the Office 365 Delve user portal that allows you to give praise to users. Unfortunately if you do not like this feature, there is no way for your administrators to disable it, forcing you to accept whatever Microsoft believes is the best practice for your business.
Final Thoughts
Generally speaking, Microsoft has done a poor job in notifying end users when something has changed in the NextGen Portals. But your business absolutely necessitates the use of NextGen Portals, you may wish to look away from SharePoint and toward third-party vendors that provide you with clearer information and more jurisdiction over what happens to your intranet.
The size of your organization, as well as the degree of bureaucracy within it, might ultimately determine whether Microsoft’s portals are a suitable option. If you have many users who struggle with adapting to new changes and require specific features at a given time, then a NextGen Portal solution may not be the right choice.
