Working Collaboratively from any Location using SharePoint

Too many older people feel they have no one to turn to for support. Age UK Faversham & Sittingbourne exist to help their over 50s in their community to live their best lives possible.

The charity was struggling with remote working and ensuring data governance due to using an outdated file server and unsecure remote access. The charity needed to adapt to the increasing demands for remote working, as well as an ever growing cyber-threat landscape targeting charities.

Due to the pandemic, the charity was required to adapt and utilise more remote working. An office-based file server was used to access company data with multiple sites - as well as home users - needing to access it. This caused issues as not all users knew how to properly store and access company data and should the office internet connection have failed, all remote access would be impossible.

Working with vulnerable individuals, and accessing sensitive data, it was paramount that data was secured. Users working from personal devices risked leaking sensitive data through compromised devices (with malware) and improper use.

By migrating all company data to SharePoint, and user data to OneDrive, it allowed users to safely access company data regardless of location. Having data stored in Microsoft’s ultra-secure cloud that offers 99.9% uptime meant downtime was no longer a concern. Using Conditional Access, Impreza IT ensured that risks were reduced to a minimum applying policies that ensured company data could only be stored to SharePoint and OneDrive when using personal devices.

Perhaps the greatest benefit of the solution was the ability to work collaboratively, with users previously having to access Office documents like spreadsheets one at a time. Microsoft Teams was deployed as part of the SharePoint solution allowing users to chat, virtually meet and co-author documents all directly from Teams.