Why should you integrate SharePoint with MS Outlook

If you as an entrepreneur are looking out for a tool that will to increase the productivity of you and your employees, then look no further than Microsoft SharePoint. Project management, data sharing and organization features are some of the features of SharePoint. And if your business communication is Microsoft Outlook, you can integrate it with SharePoint. Synchronization of the two will improve collaboration of SharePoint libraries, task lists, and contact details of your clients.

There are mainly two reasons why people using MS Outlook as their business tool would want to use SharePoint for collaboration. The first reason is 90 percent of the people are comfortable using Outlook as their tool. And if they are able to access data from SharePoint using the same tool, then they would surely want to integrate SharePoint with MS Outlook. You can take the SharePoint content offline. This could be another practical reason why many would want to integrate SharePoint with Outlook. It is useful for those who want to carry work home or want to access data while on the move. It’s also beneficial to those who have slow Internet connections. We walk you through why you should give synchronizing SharePoint with Outlook a thought.

Synchronizing SharePoint with MS Outlook

If your business is using Outlook, it means apart from email, you are also making use of the features such as Calendars, Contacts and Task lists. SharePoint also has similar feature known as Lists. If the owner has set read permission for a file on the List in SharePoint, then the user can browse and open the items in Outlook. Similarly, if the owner has set the contributor permission, then the user can edit, create or delete the items in Outlook. In brief, whatever permission has been set in SharePoint, the corresponding permission will be given in MS Outlook when you are working with List. Note that this can be done in both ways.

You can synchronize the task list of Outlook with SharePoint– This list helps you to keep track of your project milestones and other important dates. By integrating SharePoint task list with Outlook, you can manage this list offline. That is you can create new tasks, update, assign and delete as per the business needs from Outlook.

Efficiently organizing your contact list – Organizing, adding, updating or deleting contact information becomes easier when SharePoint is synchronized with Outlook. Remember you can work offline with your contact list. When you synchronize these two software, you can send the contacts email or meeting requests. It makes work a lot easier.

Using SharePoint calendar in Outlook– There are a few advantages of integrating SharePoint calendar with that of Outlook. This can be accessed by all those with whom it has been shared. The users can update and add appointments. These changes will be reflected in SharePoint. Another interesting point is, if the creator of the calendar leaves the company, the calendar still exists.

Accessing external lists created using Designer feature of SharePoint– Synchronizing SharePoint with Outlook makes it easier to create SharePoint solutions such as web publishing, workflows and line-of business data integration using SharePoint designer. If you have designed an external content type using SharePoint Designer, it can be synchronized with Outlook.

The changes that you make using either of the software while working offline can be synced and updated once you are online. Since the syncing happens in the background, you can carry on with your normal work in the foreground. The integration of these two useful software does pack a punch in terms of enhancing your organization’s capabilities.