By Tarah Ray, Digital Engagement Lead, Fulton May Solutions
Modern SharePoint has come a long way. What once required a developer’s mindset and deep technical skills has become more approachable, so much so that many business users now feel empowered to build out entire company intranets on their own. While that accessibility is a win for usability, it’s also one of the reasons we see so many SharePoint environments go sideways.
At Fulton May Solutions, we work with organizations that’ve tried to build out their SharePoint sites without help, only to spend significantly more time, money, and effort trying to fix misaligned structures, security gaps, and inconsistent designs. In many cases, those sites need to be scrapped and rebuilt from the ground up.
Here’s what we’ve learned from working with clients across industries, and what your organization needs to know before diving into your next SharePoint project.
The Good News: SharePoint Is More User-Friendly Than Ever
Modern SharePoint gives users the power to build and edit pages with no coding required. It’s easier than ever to create a site, hit the “edit” button, and drag and drop web parts to get a working layout. The templates are dynamic. The interface is intuitive. And Microsoft has made huge strides in improving the visual experience.
But that simplicity is a double-edged sword.
Many users don’t realize the long-term implications of the decisions they’re making, such as opening a site to “anyone” for easy sharing (without realizing “anyone” might include bad actors), or selecting the wrong type of site altogether.
The #1 Mistake: Choosing the Wrong Site Type
One of the most common issues we see is organizations selecting a Team Site when they really need a Communication Site, without understanding the difference.
Team Sites are built for group collaboration. They come with a Microsoft 365 group, shared mailboxes, calendars, and other tools. But they aren’t ideal for broadcasting information across a company or designing a corporate intranet. That’s where Communication Sites shine. They’re clean, permission-controlled, and better aligned to use cases like HR portals, department hubs, and leadership updates.
If you build your intranet using Team Sites, you’re likely creating structural headaches and permission nightmares that are difficult (and costly) to unwind later.
Many organizations end up wasting countless hours trying to build SharePoint sites themselves, only to realize it could have been done properly in half the time with professional guidance. And that doesn’t even account for the lost productivity across internal teams trying to clean up missteps.
Security Is Easy to Overlook (and Dangerous to Ignore)
Permissions in SharePoint are deceptively complex. You can share a folder with an external client in a few clicks. But unless the right restrictions are in place, you could also be exposing your HR files, sales forecasts, and sensitive IP to anyone with the link.
One client we supported had every site configured to allow “anyone” access—thanks to a misconfigured default set by a previous vendor. That included sensitive payroll data. It only takes one oversight to create a major data privacy event.
At Fulton May Solutions, we build granular, tested security groups that make it easy to manage access and scale over time, without opening your data to unnecessary risk.
Design Consistency Matters (Yes, Even Internally)
SharePoint isn’t just functional; it should be visually consistent and intuitive. When multiple departments design their own sites, things get messy quickly: inconsistent branding, missing footers, different navigation layouts, and broken user experiences.
That’s why we build SharePoint environments with a centralized design system, balancing consistency at the corporate HUB level with smart, tailored customization at the department level. Think branded templates, shared headers, consistent navigation, and photo-rich pages that feel cohesive and easy to use.
In my experience, usability, collaboration, and efficiency are the three core pillars of an effective SharePoint site. The design should help users quickly find what they need, so they can focus less on navigating and more on doing their actual work.
A Real-World Transformation: Migrating from Dropbox to SharePoint
One of our recent projects involved a construction firm still using Dropbox for internal document storage. They were already paying for Microsoft 365 and using tools like Word and Excel, but weren’t taking advantage of SharePoint’s built-in storage and collaboration capabilities.
We helped them migrate to SharePoint before their Dropbox renewal hit, saving them on licensing fees while giving them a more secure, integrated system. We designed a corporate HUB complete with original site photos from their job sites, and created branded ancillary sites for each department. The result? Increased collaboration, better file management, and a system that finally worked the way their teams did.
Smart SharePoint Setup: What to Know First
While every organization is different, here are a few universal SharePoint best practices we recommend:
- Keep file names short and clean – Avoid redundancy like “Human Resources – Policies” when “Policies” will do. It helps avoid path length limitations.
- Limit version history – SharePoint stores up to 500 versions of everything right out of the box. We recommend reducing this to 100 versions (the minimum Microsoft allows) to stop things like large marketing files from hogging all your storage.
- Use security groups, not individual permissions – They’re easier to manage and scale. Always test permissions with a dummy account.
- Avoid using “Share” links casually – Learn to copy file paths instead of creating uncontrolled links.
- Get the architecture right up front – Starting with the wrong site type or structure can cost exponentially more to fix later.
Why DIY Costs More Than You Think
There’s a persistent myth that SharePoint is plug-and-play. But “out-of-the-box” doesn’t mean “out-of-trouble.”
We often see clients spin up department sites on their own, only to realize, too late, that the structure is flawed, security is misconfigured, and nothing aligns visually or functionally across the organization. In many cases, they end up scrapping the entire setup and starting over.
But the real cost isn’t just in the rework, it’s in the lost productivity and hidden labor costs.
In SMBs, it’s often department heads, or even C-level executives, who take on the SharePoint setup themselves. That means people who are being paid top-tier salaries are spending 40+ hours building pages and managing permissions, instead of leading strategic initiatives, managing teams, or driving revenue. When you break that down into labor dollars, the numbers quickly eclipse what it would have cost to hire a specialist from the start.
Think of it this way: every internal meeting, every task outside of someone’s core role, is downtime in productivity. For a business leader, that’s real money. And for teams stretched thin, it can create massive delays, duplication of effort, and long-term frustration.
Outsourcing to a team that specializes in SharePoint architecture not only avoids those missteps but also delivers a positive ROI in saved time, reduced rework, and faster adoption across the organization.
Bring in Experts Early
At Fulton May Solutions, we specialize in digital engagement services that span SharePoint, Teams, Power BI, Power Automate, and more. Unlike traditional MSPs, we don’t just keep your systems running; we help you get more out of the tools you already own.
Whether you’re starting fresh, migrating from another platform, or cleaning up a DIY mess, our team helps you architect a secure, scalable, and intuitive SharePoint environment designed for real-world collaboration.
Want to build a smarter SharePoint?
Let’s talk about how Fulton May Solutions can help you design a site that actually works for your people, your workflows, and your business goals.
Contact us today.
