Replacing Microsoft Sharepoint¶

Sharepoint is built to be a collaboration hub containing all resources required for a Team to work. This includes a separate file storage, calendar, address books, user groups and the ability to design custom pages. A Sharepoint site, how a single Sharepoint instance is called, can be managed in a decentralized way. The solution covers multiple use cases, so we’ll have a look at different ones and how to replace them with Nextcloud.

While Nextcloud can replace Sharepoint sites, the Nextcloud Hub works differently. Instead of storing all resources strictly within a single entity, making them unavailable to users outside, resources are shared with a Team. This keeps them available for sharing with non-team members. So all resources are accessed in the Nextcloud apps where they are stored, but are collected on a Team page for better overview.

Replacing Sharepoint as intranet¶

An intranet usually consists of a collection of information, mainly written text, plus address books and sometimes calendars. It needs a good structure and a strong search so people can easily find the information they need.

Instead of creating web pages, users can create a Collective in Nextcloud. Collectives are the wiki solution integrated into Nextcloud, where users can create pages and group them into a folder-like structure. While Collectives store the data in Markdown, which makes them much simpler than complex web pages, they can still show widgets, e.g. to show a Table (replacement of Lists) directly on a page. Of course, other pages can also be easily referenced and references are shown on the page’s metadata.

Because all pages are stored as Markdown, they can be searched with Fulltextsearch or even used with the Assistant Context Chat. This means all data stored in an intranet is automatically available for Artificial Intelligence (AI) processing, which makes finding and using information much easier. Collectives can only exist with a Team in the background, which means they can easily be added to one as well.

To replace newsfeeds organizations can create broadcast channels in Talk. Broadcast channels remove all participation rights from users, so users are there to listen. Only moderators can create messages. With the message styling allowing headings and formatted text organizations can use a broadcast channel as an internal blog to share information organization-wide.

To create shared calendars and address books, users can simply create them in the Calendar and Contacts apps and share them with a Nextcloud Team or user groups. While both will not show up on the Team’s page, all Team members can access them through the Calendar and Contacts apps. Both will appear directly within their personal calendars and contacts without the need to open separate pages (or Sharepoint sites in this case).

A bonus feature organizations get with Nextcloud Contacts: if the line man- ager field in contact/user details is set, an organizational chart will be auto- matically generated. It basically contains the user’s name, position and profile picture; clicking on that brings users directly to the user’s contact details includ- ing email, phone numbers, birthday and more. All information can be imported from the user directory like Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), so the users don’t have to add all information themselves.

Replacing Sharepoint as a team's filestorage¶

Of course, sometimes it is necessary to have special file storages with specific permission settings. Those usually need to be managed decentrally, which means a team admin is responsible for the correct permission settings instead of the organization’s admin. For these use cases, organizations can use Team folders in Nextcloud. Files stored there are not owned by a single user but by the folder itself. Permissions can be set through advanced permissions, which allow non-admin users to configure access permissions to subfolders of the Team folder.