Why you need to migrate from SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint Online

by | Nov 21, 2019 | Microsoft SharePoint

SharePoint 2010 is turning 10 years old in a matter of months now, yet there are still a lot of organisations using the legacy platform. Not many people are still using the same computer as 10 years ago, so why use the same software? It’s probably time to upgrade to SharePoint Online.

Why migrate from SharePoint 2010?

SharePoint 2010 follows Microsoft’s Fixed Lifecycle Policy, which gave it 5 years of mainstream support and a further 5 years of extended support. As it is 2020 soon, that means the platform is soon coming out of its extended support phase (13th October 2020) and Microsoft will no longer be supporting the solution – therefore if anything goes wrong then it can be a costly fix, as well as a potential for security issues.

What’s so good about SharePoint Online?

SharePoint Online is the perfect upgrade from SharePoint 2010 as it is simply Microsoft’s newer and superior (and still in support) platform. As the name suggests, SharePoint Online is cloud-based, following Microsoft’s Cloud-first approach. There are three ‘plans’ available for licensing the solution, two standalone plans (one for SME’s and one for Enterprise) as well as the Office 365 E3 plan which includes the platform as well as the regular Office 365 applications and services.

What can you use SharePoint Online for?

SharePoint Online allows you to easily share and manage content, knowledge and applications across your organisation and with minimal investment in IT infrastructure the platform can be leveraged to build:
  • Public-facing websites
  • Intranet sites
  • Internal team/organisation-based sites

Key features of SharePoint Online include:

  • Extensive customisability – Sites created on the platform can easily change aspects of the site such as layout, background, colours, fonts, etc.
  • Support – Probably the most important point to note in this blog post, SharePoint Online is still in support and will be for years to come.
  • Mobile friendly – SharePoint Online is accessible from any mobile phone or tablet devices with ease thanks to responsive sites.
  • Web Parts – Deploy web parts to allow for custom development on sites.
  • Security – Easily change and configure permissions to control who can access what data.
  • Search – SharePoint Online has powerful search features, helping users find relevant content with ease
  • Automation – SharePoint Online can be easily integrated with Microsoft Flow to automate processes such as approvals, document saving & much more
This is just a small overview of why you should migrate from SharePoint 2010 if you’re still using the platform. We have written a whitepaper (available here) which covers in more depth about the approaches to migrate to SharePoint Online.

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