In the past, the vast majority of businesses were centralized with smaller branch offices spread around the country or world. While this management model has not been fully replaced, a global trend towards remote and distance working is undeniable.

Mobile and distant working began with the Enterprise IT revolution in the 1970s. Cellular phones later allowed employees to be contacted anywhere, email pushed this communication to new heights, and then laptops meant the office could literally be anywhere.

The most recent step in this evolution has been the introduction of smartphones and tablet devices. The beauty of these machines is that they permit contact and collaboration anytime, anywhere. Often more effective during sales pitches and easier to interact with than laptops, tablets in particular are becoming a must-have for the distance worker. In 2015 over  320 million are expected to be shipped.

As great as tablets are, they’re also less powerful than laptops and have reduced functionality when it comes to multitasking. Furthermore, until recently, tablets and mobile devices only offered limited access to Microsoft’s SharePoint. Given SharePoint’s dominance in the Enterprise IT field, there’s been a real need to configure it to devices and allow distance editing. SharePlus from Infragistics responds to this need. 

How SharePlus lets you edit on the go

SharePlus offers a unique platform for colleagues to access and work with their company’s SharePoint solution from both iOS and Android tablets. Although there is some native functionality with SharePoint on tablets, SharePlus offers much more when it comes to working with, editing and operating your company’s Intranet. In addition to its impressive security, access to most parts of your in-house SharePoint and integration with all major features of the desktop UI, SharePlus is particularly strong when it comes to editing documents.

There are numerous reasons a knowledge worker would wish to edit documents on the go – be it online or offline:

• Sales people may need to create last-minute annotations to PDF proposals before meetings with prospects;
• Managers want to access and comment on the latest business intelligence reports;
• Colleagues caught in traffic or travelling internationally don’t want any possible lack of connectivity to get in the way of work;
• Colleagues in the field visiting sites will want to instantly share their thoughts and information retrieved from their research into spreadsheets and documents.

Easily edit documents offline and online

Editing and collaborating on documents couldn’t be easier with SharePlus and users will find they essentially have the same functionality as on the desktop version in just a few taps and swipes. Whether it’s editing the actual content of a file or editing its metadata, status or versioning, you really can do everything you’d do with SharePoint on more traditional platforms.

Editing item properties is child’s play. Users need simply highlight a file, tap Action | Edit Properties and make the changes they require. These can be instantly saved, either directly to the server or as a draft and the user’s location can be added too. Including smooth integration with third party document-editing Apps, SharePlus really simplifies collaboration. In addition to MS Office applications, SharePlus also permits your contribution to PDF files without users ever having to leave the UI.

While “real time” editing is great for collaboration, it’s not always possible. Fortunately, SharePlus includes an offline mode and this means users can work on documents on flights or in remote regions. SharePlus essentially checks the document out, and when the user is back in range of signal can sync again with their server and view how their changes correspond to those of their colleagues.

Long distance relationships can work!

Many aspects of office work have been disrupted, changed and improved through the integration of ever more powerful Enterprise IT solutions. As discussed above, the modern workforce is ever more agile, mobile and open to opportunities and changes. This is undeniably an exciting place for businesses to be.

However, for all the positives of distance working, it can disrupt the importance of real-time collaboration and face to face interaction that businesses rely on. SharePlus offers a solution to mitigate these issues and allow collaboration from any device, anywhere, any time. As long as businesses need people to work together, share ideas and develop new concepts, there will always be a need to find tools to permit their doing so.