Streamlining Communications with DocRead & SharePoint
SharePoint internal communication activities can be greatly enhanced by a combination of SharePoint and DocRead. SharePoint, one of Microsoft's leading enterprise tools, provides internal communications professionals with a comprehensive content and document management platform. DocRead adds powerful compliance and approval functionality not available ‘out of the box
SharePoint for internal communications
Such is the popularity of SharePoint as an enterprise platform that ‘SharePoint Internal Communications’ is now often seen as a discipline in its own right. The platform offers the comms professional a number of ‘out of the box’ features, here are 3 :
DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT
SharePoint is a powerful document management system. Features include version control, support for metadata, and check in/out. SharePoint can also be configured to support ‘web app’ versions of the popular Office suite, meaning documents can be viewed and even edited within an Intranet.
ANNOUNCEMENTS AND MESSAGING TOOLS
SharePoint offers a number of ways to distribute and store messages. These include dedicated ‘news story’ functionality called ‘Announcements’. This feature can be used to quickly push out stories via an Intranet, and supports rich media and email alerts. Later versions of SharePoint also support more social communications tools like newsfeeds and forum style functionality.
WORKFLOW
SharePoint features a powerful workflow engine, which combines artefacts like list items and documents, with automated steps and logic processing.
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DocRead extends and supports SharePoint
DocRead is a powerful SharePoint tool that extends what SharePoint is capable of ‘out of the box’. It is extremely well suited to building tools for internal communications professionals, offering a range of features aimed at distributing messages and tracking engagement.
Target Documents
DocRead allows any document to be distributed to a specific audience of users, and will then request that they read and digitally acknowledge the contents by a specific date. DocRead make it possible for this functionality to be applied to any SharePoint list item, such as an Announcement.
TRACK PROGRESS
DocRead offers a full set of features for tracking and reporting on non-compliant activity and users. Reports can be exported, filtered and sorted as required. Internal communications teams will find the ‘Overdue reading tasks’ report very useful for understanding the status of a particular campaign.
EMAIL REMINDERS
DocRead uses emails to alert users to new tasks and required reading. Automated emails are sent when tasks are ‘Assigned’, ‘Confirmed’ and ‘Overdue’. Emails can be customised to suit corporate branding and custom messaging can easily be added to the body. Line Managers can also be sent a copy of their staff's reminders.
Not only can you distribute Office docs, PDFs and Web Pages, but it's also a breeze to share a video with your staff and ask that they watch it by a deadline. Video's can easily be embedded into web page along with other content.
DocSurvey is a sophisticated survey tool, which allows quizzes and questionnaires to be attached to documents stored in SharePoint. It can be used in conjunction with DocRead to enhance the engagement process. Not only is a user able to confirm they have read a particular message, but the internal comms team can test their understanding with a simple quiz.
SHOW READING LISTS ANYWHERE
DocRead ships with several Web Parts and Charts that help user's visualize exactly what is required reading within a site or across the entire SharePoint Farm. The Web Part is often conveniently placed on the MySite.