Microsoft has consolidated all of its Office applications, cloud services, and security functions under the name Microsoft 365 since April 21, 2020. This platform is already available to many companies as enterprise license packages (e.g., an E3 or an E5 license). And that means they have access to Microsoft Content Services as well.
What are Microsoft Content Services?
Within Microsoft 365, Microsoft Content Services encapsulate all areas that are relevant for document management and that serve as a basis for document-centered processes. They include SharePoint Online, OneDrive, and parts of Microsoft Azure.
Additional products, such as “Project Cortex,” have been announced for the middle of the year and will add knowledge management functions and AI-powered data extraction to Microsoft 365 while automatically and transparently displaying existing corporate knowledge.
What added values do Microsoft Content Services offer companies and users?
With its SharePoint products, Microsoft has provided a platform that allows users to work collaboratively in document-based processes and store documents and information.
SharePoint Online makes these ever-expanding functions available in Microsoft 365 as well. I recently discussed the numerous possibilities, as well as the limitations, of the Microsoft products during a video interview (German Content) with the Office 365 academy.
Collaborative and simultaneous work on Office documents, versioning, and classification of documents using metadata (document properties) are only a few of the document management functions that SharePoint offers. Deep integration in the classic Office applications and Microsoft Teams ensures that the functions are available to users directly in the applications they use every day. Since this is a cloud solution, these functions are available to employees at all locations and at all times.
This allows collaboration to extend beyond corporate boundaries, since documents can very easily be shared with and edited by persons outside the company. Authorizations can be assigned immediately during the sharing process.
In addition to collaborative document creation, another stage in the document life cycle is archiving, which Microsoft 365 supports with its retention labels function.
Creating the basis for comprehensive document management with Microsoft 365
The “Power Platform” products, which are also included, enhance document management in Microsoft 365. Document-based, digital business processes can be implemented with Power Automate. Power Apps can be used to create simple and flexible applications for browsers or mobile devices.
Intelligent document management with d.velop and Microsoft 365
Based on Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Content Services, the “d.velop for Microsoft 365” product offers services that extend document management functions to map innovative DMS functionalities and digital file structures.
Employees often collaborate on decentralized team pages. This allows each team to work together in the way best suited to its needs. We use the d.velop extensions to map flexible structures based on the information contained in the various pages and thus provide a 360-degree view of all the information in Microsoft 365 in one central location.
Integrations and Interfaces to SAP, Salesforce, and the Microsoft Dynamics products
Integrations and interfaces to SAP, Salesforce, and of course the Microsoft Dynamics products allow us to store information centrally in Microsoft Content Services and integrate our views into the leading applications so that users can easily access complete document structures.
The d.velop platform has additional useful cloud apps in store
Business processes are available as SaaS
For business processes like accounts payable processing or contract management, we offer standard solutions that can quickly be put into operation thanks to their intuitive application interfaces and because they are provisioned as Software as a Service.
Microsoft and d.velop: Better together
With d.velop for Microsoft 365, d.velop has provided successful enterprise content management solutions (ECM) for the strategic platform Microsoft 365 or SharePoint On Premises for years. As a long-standing Microsoft partner, d.velop constantly coordinates its activities with the Redmond-based software company. We discussed the d.velop solution portfolio and its added values for users with Microsoft Senior Product Manager Chris McNulty during the video interview at the Content Services Summit as well.
The Content Services partnership allows d.velop AG to deepen its ties to Microsoft and gain insights into the latest developments at a very early stage.
That lets us optimally adapt d.velop products to Microsoft 365 and Content Services.
Additionally, we can coordinate directly with product management to communicate our suggestions and ideas and therefore incorporate our customers’ wishes.
About the Author:
Markus Bütterhoff is a Product Manager Microsoft Solutions, d.velop AG
Reference
Bütterhoff, M. (2020). Why Solutions from d.velop Enhance Microsoft Content Services. Available at: https://www.d-velop.com/blog/digitize-your-business-processes/microsoft-content-services [Accessed: 16th September 2020].
