Targeting the legions of SharePoint users in organizations around the globe, Incentive on Monday updated its namesake enterprise collaboration product to provide tight integration with Microsoft’s platform.
All SharePoint files and folders are now indexed and natively searchable within Incentive, allowing users to find and access them without the need for mirroring, copying or importing. Users can also share, like, comment and collaborate on them, and get notifications when edits or changes are made.
In addition, users can include SharePoint folders as visual apps within Incentive, enabling access to the knowledge and content they contain.
Previously, a link to SharePoint content had to be copied and pasted into Incentive, so the new capability will make life much easier for companies using both platforms, Rickard Hansson, Incentive’s cofounder and CEO, said via email.
Seven-year-old Incentive aims to eliminate what it calls “platform fatigue,” which can arise when files are created, stored and shared in multiple workflow and collaboration applications. Focusing on organizations that use Microsoft products, the company aims to let users take advantage of existing workflow apps, storage systems and document management tools such as SharePoint in one central location, with single sign-on and intelligent search.
The new SharePoint integration is available now as a public beta. Incentive’s pricing starts at $99 per month for up to 30 users and is $3 per month for each additional user beyond that.
Launched in 2001, SharePoint now claims more than 100 million users. One in five knowledge workers has access to the platform today, according to Microsoft.
The platform has become something of an enterprise Swiss Army knife with a broad array of capabilities, said Vanessa Thompson, a research director with IDC. Incentive is just one among many providers offering add-on functionality such as extended social features, she added.
“SharePoint users now have a lot more options than they had in the past,” she said. “Just about every enterprise social network integrates with SharePoint already. SharePoint partners have been building extensions for a long time.”