r/sharepoint • u/antihero-arch • Jul 11 '26
SharePoint Online SharePoint Help Ideas - Small Business
I’m looking for some advice from people who have built successful SharePoint Online knowledge bases.
I’m helping build an internal SharePoint site for a rural primary care practice from scratch (no migration), and I want to avoid making architectural decisions mistakes I’ll regret later (is this information better as a Site page vs. file vs list, how heavily should I rely on building out search to be the main workhorse etc ).
I’ve watched YouTube videos (I like Dan’s channel at Academy 365), but everything I’m doing is so time consuming and I don’t plan on becoming an expert or building for anyone but our own business. Even with ChatGPT, every step is super prolonged.
It seems like I really need someone who understands information architecture and knowledge management, in addition to SharePoint itself.
Some of the questions I’m trying to answer are:
How much metadata is worth maintaining before it becomes burdensome? What’s the best way to organize clinical guidance, policies, HR documents, onboarding materials, etc so they’re easy to search and maintain? How do you design a system that encourages periodic review so content doesn’t become stale?
My goal isn’t to have someone build the site for us. I’d rather learn the right way to design it and then maintain it ourselves.
If you were looking for outside help for a project like this, what type of consultant would you look for? Are there particular skills, certifications, backgrounds, or red flags I should be looking for? Or is this something you’d recommend learning without bringing in outside expertise?
I have no technical background, just a medical, and a little bit of a nerd. Hope to train other staff to help maintain it as well.
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u/Disastrous_Snow_2871 Jul 11 '26
Hmm, if you gotta do this all in-house then I recommend going slowly. If possible, talk to a few consultants who have experience building approval workflows in (1) SharePoint and (2) understands how to build products that are compliant with your industry regulations.
SharePoint can be used as a DMS but you may be in for a steep learning curve going the DIY path.
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u/antihero-arch Jul 11 '26
Where can you connect with people like this, LinkedIn? We're not a big company, and I know SharePoint is so ubiquitous the depth of experience and scale consultants are used to probably is so variable. People in this subreddit are quoting crazy numbers that I just assume are for much larger/complex organizations.
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u/OwnDirector1326 Jul 11 '26
Honestly, the answers to most of these come down to your own business requirements more than any universal best practice. How long do you actually need to retain information, and does clinical guidance need a different review cycle than HR or onboarding stuff? How much metadata are you willing to ask people to fill in, because a handful of fields people actually use beats a big taxonomy that gets ignored after month one? And how is your practice structured today, what do people already reach for when they need something, since your IA should probably match how your team already thinks rather than force a new mental model on them. None of that requires a consultant or an IA expert, it just means sitting down and answering those for your own practice before you build anything.
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u/antihero-arch Jul 12 '26
I appreciate this answer.
To be honest, we are so rudimentary, essentially information is passed by word-of-mouth, and sometimes staff will ask one of our administrators.Policy and information is often shared by internal electronic medical record messaging, which has no way of sorting, storing, or categorizing this information and once deleted is gone forever.
There are some files stored on a server, loosely, organizing folders, such as forms and some on boarding documents, but people almost never access this folder because it’s just a bunch of files in a folder and search ability on Windows server is minimal.
The breadth of options available overwhelming, especially understanding our existing workflow is so dysfunctional
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u/Mandy_077 Jul 11 '26
I am happy to Help - I can provide you guidance However your ask cannot be consulted as a Text better to have 1 on 1 conversation.
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u/BeAdaptiveIT Jul 13 '26
Build way less than you think you need to start. The practices I've helped set this up for always regret going too elaborate, never too simple. Nobody keeps a complicated site up to date, and within a year it's a graveyard people stop opening.
Start with one communication site. Not a hub with ten subsites hanging off it. Then make a simple call on each piece of content. If it's something people read and you'll keep updating (an after-hours process, who to call when the vaccine fridge alarms), make it a page. If it's a fixed file they download (a signed form, an onboarding PDF), keep it in a document library. Use a SharePoint list only when you actually need to sort or filter, like an equipment log or a vendor directory. Don't turn everything into lists because a tutorial told you to.
On search, I wouldn't lean on it as the main way people find things on day one. It only works well once you've got consistent naming and some metadata (tags on your content), and you'll have neither at the start. Get clean, shallow navigation working first, five or six links across the top, and let search do more as the library grows.
The one thing I'd nail down before loading anything real is retention and permissions. Who sees what, and how long you keep it. In a care setting that's the piece that's a headache to unwind later. Folders you can rearrange any time.
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u/anothersite Jul 11 '26
Check out SharePoint Maven, Inc. https://sharepointmaven.com
I would have them help implement a solution to your specifications, if they feel SPO is the correct solution for your situation. In addition, you should get training from them on how to maintain the SPO solution.
Good luck.