The SharePoint and Office 365 Industry Survey
Sharegate recently partnered with HyperFish and Nintex to survey 449 IT professionals and to look back at how they used SharePoint and Office 365 in 2017. We compiled the results and compared them with our 2016 survey. Then we asked industry experts for their thoughts on the findings. We now share our findings with the community so it can be used to educate organizations on trends and best practices.
- Results of 2016 (%)
- Results of 2017 (%)
- SharePoint 2001
- SharePoint 2003
- SharePoint 2007
- SharePoint 2010
- SharePoint 2013
- SharePoint 2016
- SharePoint Online
SharePoint Online and SharePoint 2016 have gained significant ground in the past year. SharePoint 2016 has seen a 67% increase in deployment, while SharePoint Online deployments rose by 167%. This data shows that organizations are leaving old versions behind in favor of SharePoint’s modern user interface and cloud functionality.

The move to the cloud is not always as easy as it sounds. Microsoft has released a content migration tool to help customers leave SharePoint 2010 and 2013, but it just isn’t enough. Here at Sharegate, we still see a large number of customers leveraging our tools to migrate while keeping their existing site structure and objects.

- Results of 2016 (%)
- Results of 2017 (%)
- Hybrid
- On-Premise
- Office 365
- Hosted
- Not Deployed
On-premises environments remain strong, but more organizations are starting to move to Office 365 completely.
- Results of 2016 (%)
- Results of 2017 (%)
- Security concerns
- In the process of
a migration - Planning a
migration - Control concerns
- No business
justification - Other
- No budget
- No time
A growing number of businesses have moved their infrastructure to the cloud, but many of them have concerns over security and cost. Before they migrate, Microsoft needs to address their doubts.

Security is much more robust in the cloud – we can no longer argue against this. As our end users demand more from what we offer, the move is inevitable for most. Also, Microsoft’s Office 365 usage numbers seem to double each year, with SharePoint now leading in not one, but two Magic Quadrants.

- Results of 2016 (%)
- Results of 2017 (%)
- Daily
- Monthly
- Other
- Weekly
- Never
Even though cloud security is a top concern, a growing number of companies (19%) never take the precaution of running a security check.
- Results of 2017 (%)
- Yes
- No
- I don't know
- No, but we plan to
46% of organizations either use or plan to use a third-party tool for their daily administration tasks.
This makes sense to me. Administrators don't have the time to do everything by themselves. They are always looking for new IT solutions to manage user permissions. Third-party tools can help them ensure that everyone has the right access.

- Results of 2016 (%)
- Results of 2017 (%)
- Workflows
- Search
- Site Provisioning
- Reporting
- Mobile
In the past year, companies have added more customizations to their SharePoint deployments. Customizations in all areas – from workflows to site provisioning – have increased. This data shows that SharePoint remains a highly flexible platform that can deliver greater value if you customize it to meet your needs.
- Results of 2017 (%)
- Manually
- We don't have a plan
- Automatically with tools
- We don't enforce it
- I don't know
- A separate business unit
or third party manages it
Unfortunately, 50% of organizations still enforce their governance manually which is incredibly time consuming! I hope the new SharePoint Administration Center will help them better define and enforce their governance policies.

- Results of 2016 (%)
- Results of 2017 (%)
- Team /
Intranet Site - Office Apps
- OneDrive
For Business - SharePoint
Designer - Infopath
- Yammer
- Tasks
- Video
- Delve
- Project
Online
Usage has grown for almost all workloads in 2017, with Office 365 Apps, OneDrive for Business, and Delve showing the most adoption gains compared with 2016.
- Results of 2016 (%)
- Results of 2017 (%)
- Team /
Intranet Site - Office Apps
- OneDrive
For Business - SharePoint
Designer - InfoPath
- Yammer
- Tasks
- Video
- Delve
- Project
Online - Skype For
Business
Delve, now rebranded as "Intelligent Search & Discovery," shows the largest gain in interest. Businesses are starting to understand how a personalized search tool can improve their productivity in Office 365.
- Results of 2016 (%)
- Results of 2017 (%)
- On-Premises AD
- On-Premises
& Azure - Azure AD
- Unknown
Hybrid and Azure implementations of Active Directory are growing, while on-premises only deployments have dropped. This trend shows a confidence boost in cloud directory services.
- Results of 2016 (%)
- Results of 2017 (%)
- IT using Microsoft
tools - Unknown
- IT using third
party tools - Integration with
another system - End Users using
SharePoint - End Users using
SharePoint - Other

Very few (12%) had integrations with other systems to keep Active Directory up-to-date. This is usually because the system of record for profile information such as Job Title, Department and Manager is not Active Directory. For this reason, the most common systems to integrate with Active Directory are Human Resource Management Systems.

Methodology and Participant Profile
We surveyed 449 randomly-drawn IT professionals and SharePoint administrators from the Hyperfish, Nintex, and Sharegate client pool to gain insights into global SharePoint and Office 365 usage and deployments.