The Challenge
Our client is a British multinational manufacturing and engineering business with thousands of employees worldwide. With a vast workforce spread across multiple locations, the company relies heavily on Microsoft Teams and SharePoint for communication and collaboration.Â
Controlling resource sprawl is a challenge for many enterprises using Microsoft 365. By default, any employee can create new resources like channels, groups, or sites. While this can reduce the burden on in-house IT teams, it can also pave the way for future problems.Â
As organisations grow, managing the proliferation of Teams channels and SharePoint sites becomes increasingly complex. In this case, our client ended up with some 50,000 SharePoint sites. Many of which were created and then left unused when they didn’t serve the creator’s purpose.Â
Unchecked, this sprawl can lead to a chaotic digital workspace, with issues such as:Â
- Information Overload: Employees may struggle to locate relevant documents and conversations, leading to wasted time and frustration.
- Security Risks: Sensitive information might be scattered across multiple, poorly managed sites, increasing the risk of data breaches.
- Inefficiency: Redundant channels and sites can lead to duplicated efforts and miscommunication, hampering overall efficiency.
- Compliance Issues: Without proper governance, it becomes challenging to ensure that all digital assets comply with regulatory requirements.Â
To minimise these challenges, our client wanted to switch off the ability for employees to freely create new resources. Instead, they needed a provisioning tool to help streamline and control the creation of new resources.Â
They wanted to:Â
- Automate: Reduce manual effort by automating the creation and management of channels and sites.
- Streamline Processes: Ensure a consistent and standardised approach to provisioning, reducing the risk of errors and inconsistencies.
- Enhance Control: Provide administrators with greater oversight and control, helping to prevent sprawl and maintain an organised digital workspace.
- Improve Security and Compliance: Facilitate better management of permissions and access controls, enhance security and ensure compliance with regulatory standards.Â
Our client also has many highly customised SharePoint sites. They wanted an easy way for employees to create sites with ready-to-go custom templates already in place, which is not possible with SharePoint’s default site creation options. This would reduce the need for IT to assist with customisation and ensure consistency across the business.Â
Good governance in SharePoint is always recommended as best practice, but the out-of-the-box tools don’t make it easy. Our client wanted a custom solution that offered more functionality than the default options, maintained control, and provided a seamless self-service experience for employees.Â
The Solution
We designed and built a self-service provisioning tool with an intuitive, form-based interface. This tool allows employees to request and create new resources, such as SharePoint sites and Teams, and M365 Groups.
If the request meets predefined requirements, the resource is automatically created. This reduces the load on the internal IT team while maintaining control over resource sprawl.
For employees, the form is user-friendly and does not require technical knowledge. It uses various question types, including free text, drop-down menus, and people pickers, allowing the business to collect diverse data about the request through an easy-to-use front-end experience.Â
- Configurable Pathways
- Additional Context
- Guiding Employees
- Smart Content
- Minimising Duplicate Resources
- Save Drafts
- Targeted Questions
- Translations
- Reporting
One of the most important requests for the provisioning tool was to have forms that are entirely configurable. This feature gives our client complete control over the information they want to gather from employees. This flexibility allows for the creation of tailored, natural language, input forms that guide users to the appropriate outcome, with the relevant resource then being provisioned in M365.
Admins can customise the form structure and flow by first defining top-level questions, which act as the primary decision points. Under each top-level question, they can then specify sub-level or second-tier questions, creating a hierarchical and flexible questionnaire. This setup gives the client ultimate control over the user experience, that is adaptable to future business change.Â
One of the core requirements was to collect additional context on requests. The provisioning tool allows employees to provide extra details, such as whether the resource will be open to internal or external users. This not only gives greater visibility into what employees are requesting and why but also enables our client to control the process as needed.Â
Our client wanted to implement predefined logic based on specific contextual factors. For instance, if an employee requests a site for external users, the tool will initiate an approval flow before automatically creating the site.Â
Our client wanted to guide employees in creating the right resource for their needs. Top-level questions prompt employees to consider their goals rather than the specific resource they want to create. Based on these needs, the provisioning tool directs them to the most suitable resource. This approach helps reduce the creation of unnecessary resources, controlling future sprawl.Â
The form builder uses smart content to customise the required information based on the type of asset being requested. For instance, if an employee is requesting a site, they need to enter a site address or URL. However, if they are requesting a group, a site address is not needed; instead, they will be asked to provide an email address.
This approach streamlines the experience, ensuring employees only provide relevant information for their specific request.Â
The provisioning tool requires employees to input data such as Site Name, Site Address, Site Description, and the reason for creation. It uses the Site Title field to check for similar existing sites. This feature helps reduce sprawl by minimising the creation of duplicate sites, encouraging employees to use existing resources instead of creating new ones unnecessarily.Â
The ability to save a request as a draft and return to it later was a specific requirement from the client. This feature was not available in their previous tool. It allows employees to gather more information or come back to their request at a later time without having to start the form again.Â
The tool allows admins to target specific questions and answer options to certain users or groups. This ensures that each employee only sees options relevant to their role. For example, a marketing team member might see questions related to campaign sites, while an IT staff member might see questions about technical support sites.Â
As a global company, our client’s employees speak various languages. In the form builder, admins can add questions in multiple languages. When an employee loads the tool, it detects their preferred language and automatically displays the questions in that language. Â
The provisioning tool stores data on all incoming requests, enabling administrators to run reports on the number of requests, the types of resources being requested, and the reasons for their creation. This feature provides valuable insights into usage patterns and helps identify areas for improvement, enhancing overall resource management.
The introduction of the provisioning tool enables our client to control and manage the Microsoft 365 assets and resources created by their thousands of employees. Moving forward, they will be able to maintain better governance across their Microsoft 365 estate and future-proof their M365 environment. Following the success of the provisioning tool, our client is already exploring how to expand its use into other areas of their business.
