Build Better Content Centric Apps with SharePoint Embedded

The Evolving Landscape of Content Management

Content is no longer a commodity, it is the currency that drives modern businesses. In today’s data-driven world, information has become an invaluable asset, and the ability to manage it effectively can make or break an organization. As Clive Humby, a British mathematician, famously stated back in 2006, “data is the new oil” – a sentiment that holds true even today, 17 years later. Just as oil needs to be refined and processed to unlock its true value, raw data and content must be gathered, organized, and connected to other relevant information to unleash its full potential.

Businesses around the world are managing ever-increasing amounts of documents as part of their core business processes. This exponential growth in content demands has presented unique challenges for organizations, from scaling their content infrastructure efficiently and cost-effectively to ensuring compliance with evolving regulations. Traditional approaches to building document-centric applications have become time-consuming, expensive, and often divert resources away from solving the actual business problem.

Addressing the Challenges of Content-Centric Apps

To overcome these challenges, businesses need to have a clear vision of technology trends and the adaptability to respond at speed and scale. Combining different technologies and architectures, such as cloud, infrastructure, security, compliance, service orientation, microservices, and artificial intelligence (AI), can be a complex and time-consuming endeavor. Some of the key challenges faced by organizations include:

1. Content Demands: The rapid growth in content has made it increasingly difficult to scale content management systems efficiently and cost-effectively, especially for mission-critical applications that require an isolated partition.

2. Integrations: Comprehensive content management capabilities are often challenging to integrate into bespoke applications and services, leading to fragmented solutions and suboptimal user experiences.

3. Regulations: Strict regulations, such as GDPR, make it mandatory for organizations to have a robust system that can help them meet various compliance requirements.

4. Manual Processes: Aging solutions and manual processes can hinder collaboration, increase the potential for errors, and slow down the time-to-value for content-driven applications.

Unlocking the Power of SharePoint Embedded

SharePoint Embedded is uniquely positioned to address these challenges and accelerate the development of file and document-centric applications. This headless platform allows developers to leverage the rich content platform services of Microsoft 365, without the need to build or maintain their own infrastructure.

Key Benefits of SharePoint Embedded:

1. Streamlined Development: SharePoint Embedded simplifies and accelerates the content management journey by providing a turnkey, API-only solution built on the foundation of SharePoint. Developers can focus on building unique app experiences rather than managing the underlying infrastructure.

2. Robust Content Management: Developers can leverage SharePoint’s robust content management capabilities, such as versioning, sharing, search (including Semantic Index), co-authoring, retention, and sensitivity, to enhance the functionality of their custom applications.

3. Integrated Security and Compliance: SharePoint Embedded seamlessly integrates the advanced security and compliance features of Microsoft 365, including auditing, eDiscovery, data loss prevention (DLP), and more, ensuring that your applications adhere to industry standards and regulatory requirements.

4. Collaborative Experiences: Developers can deliver the breadth of Microsoft 365 collaboration features, such as co-authoring, Office app integration, @mentions, and presence, to users and guest users within their custom applications, fostering enhanced teamwork and productivity.

5. Flexible Deployment: Whether you are an independent software vendor (ISV) or an enterprise developer, SharePoint Embedded allows you to develop and deliver your applications within the Microsoft 365 trust boundary. ISVs can optionally manage the content within their customers’ tenancies, eliminating the need to build and maintain their own storage repositories.

Leveraging SharePoint Embedded for Content-Centric Apps

SharePoint Embedded is a powerful platform that enables developers to build and manage file and document-centric applications that leverage the rich content platform services of Microsoft 365. By integrating SharePoint Embedded into your custom applications, you can unlock a wide range of benefits:

Streamline Content Management Processes

With SharePoint Embedded, your teams can eliminate the need to switch between multiple platforms to access document storage, version control, and other content management capabilities. Instead, these features are seamlessly integrated into the applications they already use, improving efficiency and productivity.

Personalize Workflows and Experiences

SharePoint Embedded empowers your team to personalize workflows and document management experiences to fit your specific business needs. Whether it’s automating routine tasks or designing industry-specific processes, the platform allows you to tailor the application to your unique requirements.

Accelerate Application Development

By leveraging SharePoint as the backend for document management, you can significantly reduce the time and resources needed to develop custom content-centric features from scratch. This allows you to focus on building unique app experiences that drive business value.

Enhance Collaboration and Decision-Making

SharePoint Embedded integrates the full power of SharePoint’s collaboration tools, enabling co-authoring, change tracking, and permission management within your custom applications. Additionally, by leveraging Microsoft Copilot and AI-driven tools, your teams can benefit from contextual insights, smart recommendations, and data-driven suggestions to work smarter and make more informed decisions.

Seamless Integration with Line-of-Business Systems

SharePoint Embedded facilitates easy integration with other critical business systems, such as CRM and ERP, creating a unified ecosystem where documents and data flow effortlessly between applications. This enables a more holistic and efficient approach to content management.

Robust Security and Compliance

Ensure that your content-centric applications adhere to the highest standards of security and compliance. SharePoint Embedded inherits the robust security features and compliance capabilities of Microsoft 365, including data encryption, adherence to industry standards (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA), and centralized data governance policies.

Getting Started with SharePoint Embedded

To help developers get started with SharePoint Embedded, Microsoft has recently released a new Visual Studio Code extension. This extension simplifies the development process by providing a range of features, including:

• Project Scaffolding: Quickly create new SharePoint Embedded projects and configure the necessary settings.
• API Exploration: Discover and explore the available SharePoint Embedded APIs, making it easier to integrate the required functionality into your applications.
• Deployment Assistance: Streamline the deployment of your SharePoint Embedded applications, ensuring a seamless integration with the Microsoft 365 ecosystem.

You can download the SharePoint Embedded Visual Studio Code extension from the Visual Studio Marketplace.

Transforming Your Content Management with SharePoint Embedded

In today’s data-driven business landscape, content is the lifeblood of your organization, carrying the activities, interactions, and transactions that drive your success. By leveraging the power of SharePoint Embedded, you can transform the way your organization manages and leverages its critical content assets.

Whether you’re planning to build deal room applications, shared research environments, contract management systems, or any other content-centric app experiences, SharePoint Embedded is designed to scale to your workloads and deliver the business outcomes you need. Streamline your content management processes, enhance collaboration, and unlock intelligent insights – all while ensuring robust security and compliance across your applications.

To learn more about how IT Fix can help you build better content-centric apps with SharePoint Embedded, schedule a consultation with our team of Microsoft 365 experts today.