Should you consider SharePoint for hosting the Operations and Maintenance Manual for your estate?

Do you manage multiple buildings? Do you have a pipeline of refurbishment projects? Or do you worry that your building management O&M documentation is not well organised, up-to-date or easily accessible by all those who need it most?

Read on to learn how COGNICA can convert, configure, and deliver highly organised O&M documentation for your estate into your SharePoint site, and why this might be the right solution for you.

Golden Thread

During the global COVID pandemic, businesses rapidly adapted to new ways of working including supporting remote workers at scale; a transformational shift that continued and became business-as-usual for many organisations today. Microsoft’s response was swift, to scale up their O365 cloud collaboration services providing solutions to operational challenges. SharePoint online adoption rose significantly and now dominates the global content and document management workspace. Today, 2 billion bits of data are updated in SharePoint every day. So how can this platform be utilized for hosting Operation and Maintenance Manuals?

After the Grenfell Tower fire, the UK Government implemented essential legislative changes to enhance the standards for digital documentation concerning High Rise Buildings. This initiative has prompted many building owners to reassess their data management practices, giving renewed emphasis on the benefits of live Operation and Maintenance Manuals. At COGNICA, we enjoy saving costs for our customers by delivering an efficient, effective solution. It’s often the case that building owners already utilise Microsoft SharePoint in their IT landscape, so why spend more on additional document management systems, when an ideal solution is already in place.

Your data, under your control.

At COGNICA, we have a range of O&M manual delivery solutions to suit all requirements, and rather than incur in-perpetuity subscription fees from other third-party software platforms, we recommend making better use of the software that organisations already use. Microsoft SharePoint is widely used by businesses to store and manage content and documentation and has significant functionality to compliment the use cases of Operations and Maintenance manuals.

Through existing O365 subscriptions many businesses already have SharePoint available and are likely using it for intranets, projects, Teams, documentation, collaboration and more. Have you considered using SharePoint for your O&M manuals too?

COGNICA’s systems not only collect, cleanse, collate, collaborate and deliver O&M manuals, our highly experienced teams can help configure your SharePoint site for O&M manual hosting, and our Matrix O&M system can publish your O&M manuals and associated documentation directly and automatically into your SharePoint site (subject to valid authentication credentials of course!). Should additional support be required after delivery into SharePoint, COGNICA are available to provide guidance and further aftercare as required. Your data, in your control, on your systems, with no further ongoing fees to a third-party agency.

Ubiquitous Access and Full Control

SharePoint is a highly available platform, easily accessible across desktop and mobile devices, on most operating systems, through a web browser or the Microsoft SharePoint app. If your IT policies support it, documentation can also be available offline through SharePoint file synchronization too. Your O&M documentation available on your device, wherever you are, whenever you need it.

SharePoint is built on Role-Based Authentication, surfacing authorised content to users based on their roles of Viewer, Editor, Owner, or even more granular item-level configurations as needs dictate. This grants SharePoint space administrators complete control over document library permissions. External collaboration is simple, contractors can easily be invited as guest users benefitting from SharePoint’s security and audit controls to protect and monitor activity accordingly.

Easily Locate Information

In additional to configuration of a logical and organised document library collection, COGNICAs Matrix O&M system ensures that SharePoint Content Types are setup, all documents are tagged with well-structured metadata, Views created and customised for optimum focus. Users can rapidly locate information via search or filters on multiple dimensions of the data including metadata tags, filenames, file content, versions, date & time and more, making for highly efficient information retrieval.

Version Control and the Golden Thread

All documents in SharePoint benefit from automated Version Control, allowing tracking and storage of up to 500 iterations. Approval Workflows can guide users through updating document content, safe in the knowledge that version controls enable review, restore, or replace with previous versions as required. This important feature aligns well with maintaining an audit trail of change in compliance with UK Legislation changes such as the Fire Safety Act 2022, supporting the Golden Thread trail. During publication to your SharePoint site, COGNICA’s Matrix O&M system automatically manages the versioning process of documentation for you.

Extendable

Managing future updates to buildings on your estate is simple. COGNICA’s Matrix O&M system will capture, collate, organise, and publish new O&M documents for updated buildings or new buildings alike, directly into your existing SharePoint O&M manuals, setting metadata, version control etc, respecting security configurations and Workflows, continuing the theme of your data, in your control, on your systems.

Integration

SharePoint seamlessly integrates with other Microsoft Office applications and has a significant number of connectors to third-party tools, enhancing workflow efficiency and productivity with your overall operations. Document content remains located in a single centralised location, accessible by required systems, maximising user adoption, stability, and accuracy.

Overall, SharePoint is an ideal location to hold Operation and Maintenance Manuals for your estate, providing a centralized and efficient solution for managing critical documentation.

Support

COGNICA aims to foster long-term relationships, whilst empowering data owners to manage their data lifecycle independently. Recognizing the transition to digital estates may be challenging for some. In addition to managing document collation, cleansing, organisation and delivery of new and refurbishment project Operation and Maintenance manuals onto your SharePoint sites, COGNICA provides training on SharePoint data management, data change and data hygiene, supporting the ongoing needs of your teams.

Read more about how we’ve helped many businesses manage their estates documentation using our Matrix O&M to deliver directly into your SharePoint.

Contact Us now for a free no obligation quote for converting your Estates documentation information onto a digital, modern, SharePoint O&M platform.