Microsoft SharePoint Extranets & Portal Solutions UK

Supporting secure and collaborative engagement with partners and customers

SharePoint extranets and portal solutions provide a protected location for sharing files, news and information with valued contacts outside of an organisation.

Guaranteeing absolute control over who can access content, portals and client extranets are an ideal solution for engaging with external partners, customers, employees or students.

To discuss a SharePoint portal or extranet solution, please get in touch:

SharePoint Portal & Extranet Development

More so than perhaps any of the other SharePoint solution we develop, security is of central importance with our portal and extranet development.

Alongside understanding business goals and use cases, our consultants will use your project’s consultancy phase to understand what access will need to be provided to external users. This will go on to fundamentally shape the structure of your site and wider security access matrices; ensuring that the right people can always see the right information.

SharePoint has many features that support secure collaboration. Files can also be set to read-only, and downloads blocked to secure information. SharePoint also keeps records of which files have been accessed and edited, when and by whom. This means that external user can be tracked and changes monitored.

As well as security, we’ll ensure your SharePoint extranet or portal looks right as well. We’ll align your design to your brand, and ensure that your portal or extranet is both easy to use and visually appealing.

The Benefits Of SharePoint Extranets

Similar to an intranet, a SharePoint extranet is an information-sharing and file collaboration solution. Whereas an intranet is designed to perform this predominantly within an organisation, an extranet will allow for select access, information and data to be shared with chosen external individuals and organisations.

Extranets have a wide array of potential uses. A SharePoint extranet is an ideal solution for project management. Large numbers of files can be shared and collaborated on with external partners, with each project area only accessible to the relevant external partner.

A client extranet can be a secure way of working on sensitive documents, free of the risks or version control issues of emailing or posting paper. Within a client extranet, files can be strictly controlled and monitored. So once work is completed or a file reviewed and approved, access can be quickly removed. This makes an extranet an ideal solution for those involved in the legal industry and other such sectors handling high volumes of contracts.

Benefits Of SharePoint Portals

A SharePoint portal is an excellent way of streamlining service delivery, whether that’s order placement or providing customer or user support.

SharePoint portals can be the gateway to a variety of other functions – Power Apps for placing orders or logging service requests, libraries of FAQ documents or account information, or a news channel to keep suppliers or partners up to date on product information.

A SharePoint customer portal is a more efficient way to serve customers and audiences at scale, allowing for greater self-service and – often – faster resolution of issues than customer service agents. A portal can even allow customers to place orders themselves, freeing up sales resource.

Wider SharePoint Portal & Extranet Solutions

Discover some of the portal and client extranet solutions we develop in SharePoint:

SharePoint can be used to provide access to customers’ bills and account details. Easy to manage by account teams, SharePoint can restrict customer access to their specific documents and alert them when bills are overdue.

Service companies can find value in sharing support documents relevant to their customers' services via a SharePoint portal or extranet. This can reduce helpdesk enquiries and empower customers with information.

When hiring a new employee, notice periods can mean it’s weeks or months before they actually start at your company. Sharing HR or company information with them before they join can ensure they are aware of work processes before they start and let them hit the ground running.

Share relevant documents and information with new students before their course start, or keep former students and relevant alumni up to date with news from the insitution

SharePoint is the ideal solution for the managing bodies of organisations to store meeting agendas, reports and relevant finance documents. Non-executive directors or trustees can then collaborate on documents without the need for full access to IT systems.

SharePoint Extranet FAQ

Yes. Akita develops SharePoint extranets with the option to match the theme with your organisational branding and website design.

Yes, user activity and usage of your SharePoint extranet portal can be tracked and monitored within the SharePoint audit logs. This includes usage reports and wider analytics. Alerts can also be created to let internal teams know when files have been edited by external parties.

Yes, access to content can be restricted for both internal and external users in a SharePoint extranet portal using permissions and access controls. This means files can be set to ‘read only’ or access privileges removed.

There are no set limitations to the number of external users who can access a SharePoint extranet. However performance and scalability may be affected by the number of users and amount of content being accessed if numbers reach the tens of thousands.

Yes, both Microsoft solutions (such as Microsoft Power Platform applications or Dynamics 365)as well as third-party applications can be integrated with SharePoint extranets and portals. DocuSign is a common example of an integration.

As per requirement, we will configure your SharePoint extranet to store data within its own sub-site away from your main SharePoint environment. Access to sub-sites can then be granted to external users while your main SharePoint site remains protected.

Microsoft SharePoint Solutions With Akita

Akita Intelligent Solutions is a leading digital transformation agency. Our Microsoft SharePoint development work spans a wide range of industries and organisations, ranging from SME to enterprise-level.

Unlike other organisations, our end goal is always to develop a SharePoint solution tailored to your organisation. This means we’ll spend time getting to know the features you need – rather than the ones we’d just like to build.

However, through a smart approach to our customers’ challenges and an expert knowledge of business processes, we ensure our SharePoint solutions deliver value for money.

As a result, many organisations find near-immediate ROI from their solutions and often return to us for the next solution in their growth.

For more information on SharePoint extranet and portal solutions, please get in touch:

Microsoft SharePoint Extranets And Portals