Sharepoint 2016 Standard-Windows server 2016-Supported by Cognosys

I have been using Sharepoint 2016 Standard  for the last four years.

My main use case is that we are using Sharepoint 2016 Standard  for the site's storage and the document libraries, including team sites, wikis, blogs, documents, and co-authoring. We are also using it for search purposes, such as standard search, but not the advanced enterprise search center. We are also using it as a part of business intelligence, including services such as Excel services, Visio  services, and SSAS  services. These are the types of services we use primarily for collaboration purposes. Basically, we are storing all our artifacts and documents in one Sharepoint folder path, which is accessible to all our team members so they can access it directly.

Using Sharepoint on a daily basis helps our team collaborate faster. If I have created a document or video and I have shared that path to another team member, and in the future my team member wants to access that video, they do not need to request it from me. They will go into that Sharepoint URL and will directly take the video from there and use it for their own purpose.

The main use case for Sharepoint 2016 Standard regarding collaboration is that it has saved my time and made things easier.

We use Sharepoint 2016 Standard as an on-premises solution where our servers are located in our data center. We have full control and are responsible for handling patches and backups, which is typical for the classic 2016 Standard setup. We have deployed many of our artifacts according to user requirements, with various colleagues sharing numerous items in our private cloud environment.

The best features for Sharepoint 2016 Standard include some main features that people use the most. The first one is the modern document libraries plus co-authoring, which means multiple people can edit Word, Excel, and PowerPoint at the same time. Version history is built-in, so you can roll back if someone makes a mistake. The next feature is Team Sites plus subsites, which means you can create a site per project and per department in two clicks. Permissions, document libraries, and lists all come pre-wired. Sharepoint Lists is an important feature that functions as Excel but smarter. You can track issues, PTO requests, inventory, and more, and add alerts so you get emailed when something changes, replacing tons of manual tracking. Search is fast, which is one of the important features, as it allows for a way faster full-text search across documents, sites, and people. The Standard edition does not have the fancy result sources of Enterprise, but the basic search is still solid for finding files quickly. Another important feature is workflows, which include approval flows, document routing, and reminders that need no Power Automate . You can create them in Sharepoint Designer or even in the browser for simple ones. Additionally, you get mobile view plus OneDrive for Business sync, allowing you to sync libraries to your laptop and work offline, then it syncs back.

The usage of the co-authoring feature for my team happens in different ways. The first one is real-time editing in Office documents, which means when we are dealing with Word, Excel, or PowerPoint stored in document libraries, everyone opens the same file from Sharepoint, not from email attachments. You will see colored flags plus the names of who is in the document, and changes are saved automatically. The second usage is locking rules to avoid conflicts. Sharepoint 2016 locks by paragraph in Word and by cell range in Excel. If you and I edit different sections, there are zero issues. If we hit the same paragraph or cell, the second person gets a read-only prompt until the first person moves. The third usage is about the best team habits I have ever seen, which is one document and one link, meaning never save as and email, just share the Sharepoint link. We can also use comments, track changes, and get feedback without overwriting content. Co-authoring works great for DOCX, XLSX, and PPTX files. Old documents in ODF format do not allow real-time collaboration. The work happens in both the browser and desktops, but the Office desktop application gives the smoothest work experience.

Regarding Sharepoint 2016 Standard's governance and security, I find the centralized control is a strong point. We can perform site collections management, manage data, manage metadata, and maintain term store consistency across the farm. It stops HR documents from causing human resource chaos by utilizing permissions inheritance, allowing us to break inheritance at site, library, or folder level, but we aim to break as little as possible to avoid support nightmares. Site policies plus retention, such as auto-deleting or archiving sites after a set number of days, help avoid issues with numerous dead term sites. Governance  does not create ROI but protects it. Audit logs also help track who viewed, edited, or deleted important documents, making them useful for compliance. In terms of security, strengths include claim-based authentication and Active Directory integration with Azure  directory, providing standard enterprise security. It works with ADFS for single sign-on, supporting rights management on documents that can block downloads or printing from Office. SSL and HTTPS encryption plus farm-level encryption for data at rest keep our information secure. Secure store allows credentials for external data connections to be stored safely.

In terms of improvements for Sharepoint 2016, I see how it can be improved regarding performance tweaks. Limiting view columns plus items is important because each extra column adds approximately 0.5 seconds of render time for 1,000 items. I keep default views under five to six columns and fewer than 1,000 items, utilizing filters such as "today" and "me". The next point is to avoid Group By on large lists as it adds HTML and slows rendering. Collapsed groups can make it worse, but using datasheet view for bulk edits renders faster than the standard view. Implementing minimum roles plus zero downtime patching, which is built into the 2016 setup, means we should configure minimum roles correctly so web front end, application server, and search servers can do only their job and speed up farms. In terms of user experience with adoption, governance and naming can be improved. Outdated sites plus inconsistent navigation make people revert to email. Setting naming rules, archive policies, and owners helps governance protect ROI. Ensuring optimized search queries, avoiding wildcards, and limiting results will lead to three times faster answers. Pushing OneDrive for Business sync will enable people to work offline. 2016 added durable links so links do not break when files move. Cutting customizations will make non-customized pages load much faster, so removing heavy web parts and custom JavaScript on homepages is essential. Reducing IT tickets can still be enhanced within these improvements.

In addition to the needed improvements regarding user training, integrations, and support, I would stress the importance of these areas. Achieving a perfect ten for Sharepoint 2016 Standard would involve addressing a few issues. The mobile user experience feels clunky versus modern, and the absence of Power Automate  makes some workflows feel dated. While search is good, it is not comparable to Google for intranet use. Additionally, support ending in 2026 is a ticking clock that needs consideration.

I have been using Sharepoint 2016 Standard for the last four years.

Sharepoint is very stable in nature, and I see it as reliable. I use it on a daily basis for most of my tasks, and I have not faced any stability issues, which reinforces my belief in its stability.

Sharepoint's scalability handles our organization's growth and increased usage easily. Since it supports end on July 14, I recognize important scalability features such as content scale. We can manage around 30 million documents per library and two billion items per site collection with effective metadata navigation. In real-world scenarios, the average organization runs smoothly with one hundred thousand to five hundred thousand documents per site collection. If we hit a million or more items, we need good indexing folders, or else views will slow down. Microsoft has tested 2016 for scalability at fifty thousand concurrent users per farm with proper minimum roles. In real-world circumstances, five thousand to ten thousand active users are comfortable on a three or four-server farm. Bottlenecks usually occur with SQL rather than Sharepoint web front end. MinRoles in 2016 is a significant improvement, as we have dedicated servers for web application, search, and distributed cache, allowing us to avoid slowness. Zero downtime patching means adding servers or patching can be done without weekend outages. Sharding can split content databases by department or year to keep database sizes fewer than 200 GB for performance optimizations.

Customer support for Sharepoint 2016 Standard in my experience has been responsive. I usually contact the support team, and there was a time when I searched for a file I stored earlier but was unable to find it.

When I contacted the support team, they helped me recover the file in a very efficient and supportive way, which reflects positively on my experience with customer support.

I did not use any different solution before Sharepoint 2016 Standard, but I recognize various alternatives were available in the market. I chose to use Sharepoint because of the cloud deployment options it provides, such as on-premises, private cloud, and hybrid cloud, along with its frequent updates such as those planned for July's end of support along with future versions such as 2019 and 2021. This versatility is a major benefit and reason for my continued usage of this solution.

My advice for anyone looking at Sharepoint 2016 Standard is to be honest about timelines because support is ending on July 14, and no more security patches will be released after that. Only choose 2016 if you have a clear upgrade hybrid plan before 2026 and do not start any new 2016 projects unless they are planned for fewer than two years of use with air-gapped security. Setting it up correctly is crucial as it can feel like a five out of ten if installed incorrectly. Using MinRoles from day one, with web, application, and search on separate servers is necessary. Avoid an all-in-one installation for production. SQL sizing is critical since Sharepoint's performance relies on SQL speed. Therefore, using SSDs plus proper TempDB management can greatly enhance performance. Planning the content structure early is key. The 5,000 list threshold will impact you, thus using metadata plus folders from the very start is advised. Expectations should be managed regarding modern features as well.

In terms of how Sharepoint 2016 Standard has impacted our organization positively, I see improvements in productivity, collaboration, and other areas.

There are three areas I can focus on regarding productivity for our organization. The first is productivity. It eliminates the email attachment loop. One document library will be equal to one version of truth, plus version history plus check-in/check-out means less time lost to final version confusion. OneDrive sync lets people work offline, then it catches up. The second benefit is collaboration. Team sites plus subsites give each department project their own space without needing IT tickets. Co-authoring in Word and Excel means three people could edit a proposal at once instead of passing it around. Alerts on lists notify people instead of making them chase updates. Other areas changed include governance. Centralized permissions replace random shared folders. Search allows finding documents across the whole farm to happen much faster than digging through drives, which reduces Shadow IT since teams stopped using random tools because Sharepoint libraries plus lists covered 80 percent of their needs. The trade-off back then was that setup maintenance was on IT and the mobile experience was clunky compared to today's Sharepoint Standard.

There are some real numbers out there showing improvements. Although Sharepoint 2016 Standard specific studies are limited, since most ROI data brands versions, here is what organizations have actually measured. Time saved productivity metrics means tasks that used to take a week now get resolved in one to two days with Sharepoint 2016 Standard, saving approximately five to seven days per request. The second point is findability or search time. Using Sharepoint search plus navigation, people found answers 83 percent of the time. With Sharepoint agents plus curated content, they found answers 100 percent of the time and 2.9 times faster on average, so approximately three times faster lookups. General intranet usage, according to SWOOP Analytics of around 170,000 employees, shows an average of 16 minutes spent per day on Sharepoint intranets versus fewer than six minutes in another study. If content is structured correctly, people get what they need fast instead of hunting. Time spent locating information is flagged as the number one productivity metric. Employees spending around 2.6 hours per day searching mail shows that if intranet plus document libraries cut this by six hours per week per employee, it translates to around $600 per month in savings per $25 per hour employee. Regarding IT tickets and support metrics, they dropped according to Microsoft's own customer zero story. After moving to modern Sharepoint with better user experience, IT fielded numerous fewer questions weekly. The intuitive experience drastically reduced the volume of inquiries plus service requests but was not quantified. The driver was fewer customizations plus better navigation. According to AWS  review, I do not need to rely on external technical support as I can resolve them internally. Cost savings versus the previous document system are 25 percent to 30 percent lower, with fewer tickets because setup is straightforward. Workflow consolidation also shows fewer third-party tools after consolidating to Sharepoint resulted in fewer integration support tickets.

There are some real numbers out there showing improvements in ROI. Although Sharepoint 2016 Standard specific studies are limited since most ROI data brand versions, here is what organizations have actually measured. Time saved productivity metrics means tasks that used to take a week now get resolved in one to two days with Sharepoint 2016 Standard, saving approximately five to seven days per request.

The second point is findability or search time. Using Sharepoint search plus navigation, people found answers 83 percent of the time. With Sharepoint agents plus curated content, they found answers 100 percent of the time and 2.9 times faster on average, so approximately three times faster lookups. General intranet usage, according to SWOOP Analytics of around 170,000 employees, shows an average of 16 minutes spent per day on Sharepoint intranets versus fewer than six minutes in another study. If content is structured correctly, people get what they need fast instead of hunting. Time spent locating information is flagged as the number one productivity metric. Employees spending around 2.6 hours per day searching mail shows that if intranet plus document libraries cut this by six hours per week per employee, it translates to around $600 per month in savings per $25 per hour employee.

Regarding IT tickets and support metrics, they dropped according to Microsoft's customer zero story. After moving to modern Sharepoint with better user experience, IT fielded numerous fewer questions weekly. The intuitive experience drastically reduced the volume of inquiries plus service requests but was not quantified. The driver was fewer customizations plus better navigation. According to AWS  review, I do not need to rely on external technical support as I can resolve them internally. Cost savings versus the previous document system are 25 percent to 30 percent lower, with fewer tickets because setup is straightforward. Workflow consolidation also shows fewer third-party tools after consolidating to Sharepoint, resulting in fewer integration support tickets.

My advice for anyone looking at Sharepoint 2016 Standard is to be honest about timelines because support is ending on July 14, and no more security patches will be released after that. Only choose 2016 if you have a clear upgrade hybrid plan before 2026 and do not start any new 2016 projects unless they are planned for fewer than two years of use with air-gapped security. Setting it up correctly is crucial as it can feel like a five out of ten if installed incorrectly. Using MinRoles from day one, with web, application, and search on separate servers is necessary. Avoid an all-in-one installation for production.

SQL sizing is critical since Sharepoint's performance relies on SQL speed. Therefore, using SSDs plus proper TempDB management can greatly enhance performance. Planning the content structure early is key. The 5,000 list threshold will impact you, thus using metadata plus folders from the very start is advised. Expectations should be managed regarding modern features as well.

I did not evaluate other options aside from Sharepoint 2016 Standard. The reasons include the cloud deployment features that offer multiple versions, and the continuous upgrades available to ensure adaptability such as the coming 2019 and 2021 versions. It also has hybrid features which work best for both 2016 users while keeping 2016 on-premises for compliance and using Sharepoint Online for collaboration, search, and OneDrive. I have considered options such as Google, Box, and Jira , but I preferred Sharepoint the most.

My final wrap-up points for Sharepoint 2016 Standard for future users or tech buyers include that it should be bought if compliance or regulatory information must be kept on-premises. If stable document management and version control are essential while not requiring a shiny user experience, it is suitable. Ensure you have IT staff who can manage patches and setup properly, as well as SQL with MinRoles. If your timeline is fewer than three years, having a build plan before July 14, 2026 is critical. You should skip it if you require integrated artificial intelligence and co-pilot features, Teams integration, or modern mobile experiences, and avoid it if you expect Google-like search without engaging in substantial metadata work. Lastly, if your starting point today spans a five-plus-year horizon, I advise you to consider these points before making a decision.

Regarding Sharepoint 2016 Standard's artificial intelligence capabilities, I think that it offers smart features although it is more advanced than true artificial intelligence. In terms of accuracy, I rate it a seven out of ten because it is better than 2013, and it uses machine learning for result ranking based on user clicks. Its reliability depends on how well content is tagged. Without managed metadata, it can miss important context. Delve and Office Graph, while not included in the standard, require Sharepoint server enterprise plus Office 365  profile sync, and if available, it efficiently shows documents people around you are working on. I would rate that accuracy as six out of ten, good for trending documents, but often surfaces old ones, as it relies heavily on user activity. For structured queries, the Content Search web part plus result sources can achieve an accuracy rate of eight out of ten if Keyword Query Language is written correctly, but lacks natural language artificial intelligence searches. The accuracy for eDiscovery  plus in-place hold is nine out of ten for legal compliance, finding exactly what you ask for, though it is not artificial intelligence, just precise indexing. I would rate this product overall at a nine out of ten.

Sharepoint 2016 Standard  is typically used as a storage point for design documents that need to be shared across different teams within the organization. It functions as a library to hold documents and documentation for different designs and documents that relate to different applications within the organization.

Recently, a client brought us a use case that involved the development team, the developers, the DevOps engineers, the SRE team, and the product managers or product owners all working together. In that case, Sharepoint 2016 Standard  was used to hold most of the requirements documents. Even within the application itself, some parts of the application and some documentation within the application had links in Sharepoint 2016 Standard. The information was stored in Sharepoint 2016 Standard, and then the link was added in the application itself for access.

One of my major reasons for using Sharepoint 2016 Standard is that it is very capable when it comes to document management, and it also integrates very well with Microsoft Office.

The best features Sharepoint 2016 Standard offers include its widespread adoption across several enterprise environments, which makes it easy to migrate across departments, teams, and organizations. It also has very detailed permission control, which is something I appreciate. The deep integration it has with Microsoft Office is also a huge advantage.

Sharepoint 2016 Standard gives us a standardized way to manage, store, and categorize documents. An advantage or benefit is that since we have adopted Sharepoint 2016 Standard, it has been easier to access documents. It is no longer difficult to search for documents or figure out where a particular document is located. It gives us a central point to store all required documents within the organization.

With the permission control in Sharepoint 2016 Standard, we have the opportunity to streamline access because it holds several documents and information that are not intended for everyone. We can create a certain group and grant them access. We can grant access by groups to certain documents. Whoever we do not want to have access to a document, we can put them in a group to disable their access to that document. Likewise, if we want to give access, we can also create groups to grant access to documents within Sharepoint 2016 Standard.

One thing about Sharepoint 2016 Standard is that the user interface feels dated compared to others. When we want to perform upgrades or migration, the process is complex. I would prefer it if the migration and upgrade process were simpler. It also requires significant admin overhead to manage the on-premise resources. These are the aspects that I do not prefer about it.

Sharepoint 2016 Standard requires significant infrastructure to work. If it could be made lighter and less demanding on the hardware itself, that would be another improvement.

I have used Sharepoint 2016 Standard for about three years now.

Sharepoint 2016 Standard is as stable as it can be. While we do have the occasional crash, that is probably due to hardware overload or issues with the hardware. So far, it has been good. I have not found any bugs myself, so for me, Sharepoint 2016 Standard is pretty stable.

Sharepoint 2016 Standard is highly scalable. For what it is as a document management tool, its scalability is adequate.

I have had to use customer support for Sharepoint 2016 Standard maybe once. The response was quite swift, the engineers were quite knowledgeable, and they were able to resolve my issue in the shortest possible time.

From day one, I have always used Sharepoint 2016 Standard. I have not had to try another solution yet because I have not found a use case to want to try another solution.

There was no evaluation of other options before choosing Sharepoint 2016 Standard. There was just a consensus on using Sharepoint 2016 Standard because it is one of the most popular solutions and is widely adopted across enterprise environments. It was a natural choice to use Sharepoint 2016 Standard.

Sharepoint 2016 Standard does save time because the time that would have been spent trying to organize and file documents is eliminated with the use of Sharepoint 2016 Standard. Definitely, it does save time.

I rate the customer support for Sharepoint 2016 Standard a nine out of ten.

If you plan on using Sharepoint 2016 Standard on-premise, you should really plan ahead and plan substantial infrastructure for the on-premise deployment. It also makes it better if you make use of Microsoft Office within your organization because Sharepoint 2016 Standard integrates really well with that. I highly recommend Sharepoint 2016 Standard.

So far, Sharepoint 2016 Standard has proven to be one of the best, if not the best, document management platforms that can be used in hybrid environments.

From what I have observed, Sharepoint 2016 Standard appears to protect and encrypt information and data well. It is not open to unauthorized users. I am satisfied with the governance and security capabilities within Sharepoint 2016 Standard.

Sharepoint 2016 Standard's accuracy is about eighty to eighty-five percent of the time. There are still instances where it does not get things exactly correctly, but that is still a work in progress.

I did not set up Sharepoint 2016 Standard, so I do not know much about the licensing. However, I do have a fair idea of the pricing, and from what I have seen, it does seem fair compared to other tools and cloud service providers. It seems in line with the other ones price-wise and cost-wise.

My overall rating for this review is seven out of ten.

For a project that we had, different teams used Sharepoint 2016 Standard  for collaboration. Fifty teams collaborated on a single project using Sharepoint 2016 Standard. Those teams used Sharepoint 2016 Standard together by sharing different folders, videos, informative videos, collaborative Excel sheets, presentations, and all of these teams were accessing it to use it as a central hub of information.

Having a central hub has improved collaboration for my teams by saving time and making finding information easier as it served as a central hub for more than fifty different teams.

I started using Sharepoint 2016 Standard  when I joined my current role because all of the files that we work on in collaboration with my teammates are stored on Sharepoint. It is quite a useful platform for using various Microsoft tools and is super easy to navigate through. I have been using it since I joined and we use it quite frequently.

It is mainly Excel sheets. Whatever projects we are working on, we keep all those records of sheets on Sharepoint. Everyone is able to see each other's work and it becomes easy to review and move forward. I would love to know what other file types or what kind of data we can upload on Sharepoint or access. I would like to know more about the platform so that we can use it more holistically.

I actually missed highlighting one more application that we use on Sharepoint, which is PowerPoint presentations. The company training material is also stored there. Your answer gave me more use cases of Sharepoint, so I am going to start using it for more applications. It is quite a useful tool.

We are easily able to create different folders in Sharepoint 2016 Standard , similar to how we create folders on our personal desktop. These folders can be easily accessed by various parties and I have control over who can access those folders. If I am the creator of any folder on Sharepoint, I can add people to the folders based on the projects they are involved in rather than having everyone able to access all folders. That is quite a useful feature. Sharepoint 2016 Standard is fast and I do not face any lagging issues. It is pretty easy to navigate through.

When I and another teammate are working in the same Excel sheet on Sharepoint, a big green line appears over the tabs or cells that my teammate is editing at the moment so that I can understand what the other person is working on. There is also a little icon or toggle which shows the initials of the person who is working on those cells. Although it is a very small feature, because we use Sharepoint 2016 Standard with multiple people, it is good to have so that we can easily distinguish which cells not to touch at the moment.

Whenever there is an audit going on, I prepare files to present to the audit. If my management wants to see the progress tracking on those files or presentations, I work on the files that are stored on Sharepoint and management is able to see the progress. Once the files are finalized, we can share the link of the same folder with the audit team or add the members of the audit team in Sharepoint in that particular folder so that the final work is easily shared with the concerned party.

Sharepoint 2016 Standard has definitely saved a lot of time. Management can track the progress on a real-time basis rather than following up with me on mail or chat and having me share the files with them on email. Sharepoint 2016 Standard makes it real-time. The use case is quite visible and it has saved a lot of time and back and forth.

I find Sharepoint 2016 Standard dependable for my needs in terms of accuracy and reliability of output.

I do not think there is anything missing in Sharepoint 2016 Standard. It is a vast platform and whatever use I plan to have on Sharepoint, I can navigate through it or search things on Google or any other AI chatbots and they give me the solution of where to find something or whether something can be done on Sharepoint. Whatever use case I have been involved in or whatever additional things that I needed, I have always been able to find those on Sharepoint 2016 Standard. I do not think I have anything to add as an additional feature.

Regarding Sharepoint 2016 Standard's AI capabilities, I do not think my organization has implemented the AI functionality of Sharepoint so far. I have not used or seen AI playing a role in Sharepoint application or software.

I have been working in my current field for six months.

Sharepoint 2016 Standard is very stable. I have not seen any crashes or downtimes so far.

It has been good so far with Sharepoint 2016 Standard.

There was no other solution before Sharepoint 2016 Standard. This was the new thing that got introduced when I joined the organization.

Time saved is definitely a benefit with Sharepoint 2016 Standard. Money savings or fewer employees needed have not been affected by this platform. Time has definitely been saved by the use case of Sharepoint 2016 Standard, approximately half an hour on a daily basis.

I think I have highlighted most of the information. Just check out the platform of Sharepoint 2016 Standard. My review rating for this product is ten out of ten.