COMMON SHAREPOINT MISUSES

The misuses are divided into two main categories: those typically made by companies during setup, migration, and governance, and those by end users in day-to-day operations.

Company-Level Misuses

Companies often err in the strategic implementation, configuration, and oversight of SharePoint, resulting in underutilization or operational chaos.

1. All-or-Nothing Implementation Approach Organizations attempt to roll out every SharePoint feature simultaneously—such as team sites, MySites, document management, workflows, and business intelligence—overwhelming users and IT teams. This leads to low adoption, where employees ignore features like tagging documents or updating profiles, sticking instead to old habits like emailing files. To compound this, companies may launch with a "big bang" without phasing in content or testing, causing immediate disengagement and poor behaviors like uploading incompatible files.
2. Poor Information Architecture and Migration Practices During migrations, companies dump all files from shared drives into a single site or library without planning structure, leading to cluttered repositories that mimic outdated file systems. This includes confusing SharePoint with OneDrive or Microsoft Teams, such as copying entire file shares to OneDrive for external sharing or creating redundant sites by overusing Teams. Without metadata, content types, or proper folders, scalability suffers, and finding documents becomes a nightmare.
3. Neglecting Governance and Compliance Failing to establish governance policies results in uncontrolled site proliferation, inconsistent practices across departments, and security breaches. For instance, disabling external sharing pushes users to shadow IT tools like personal Dropbox accounts. Companies also underestimate compliance needs, such as ignoring retention policies, legal holds, or audit trails, which can lead to regulatory violations and data loss. In SharePoint Premium, this extends to underusing metadata for organization, causing disorganized libraries.
4. Inadequate Training and Expertise Assuming employees are tech-savvy, companies skip training, leading to accidents like deleting synced repositories or misconfiguring permissions. Internal teams often lack deep SharePoint knowledge, missing features like custom lists or workflows, and relying on trial-and-error setups. Regular updates are ignored, keeping practices outdated. This resistance to change management exacerbates adoption issues, with users finding the platform unintuitive compared to simpler tools.
5. Limiting SharePoint to Basic or Incorrect Uses Treating SharePoint solely as a content management system (CMS) for intranets wastes its potential for collaboration and automation, making it an expensive alternative to cheaper CMS options. Companies choose wrong site types, like using Team Sites for broadcasting instead of Communication Sites, causing permission mismatches. Integrations with other systems (e.g., Salesforce) are mishandled, creating silos and duplicated repositories.
6. Inconsistent Design and Navigation Allowing departments to create sites with varying branding, layouts, and navigation leads to a fragmented user experience. Overly complex categories or jargon-heavy names confuse users, especially new hires, resulting in navigation difficulties and disengagement.

End-User Misuses

End users contribute to SharePoint issues through poor daily habits, often stemming from lack of awareness or training.

1. Improper File Management and Naming Users upload files with obscure, inconsistent, or long names (e.g., redundant like "Human Resources – Policies" instead of "Policies"), causing search confusion and path length errors. They create multiple document copies instead of using versioning, leading to chaos and storage waste. Accidental overwrites or deletions occur without proper controls.
2. Uploading Incompatible or Non-Searchable Formats Uploading Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or PDF files without considering device compatibility—such as embedded videos not playing on mobiles—or hiding text in images/banners, which breaks search functionality. This results in poor mobile experiences and hidden content.
3. Neglecting Metadata, Tags, and Organization Failing to tag documents or use metadata leads to generic search results and difficulty finding files. Users rely solely on folders instead of flat views with filters, creating nested mazes. Duplicating content (e.g., from an LMS) causes outdated versions and misinformation.
4. Mishandling Permissions and Sharing - Sharing files casually with "Share" links that bypass restrictions, or creating unique permissions unintentionally, exposes sensitive data. Users ignore inheritance rules, leading to access errors or overexposure. Bypassing approval workflows or not locking records allows unauthorized changes.
5. Underutilizing Features for Collaboration Treating SharePoint like a basic file share, users miss workflows, alerts, custom views, or integrations, reverting to email for collaboration. They create personal views but forget to share useful ones publicly, or duplicate lists/libraries unnecessarily.
6. Poor Content Maintenance Adding duplicates without updating or removing old content leads to overload and outdated information appearing in searches. Users present dense policies without collapsible sections, making pages hard to read. Ignoring brand consistency results in unprofessional-looking pages.

Conclusion

These misuses highlight the importance of strategic planning, training, and governance in SharePoint deployments. Companies should focus on phased rollouts, robust architecture, and ongoing education, while end users benefit from adhering to best practices like consistent naming and metadata usage. Addressing these issues can transform SharePoint from a pain point into a powerful tool for productivity and collaboration. For more details, refer to specialized resources on SharePoint best practices.