SHAREPOINT - 10 MISSING FEATURES FROM PUBLISHING
- Jonathan Stuckey
- 6 days ago
- 4 min read
Updated: 1 hour ago
Audience: Project Manager, Solution Designer, Communications Advisors, Intranet Manager
Author: Jonathan Stuckey
With all the new publishing capabilities and content management functionality Microsoft has been releasing this year, I thought it might be good to put up the top-10 things most requested that we still won't get - but might eventually make it to the roadmap.
Top-10 most commonly requested add-ons for SharePoint intranet
The most common components requested by nearly every organisation I ever worked with for implementing SharePoint as an intranet, include:
I could have just kept going because there are lots of gaps. Just outside the top-10 we have everything from:
Accordion, Page Tabs, Social feeds ( X / Twitter / Facebook / Instagram etc), Cascading (nested) metadata filters, Alerts (site announcements), True global navigation (multi-hub), user acknowledgement (prompt), centralised (publishing) templates for all sites, full mobile application, column level security, convert (collected) pages to PDF, Quick poll....
SharePoint used to have some of these in 'Classic', but the power and flexibility went away with Modern. Some you can sort of do using a combination of other M365 and Microsoft components - but you have to join-up the dots yourself.
A lot of you out there will argue that a bunch of these are available in SharePoint today, but I'm happy to go toe-to-toe with anybody on behalf intranet owners and Comms teams - because the out-of-the-box options just don't cut it. Most of this functionality is just not available from Microsoft - not even for demo.
The answer?
Hmmmm 42 doesn't appear to fit, unless that's the new monthly subscription cost per person for 3rd party add-ons - in which case, don't bother. The answer is the classic dichotomy of Buy vs. Build.
More accurately is buy vs. community build the right approach? ...because why would you build something that 90% of the time has already been created? SharePoint's been around a long time. Even SharePoint Modern - isn't.
If you are looking for specific features and functionality it has (almost) certainly already been done. Now there are some means to access these components which are just not worth the effort (or the ongoing heart-ache to support it afterwards) - but there are a number of good, solid, robust and more importantly value-for-money options available.
Most are on marketplaces, you can look-up names on Microsoft Pinpoint partners list or you get the occasionally sponsored-name drop on the Microsoft SP Blog. Below are the most common - there are even some which are good value - just ask me
Old-shool SharePoint partner ISVs like: Bamboo Solutions, Snapon Software (formerly KWiz Com). Virto Software, Lightning Tools etc - started and trade on Classic components for farm solutions, and are (very slowly) modernizing them.
You have modern SharePoint ISVs like: Sprocket365, Plumbsail, Accelrator365 (Reply), who provide up to date equivalent components using modern development - for a fair pricing on subscription options.
Word of caution here - some of the vendors who started on Classic seem to have lost their way in the market pricing starting $4k - 10k per webpart or component in some-case more. In USD. That's just ridiculous. There are community sharing and modern webpart providers coming in at 10% of that cost. If you are selling a package of components, or deployable solution on top of the platform then higher pricing is understandable, but 1 or 2 components stand-a-lone webparts - that's just gouging.
So where to start? Well personally I've found that Sprocket365 knocks it out-of-the-park for feature capability vs. price, and offers good value for money - but still got gaps. Others like Reply, or Bamboo etc are ok for point requirements, but expensive. Ultimately its how much do you value the items which are missing for how you want to work.
If you need help in understanding the options, evaluating the products and determining the (personal) value for an item give me a shout.
Resources
Disclaimer
No Generative AI was used in the creation of this article. All content was created by author, based on released information from Microsoft. Any errors or issues with the content in this article are entirely the authors responsibility.
About the author: Jonathan Stuckey