Back to Blog

Lines of Business can make better use of SharePoint with a tab of their own in the ribbon

By Michael Blonder
Updated July 10, 2024

SharePoint stakeholders may experience some rough weather when they speak with line of business (LoB) organizations about making more use of SharePoint as the preferred computing platform for their business activity. But some of these thunderheads can miraculously disappear when these LoBs implement VisualSP(tm) to add a tab of their own to the standard SharePoint ribbon.

LoBs often produce mission-critical revenue for the rest of the organization. So it makes sense, most of the time, to allow these groups to operate, effectively, as silos within the organization, using their own computing systems.

But for organizations operating in heavily regulated markets -- financial services, energy production, healthcare, education, and even government at both Federal and state levels -- simply permitting LoBs to operate independently may be a less than ideal condition. A computing architecture designed to support silos is often hampered by high cost as the result of duplication of effort. A second undesirable feature of this architecture is the difficulty a Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) organization will experience as it tries to pull information in from operations subject to regulatory control for reporting purposes.

If readers need more detail, I would simply recommend considering how the task of building original user interfaces for different LoBs may not look, on the surface, like duplication of effort. But the core process -- building each of the required interfaces -- is actually the same, though the "skins" themselves, may be very different. So either the LoB, or a central enterprise IT organisation, or, perhaps both, end up paying for the same work many times.

With a ribbon tab built with our VisualSP system, LoBs may be convinced to get their business done within the SharePoint computing environment. If the business is insurance underwriting and the need is for quick access to a set of customer-specific documents as new documents are processed, our ribbon tab can be used to create this capability.

From our version 4.7.0.4, and forward, the tab included with VisualSP Standard, and Enterprise can bear a different name and is not limited to simply "Help". As well, our system can now be added to, literally, any page in SharePoint. So SharePoint stakeholders can seriously consider providing important LoBs within the organization with access to their own documents, videos, images and more directly from the SharePoint ribbon with our ribbon tab.

 

"I no longer have to answer the same d&*# questions over and over!"

Because your time is too valuable for déjà vu. VisualSP provides in-the-moment guidance for your team, so they can find answers without asking you (again).

Get started free

Fuel Employee Success

Boost employee productivity with VisualSP's easy-to-use platform for in-app guidance
Get Started Free
Table of Contents