Common SharePoint Challenges and How to Solve Them
Find practical answers to SharePoint problems, then talk with 6SC about the right next step for your organization.
What is getting in your team’s way?
Choose the problem that sounds familiar. Each answer explains where to start and how 6th Street Consulting can help.
Why can’t employees find the documents they need?
Start here: Test a few real document-finding tasks before assuming the problem is the search engine. Content location, naming, access, and ownership can all affect the experience.
What this looks like
Employees ask colleagues for links, save personal copies, or spend time deciding which version to use. Different departments may describe the same document in different ways.
What helps
- Ask users to find a policy, project document, and frequently used template. Record where they get stuck.
- Confirm which version is authoritative and who keeps it current.
- Review navigation, useful metadata, and access alongside the search experience.
Changing one search setting will not fix a confusing content structure. Start with the material people need most often, then test improvements with representative users.
Who has access to our files, and are we oversharing?
Start here: Establish who should have access before changing who currently does. A useful permissions review connects access to a business purpose and an accountable owner.
What this looks like
Staff cannot explain why someone can open a document. Former project participants still appear in groups. Access requests are handled through one-off exceptions that become difficult to maintain.
What helps
- Identify sensitive workspaces and ask their owners to confirm the intended audience.
- Review group membership, direct access, shared links, and permission exceptions.
- Plan controlled changes and test access with appropriate users before rolling them out more broadly.
Avoid removing access in bulk without checking business dependencies. The goal is understandable, appropriate access, not simply fewer permissions.
Why is our SharePoint environment so disorganized?
Start here: Give each workspace a clear purpose and owner. A folder cleanup alone is unlikely to last if nobody is responsible for the structure afterward.
What this looks like
Teams create overlapping sites, documents exist in several locations, and staff are unsure where new content belongs. Navigation may reflect an old organizational chart rather than today’s work.
What helps
- Inventory active workspaces and confirm their purpose, audience, and owner.
- Decide where new content belongs and how users should navigate to it.
- Agree on manageable naming, ownership, and review standards before restructuring content.
Start with one business area to test the approach. Review retention requirements and dependencies before archiving, moving, or deleting material.
Why aren’t employees using our intranet?
Start here: Find out whether the intranet helps employees complete useful tasks. A fresh visual design is valuable, but it needs relevant content and straightforward navigation behind it.
What this looks like
People bypass the homepage, ask HR for policies that are already online, or use old bookmarks. Important pages may be accurate but difficult to locate or uncomfortable to use on a phone.
What helps
- Ask employees which tasks bring them to the intranet and whether they can complete them.
- Prioritize frequently used information, tools, and contacts.
- Assign content owners and create a realistic schedule for reviewing important pages.
Observe a small group completing real tasks before committing to a large redesign. Use their experience to decide what should change first.
How do we move off shared drives without creating another mess?
Start here: Design the destination before copying the files. A successful move needs decisions about ownership, organization, access, and how people will work after migration.
What this looks like
Years of documents are stored in deep folder structures. Teams worry about broken links, missing files, disrupted access, and having to learn an unfamiliar system.
What helps
- Inventory the source and use migration assessment reports to identify issues needing attention.
- Agree on destination workspaces, content ownership, and access requirements.
- Run a representative pilot and validate files, permissions, and user tasks before the wider rollout.
Decide how the team will handle changes during the move, communicate the transition, and resolve exceptions afterward. Do not treat a completed copy job as the only acceptance test.
Why are our approvals and document processes still manual?
Start here: Map the process before automating it. Clarify who makes each decision, which information they need, and what should happen when something goes wrong.
What this looks like
Requests arrive in several inboxes. Staff copy information between systems, chase approvals, and struggle to explain the status of a document or request.
What helps
- Choose a repeatable process with a clear owner and an identifiable bottleneck.
- Define the normal route, exceptions, escalation rules, and completion criteria.
- Plan monitoring, support, and ownership so the workflow remains maintainable after launch.
Automation should make the process easier to understand as well as easier to execute. Review integrations, licensing, permissions, and data handling before deciding on the implementation.
Can we safely share documents with clients and vendors?
Start here: Decide who needs access, what they need to do, and when that access should end. External collaboration works best when it is designed rather than handled through ad hoc links.
What this looks like
Teams email copies to avoid access problems. Clients cannot open shared files, or staff are unsure which links remain available after an engagement ends.
What helps
- Separate content intended for external collaboration from internal-only material.
- Align site sharing settings and link choices with organizational policies.
- Assign an owner to review external access when a project, contract, or relationship changes.
Microsoft applies sharing controls at both organization and site levels. The available options depend on those settings, so a document owner’s choice alone does not define the whole sharing model.
Is our SharePoint content ready for Copilot and AI agents?
Start here: Choose a useful business question and a trusted set of source material. Adding an agent does not make outdated documents authoritative or correct an overly broad access model.
What this looks like
The organization wants an HR, IT, or operations assistant, but policies conflict, ownership is unclear, and nobody knows which documents should supply the answers.
What helps
- Define the intended audience, business use case, and approved knowledge sources.
- Review content accuracy, ownership, and permissions before the pilot.
- Test realistic questions with representative users and define how uncertain answers should be handled.
Responses from agents in SharePoint depend on the user’s permissions to the underlying sources. That makes existing access quality important. Confirm the chosen product’s licensing and capabilities before setting the delivery scope.
Your SharePoint environment should make work easier
Tell 6th Street Consulting what is getting in the way. Whether the issue is difficult permissions, scattered documents, an underused intranet, or a manual process, we can help you identify a practical next step.
Discuss Your SharePoint ChallengeFor a useful first conversation, bring a short description of the problem, who it affects, and what you want to improve. Please do not send passwords or confidential documents through an inquiry form.