Information management that still makes sense later
Documents, case files, procedures and know how, scattered across network drives, mailboxes and stray Teams channels. We bring structure to that with Microsoft 365, and we make sure the structure grows with the organisation.
Using an approach sharpened at government departments, industrial companies, healthcare organisations and companies under strict compliance requirements. No theory, just the order that works in practice.
The foundation is SharePoint and Microsoft Teams. If your priority is mainly news, communication and a single starting page, look at intranet and digital collaboration instead.
Our approach:
six steps
We build every information project in the same order. That order matters more than the technology: start with the tool and you will start again later.
Which technology sits underneath only comes up at step five. With us that is usually SharePoint and Microsoft 365, simply because you already have it.
Context and baseline
What the organisation does, which rules apply, which systems are running and where information sits today. We measure that and hold it against what people say about it, because the two rarely match.
Process analysis
Top down we break the organisation’s functions into processes. Left to right we follow one process step by step, which shows where documents arise, who captures them and who needs them. A folder tree never tells you that.
Data mapping
For every existing collection we record which process it serves, what type of document it holds, who owns it and whether it is still in use. This is where the model from step 2 meets reality, and where it becomes clear what you actually have. One table, with an owner on every row.
Set the retention requirements
Only now can you attach a retention period and a destination to each document type, because you know which types genuinely exist. For Flemish public bodies these become series and selection rules in the Serieregister.
Blueprint and working model
The structure has to hold what step 3 found and enforce what step 4 decided. We design it and build it straight away as a working model, with real sample documents, metadata, permissions and navigation. People click through it and say what is wrong, before a single file has moved. This is where the destination column of the mapping table gets filled in.
Build, migrate and make it land
The working model becomes the real environment, the mapping becomes the migration. After that: training per role, an owner per information domain, and a scheduled moment to check whether it still holds up.
Folders and metadata
The question that comes back in every project. Our answer is rarely one or the other.
Folders are not the problem
Folders are familiar. Everybody understands them straight away, they help to delimit permissions and they keep a large library readable. A folder structure that makes sense is simply a good structure. So we do not throw it away just because we could.
Where it does go wrong is deep nesting. From about three levels down, finding things gets hard, and every level eats into the available path length.
Metadata solves what folders cannot
One document sometimes belongs to several topics. In a folder tree you then have to choose, or duplicate. Metadata lets you filter and group on the properties that matter for your work, even when you do not know where something is filed.
But a field nobody fills in makes search worse rather than better. Four to five fields per library is usually the most that stays alive.
The craft is in the balance. A clear folder structure for what people are used to, and metadata where it genuinely solves something. Which balance suits you is something we work out together during the assessment, not in advance on a slide.
What we deliver
Not everything is needed in every project. This is what we choose from.
Baseline and inventory
What sits where today, how old it is, who can reach it and what is still in use. An overview of your existing sites, teams and drives, with the figures attached.
Information architecture
The blueprint: which sites, which hub, which libraries, which metadata and which naming conventions. Including the agreements on what belongs where, so the structure is not already hollowed out after three months.
Permission design
Who sees what, and why. Built with groups at site level rather than exceptions per folder, because the latter is exactly what makes an environment unmanageable after a year.
Governance plan
The document that pins down the decisions:
- Roles and responsibilities in a RACI table
- Naming of sites, documents and news
- Sensitivity labels and external sharing
- Retention periods and versioning
- Who may create a site or a team
- How content stays current
Migration and clean up
From network drives, legacy sites or an existing document management system into SharePoint Online. With an assessment first, so you know what moves and what can fall away.
Training and adoption
Training per role, with one running scenario in which every participant builds their own environment. Plus an adoption approach based on ADKAR: communication, training and visible support from management.
Administrator manual
A manual in your house style, with screenshots and a quick reference table, written for the people who will run it afterwards. So you no longer need us to create a page.
Retention and archiving
Translating retention periods into labels in Microsoft Purview. For public bodies we start from the retention schedules, with a disposition review rather than automatic deletion, because destruction requires authorisation.
Result: one place where it adds up
Not one folder where everything gets dumped, but one environment in which every piece of information has a logical place, an owner and an expiry date.
- Always the version that applies, with a visible history
- Search that works, also for people who do not know where something lives
- Permissions that can be explained and stay manageable
- Documents, e-mails and data from CRM and ERP sitting together
- An environment ready for Copilot queries, without accidentally exposing half the HR files
From storage to structure, and from structure to something people actually use.