Yes: documents and the intranet
OneDrive holds each person’s files, team sites hold shared ones. Where each kind of file goes, and how to move it: Replacing your file server with SharePoint.
Compared with a plain file share such as Azure Files, SharePoint adds:
- data loss prevention, encryption and compliance
- sharing inside and outside the organisation, with live co-authoring
- version history and a recycle bin people use without calling IT
- Files On-Demand
- search, Microsoft Graph and Copilot
- Teams
- licensing that comes with the rest of Microsoft 365.
Most complaints about storage, governance and permissions date from classic SharePoint. A tenant now gets 1 TB plus 10 GB per licence, and one site holds 25 TB (limits).
Azure Files is a file server in Azure. Use it for apps that expect an SMB or NFS share, for virtual desktop profiles (FSLogix), and for a file server you can’t retire yet, with Azure File Sync as a local cache. Accounts that exist only in Entra ID need a managed domain, Microsoft Entra Domain Services, to use it. Outlook PST files belong in neither: Microsoft doesn’t support them on a network share. If people work with very large files all day, SharePoint probably isn’t the place either: the sync bandwidth gets pretty nuts.
No: applications and the outside world
- ERP. Hell no. A consultant who suggests it has a hammer, and thinks your fine bone china looks like a nail. Lists hold up to 30 million items, but every view and query has to work around the 5,000-item threshold. They suit trackers and registers. Data with relationships, security rules and volume is an application; put it on a platform built for one, such as Dataverse.
- Public websites. Microsoft stopped selling SharePoint Online public websites in 2015 and deleted the last of them in 2017 and 2018 (notice). Use a web platform.
- Marketing campaigns. Use Mailchimp, and don’t second-guess marketing on their tools.
- A CRM. Don’t build one out of lists. A new small business can start loose: Outlook, Forms and a SharePoint folder per customer. New businesses don’t want to be locked into a process. Fix it once it gets messy.
- Jira. The basics fit in a SharePoint list. The community of advanced Jira users and apps doesn’t. People’s time costs more than the software.
- Custom development. As a dev framework SharePoint has been dying since ASP.NET MVC 1. Add-ins stop working on 2 April 2026, and the SharePoint Framework (SPFx) replaces them. Treat SharePoint as content management and a UI for code that runs in Azure (keep it thin).
- On-premises. SharePoint Server 2016 and 2019 reach end of support on 14 July 2026. Go to SharePoint Online.
The hard part isn’t the software
Decide what the intranet is for before you build it (Intranets fail on the business case). Don’t change things for the sake of it, and tidy up before you migrate (Don’t copy the mess).
A lot of SharePoint migrations fail because they’re budgeted before anyone works out what needs doing. If a quote looks high, ask for it itemised.