SharePoint Online is a powerful platform that offers a wide range of functionalities and capabilities. It encompasses various elements such as site collections, subsites, lists, document libraries, wiki pages, blogs, and discussion boards. By leveraging SharePoint, businesses can enhance their team collaboration capabilities and benefit from integrated services like Outlook, Planner, and Microsoft Teams. In this blog, we will explore the importance of optimizing SharePoint Online and discuss key strategies to improve its performance.
SharePoint consists of three major components that form the foundation of its functionality:
These are used to organize different types of content through web parts. It allows businesses to structure and categorize their information effectively.
Pages are the display surfaces where content is presented using web parts. They provide a flexible and customizable way to showcase information within a site.
Similar to smartphone apps, web parts store specific content or information such as documents, events, and contacts. They enable businesses to customize their SharePoint sites to suit their specific needs.
SharePoint Online, which integrates with Microsoft 365, handles a diverse range of user traffic. It serves web pages for portals and team sites, manages collaboration traffic from Office applications, and supports data-intensive tasks like OneDrive sync and video streaming. With such high volumes of traffic, there can be congestion and bottlenecks within the Microsoft cloud networking infrastructure. Optimizing SharePoint Online performance becomes crucial to ensure smooth and efficient operations. Key factors to consider for optimization include large payloads, file volume, physical distance to the server, and available bandwidth.
Microsoft offers a valuable feature called Content Delivery Network (CDN), consisting of distributed servers deployed across multiple data centers. CDN allows businesses to host static assets in various locations and deliver them through high-speed global networks. By leveraging CDN, businesses can improve performance on a per-file basis, taking advantage of the client's proximity to the nearest CDN endpoint and optimizing conditions on the local network.
Efficient navigation is vital for a seamless user experience in SharePoint. Businesses can enhance navigation by incorporating homepage links and dropdown menus for departments, teams, initiatives, and projects. Additionally, configuring SharePoint subsites allows for better organization of content based on specific navigation requirements.
High-resolution images can significantly impact a SharePoint site's loading time due to their large file size. To ensure optimal performance, it is essential to avoid using high-resolution images and instead resize them to the smallest possible size. By optimizing image size, businesses can enhance the overall loading speed of their SharePoint sites
iFrames, which are used to display external service content, can impact SharePoint performance if used excessively. To maintain optimal performance, it is recommended to limit the usage of web parts that employ iFrames. Businesses should aim to have a maximum of three iFrame-based web parts on their site. This limitation helps prevent external services from slowing down the SharePoint page.
Page weight refers to the measurement of HTML code, and minimizing it is crucial for optimal page load times. Microsoft provides the Page Diagnostics tool for SharePoint, which offers a comprehensive report for each analyzed page, showcasing its performance against a defined set of criteria. By utilizing this tool, businesses can identify areas for improvement and optimize their SharePoint pages accordingly.
As a trusted partner and consultant, Web Synergies analyzes your business operating environment and designs tailored solutions to optimize SharePoint Online and enhance your business value. Our expert consultants utilize analytical frameworks to evaluate the impact of various factors on your company's systems, technology, business processes, and environment. With our deep domain expertise, our Microsoft SharePoint Online consultants effectively engage with customers to optimize SharePoint Online and deliver successful business solutions.
