Improved productivity

Suffering from paperwork overload? Can’t find critical files when you need them? Typing the same information more than once? Not sure if everyone has the latest pricelists and sales collateral?

With Microsoft SBS 2003, you can easily find and share information in one centralised location. This makes it easier to work more closely with your colleagues so you save time and money and avoid unnecessary stress.

Share files 
Businesses use SBS 2003 to organise marketing materials, document templates, pricelists or any of the thousands of electronic files that businesses use these days. Once they are on the server, you can access files over the network just as if they were on your own computer, with the important difference that they are accessible from other computers as well. It also means that you can access these documents even when you are out of the office.

Without a server you might have a price list and a product brochure that different members of staff have taken a copy of and stored on their own computers. That’s fine until you need to update one of these documents. You need to distribute them again and, of course, if someone is using an out-of-date price list it could cost you real money. Having a single copy of important documents that you only update once is clearly much more efficient.

If you have a laptop, you can copy files or whole folders from the server in such a way that they are automatically synchronised and kept up-to-date whenever you connect the laptop to the network (whether over the Internet or whenever you bring it into the office). This way, you always take the latest price list with you when you go on a trip and you can make sure that any changes are transferred back to the server on your return.

Set up an internal company website
Having a central place to share company information that combines the file sharing of SBS 2003 and the familiarity of the World Wide Web makes for a great way to improve communication and efficiency. This is known as an intranet site (what is an intranet ) – a private, company-only website. SBS 2003 includes a dedicated intranet program called Microsoft SharePoint ® (see below: ‘What is an intranet?’). Using SharePoint, you can create an intranet site for your business in minutes without any special skills. It’s easy for people to use because they can access it using a web browser, just as if it were a regular internet site. It’s an amazingly flexible tool for communicating with staff and has many uses, including:

• A document library: you can store anything, but typical uses include company policies, staff handbooks and sales collateral
• Lists such as telephone extensions and staff directories
• An electronic fax in-tray for incoming faxes which saves paper
• A picture gallery, including employee photos
• A place for company announcements on the home page
• A holiday calendar so you know when people are away
• A help desk where people can log technical problems
• Newsgroup-style discussion boards
• Create online staff surveys and analyse the results
• Add your own custom web pages and internet links

You can also use this technology to communicate with companies outside of your business. By giving trusted partners secure access to your private intranet website you can collaborate more easily. This is called an extranet. For example, you might want to work on a brochure with a marketing agency, using an extranet both you and the agency can have access to the same documents and can make changes to a single version.