Best SharePoint Features That Save Time at Work

Save hours at work with SharePoint. Discover 5 powerful features—like co-authoring, alerts, and version history—that streamline tasks and boost team productivity.

Jul 2, 2025 - 18:20
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Best SharePoint Features That Save Time at Work

In many companies today, there are hundreds of tasks being tackled daily at the same minute. So, every employee spends hours of their shift searching for documents, waiting for approvals to ensure everyone is on the same page. Sound familiar? Then you’re not the only one experiencing this.  Most employees spend hours on tasks that should take minutes. These little delays add up fast and cost your business money.

Here's where SharePoint changes everything. It's not just another Microsoft tool sitting unused in your software package. SharePoint actually solves these daily headaches by putting everything your team needs in one organized space. No more hunting through email chains or wondering which document version is the latest one.

Still unsure if SharePoint can actually save time at your workplace? Then this article has all your answers. Let's dig deeper into this and uncover five SharePoint features that save time at work.

Top 5 SharePoint Features That Save Time at Work

SharePoint is designed to address the chaos we see in almost all workplaces. Despite the industry you’re in, there are countless documents and a high volume of data that creates a total mess. With SharePoint’s document version history, metadata, and views, co-authoring, things at work get simplified. Read to discover these features in detail and learn how they cut time at work.

1.    Document Version History

Imagine someone is working on an important presentation and accidentally saves over the good version with something that's completely wrong. Hours of work just disappeared forever. SharePoint's document version history stops this nightmare from happening. Every time someone saves a file, it also keeps the old version of the document. So it means your files are always backed up.

Need to see what the document looked like yesterday? Just click and there it is. This feature becomes a lifesaver when teams work together on the same files. Marketing updates the brochure, then sales makes changes, then the boss wants something entirely different. Instead of creating files named "Brochure_Final_Really_Final_Use_This_One," SharePoint tracks everything automatically.

2.    Metadata and Views

How much time does the average employee spend looking for documents? Studies show it's about 2.5 hours per day. That's almost a third of the workday spent hunting instead of working. SharePoint changes this with smart tagging. Instead of creating endless folders within folders, teams can tag files with custom labels. Think project name, document type, or department.

Want to find all budget reports from the marketing team? Just filter by those tags and everything appears instantly. The real game-changer is custom views because different people need to see information differently. The project manager wants to see everything updated this week. The designer only cares about files waiting for approval. SharePoint lets everyone create their own personalized view of the same information.

3.    Co-Authoring

Remember the old days of document collaboration? Someone would email a file, and then everyone had to wait their turn to make edits. One person would be stuck waiting while another person held up the entire project just to fix a typo. SharePoint's co-authoring feature kills that bottleneck completely. Multiple people can edit the same document at the exact same time.

Changes appear instantly for everyone working on the file. This stops those endless email chains where files get passed back and forth with names like "Contract_Review_John_Final_Mary_Changes." Instead, everyone works in the same document and can see who's editing which section in real time.

Read also: Key Features of a Modern Medical Billing Company

4.    Alerts and Notifications

Ever find yourself refreshing folders every few minutes to see if someone uploaded that important file? Or wondering if the client finally sent feedback on the proposal that's been sitting there for days? SharePoint's alert system puts an end to this constant checking. Set up notifications for specific documents or entire folders, and SharePoint will ping when something changes.

New file uploaded? Alert. Document been updated? Alert. Someone deletes something important? Alert. The best part is choosing how to get these notifications. Some people want emails for urgent documents. Others prefer alerts through Microsoft Teams so everything stays in one place.

5.    Reusable Page Templates

How many times has someone in HR spent an hour formatting a company announcement, only to have marketing spend another hour doing the exact same thing for their newsletter? Different departments keep recreating the same layouts over and over again.

SharePoint's page templates solve this repetitive work. Design a template once with the company colors, fonts, and layout. Then anyone can use it to create new pages in minutes instead of hours. Need to post a new policy update? Just pick the template, add the content, and publish. However, the implementation of SharePoint is a challenge for most organizations.

For this, you can refer to https://www.xeratekuae.com/ to ensure a seamless transition to SharePoint without sacrificing or pausing your daily operations.

 

Leverage the Power of SharePoint to Speed Up Tasks at Work

SharePoint will allow your human employees to stay productive and invest their time on more important tasks. You can leverage the experience of professionals to implement SharePoint according to your daily workflow. Feel free to contact professionals and save time of your employees with SharePoint.