Microsoft SharePoint
The question is no longer where your documents are stored. It's who can see them.For twenty years, SharePoint it has been a place to store files. Since 2026, it has been the source that your company’s artificial intelligence reads to provide answers. It doesn’t change any permissions— it uses the existing ones—and it makes visible in a single sentence what overly broad sharing had been hiding for ten years. Our role, in this regard, has become this.
The Dates That Matter
The schedule has already been set.
Four deadlines have shifted the focus over the past few months, and they’ve all passed. So this is no longer a page explaining why we should take action: it’s a page explaining what has stopped working, and in what order to get back on track.
The previous automations have stopped
In Microsoft 365, the creation and execution of workflows SharePoint 2013 were disabled for existing customers. No extension was planned beyond this date.
Those who remain now only read their work in raw XML.
Support for the 2016 and 2019 servers has ended
Both versions reached the end of extended support on the same day. No more security patches, no more support.
And there's no time to waste: unlike Exchange, Windows Server and SQL Server, SharePoint does not have an extended security update program.
Four issues are missing, including subscription issues
On the same date, support for InfoPath Forms Services and workflows SharePoint 2010, from SharePoint Designer 2013, and Basic authentication— even in the subscription edition, which is the only one still supported.
So that particular point did not depend on the choice of hosting.
The AI arrived on its own, and the brake engaged
Since mid-June, Copilot SharePoint is no longer a trial you sign up for, but a trial you can opt out of: it is automatically delivered to all licensed users without any administrative action required.
Six weeks later, the temporary search restriction was no longer accepting any new activations.
None of these four lines is an opinion: they are four dates published by Microsoft, and we’re happy to cite them directly from the source. Waiting won’t make up for anything here, because there’s nothing to buy: a server SharePoint without a patch does not become supported again, and an automation feature that has been turned off does not turn back on.
What It Is, in Plain Terms
Six things—and only one of them concerns you first and foremost.
SharePoint It does a lot of things, and that’s the problem: it’s hard to know where to start. Here are the six real-world uses, in the order that companies use them. Only one of these six categories is your current focus —the rest of the page will help you figure out which one.
The Documents and Their History
A single location for files, simultaneous editing by multiple users, version history, the trash, file retention, and no more email attachments. That’s what everyone is looking for, and that’s the easy part.
The intranet and team websites
Communication sites for information that the entire company needs to read, team sites for what a department produces, linked together in thematic networks rather than stacked in subfolders. Each team Teams also sets up a site SharePoint without saying so.
Lists, and the processes surrounding them
A request log, an inventory, contract tracking: a list contains everything that no one wants to put into software. Automation around it, on the other hand, has no longer been SharePoint since April 2026.
Research
The only feature that benefits from having everything in one place. When done well, it summarizes a 2019 contract in three words. When done poorly, it gives everyone the impression that nothing is organized—and that’s the first criticism leveled at SharePoint.
Data and Reports
SharePoint It stores data; it does not perform calculations. The old dashboard module has been removed from the subscription edition; reports are now generated using Power BI, which reads the lists and libraries directly.
Agents, based on your own documents
Each site has a ready-to-use agent, limited to that site's content, and you can create additional ones. This is the most useful feature of SharePoint today, and the only one that requires permissions to be set correctly before it can be activated.
The Starting Point
There are six paths, and only one is yours.
A project SharePoint in 2026 is almost never “installing SharePoint .” It’s one of these six paths; they don’t all cost the same, and choosing the wrong path is the number one reason for having to start over from scratch in this area. Two of the six are right in your own home: we draw on both worlds, and one of these two paths is sometimes the right answer.
Review the terms before proceeding
Everything is already online, and the issue is no longer a technical one: it’s a matter of who sees what. We map out widely shared content, public links, guests who have stayed on, and ownerless sites; we have each site approved by someone who has the authority to say no; then we close it off.
When it's the right time—whena Copilot license has arrived or is about to arrive—and no one in the household can say for sure who has access to what.
Set up the farm on the version that is still supported
The subscription edition is the only version of SharePoint maintained on-premises, and updates are applied directly to it— as has been the case since 2016 and 2019—by importing the databases. You retain your infrastructure, your deep integrations, and control over the update schedule. We’ll outline the costs of this choice: no staff, no cold archiving, and you are responsible for applying patches.
When It's the Right Choice: Whena document or contract prohibits external hosting— or when nothing prohibits it but you want to retain control. Both reasons are valid.
Migrate the farm to SharePoint Online
In phases, one service at a time, with a clear list of what will not be migrated—and the old environment kept online until you provide written approval. We’re doing this for good reasons: to stop maintaining servers, to access the latest features, and to move away from a version that no longer receives patches. Not because the on-premises environment is outdated.
When It's the Right Time: Whena 2016, 2019, or older farm holds documents that are essential to the business, and there's no reason you have to stay at home.
Rebuild the automations
The legacy systems have been shut down, and the forms that went with them are no longer supported— either on-site or online. We’re reviewing each process based on what it produces — a validation, a notification, a created file — and rewriting it using current tools, taking the opportunity to eliminate steps that no one any longer deemed necessary.
When It's Right: Whenworkflows SharePoint 2010 or 2013, or InfoPath forms, still control a process that someone depends on.
Develop a document management system—don't just move files around
Copying an eleven-level tree structure into SharePoint results in a worse outcome than the original. The real work lies in deciding which characteristics describe a document rather than its location in a folder, which retention periods apply, and which documents remain confidential even when they leave the system. This isn’t an IT project: it’s a reorganization, and it must be carried out in collaboration with the business units.
When it’s the right one—whenthe phrase “we can’t find anything” comes up more often than “it doesn’t work.” Moving never cures that.
Compare, without creating a sense of urgency
Your farm is already on the subscription plan; it’s been fixed and is doing its job. So there’s no rush, and we won’t make one up for you. What we’re doing at this stage is an honest three-year comparison—servers, licenses, backups, and operating hours on one side; subscription, storage, and recent features on the other—followed by a decision, or no decision.
When everything goes right—whennothing breaks and no one pushes you. It happens more often than people say, and it’s worth writing about.
The Real Question
Which one is yours?
Four questions, no contact information to provide, and an answer that identifies a course of action and the pitfall that comes with it. Two of the six paths keep you at home, and one of them flatly concludes that there’s nothing to be done. Sometimes the answer is “don’t turn on the AI just yet”: that’s written there too, and that’s what makes the rest credible.
Answer the four questions.
The conclusion is written right here. Nothing is sent, nothing is saved, and there is no address to provide in order to read it.
The Movement
Restoring rights, above all else.
Your documents are already in the right place: the issue isn’t about moving them around—it’s about knowing who sees what. We map out broad-ranging shares, links open to the entire company, guests who are still there, and sites without an owner; then each site is approved by someone with the authority to say no. It’s a job that takes a few weeks, comes at a cost, and can’t be delegated to a tool.
Exit the version that no longer has any patches.
Your farm hasn’t received anything since July 14, 2026, and there’s no extension available for this product. There are two options, and both are good: switch to the subscription edition and stay where you are, or move to SharePoint Online. We’ll break down the costs for both options over three years— including operating hours —and tell you which one we’d choose, along with the reasoning. In both cases, the transition will happen in phases, and the old system will remain online until you provide written approval.
Stay with what you have—the version that's still being supported.
It’s your decision, whether it stems from an obligation or a desire to stay in control: in either case, it stands, and we won’t try to make you change your mind. There remains only one version of SharePoint maintained on-site: the subscription edition. Depending on your starting point, we ’ll migrate an existing farm to it—whether it was set up in 2016 or 2019— build a new one, or bring back what was moved elsewhere. We’ll outline below what this choice entails: no on-site staff, no cold storage, and the patch remains with you. This is a service we haven’t abandoned.
Rebuild the automations first.
A stalled process is holding someone up today: this takes priority over any migration issues, and it can be done just as easily on your servers as online —the workflow engine on SharePoint Server on one side, Power Automate on the other. We take each automation process based on what it produces—a validation, a notification, a created folder—and rewrite it. This is the only time when we can remove steps that no one justifies anymore: a replica reconstruction is a missed opportunity.
Focus on document management, not on moving files around.
Copying your directory structure exactly as it is into SharePoint would yield a worse result than the starting point. The useful work involves deciding which characteristics define a document rather than its location in a folder, which retention periods apply, and which documents remain confidential even when they are released. This isn’t an IT project: it’s a reorganization, and it must be carried out in collaboration with business units. The choice of hosting comes later, and it doesn’t change anything about this work: whether you host it on your own server or use a third-party provider, Microsoft 365 receive exactly the same classification scheme.
Nothing urgent. A comparison, and a decision.
Your farm is running the supported version; it’s been patched and is doing its job: there’s no rush, and we won’t make one up for you. What makes sense at this point is an honest three-year comparison— servers, licenses, backups, and operating hours on one side; subscription, storage, and recent features on the other. Sometimes the comparison suggests not changing anything: we’ll say so when that’s the case, and that’s precisely why it’s important to know how to do both.
The catch, in your case
Your hybrid search no longer searches both sides at the same time. The internal service that powered the old hybrid search was Microsoft 365 was removed on June 30, 2025: without upgrading the farm to version 25H1 of the subscription edition or a later version, on-premises content and tenant content can only be searched separately. This is the kind of issue that no one reports, because no error message appears—people simply assume that “the search isn’t working.” The first thing we check is the actual version of the farm, not the one specified in the contract.
A 2016 or 2019 farm is not only end-of-life: it is already a known target. In July 2025, a remote code execution vulnerability on SharePoint on-premises was actively exploited—Microsoft identified two state-sponsored groups and a third actor that deployed ransomware on servers exposed to the Internet. The fix involved more than just installing the patch: it required rotating the server’s encryption keys, applying the update, rotating them a second time, and then restarting the web service. As of July 14, 2026, this specific patch is no longer available for the 2016 and 2019 versions.
The emergency brake is already engaged, and the other is at its limit. The temporary search restriction—the list of authorized sites—has not accepted any new activations since July 31, 2026. The only remaining restriction is site-by-site discovery restriction: it requires a Copilot license, it does not change any rights, and on a site with more than 500,000 items, Microsoft states that its propagation may take more than a week. As for the site exclusion list, it is capped at one hundred addresses. Neither of these two mechanisms replaces the restoration of rights.
The obstacle you’ll encounter is a length limit, not a volume issue. The full path of a file, including folders and the filename, cannot exceed 400 characters. On a file share that’s fifteen years old, with eleven levels of folders and names that contain the date, the client, and the quote number, this isn’t an exception—it’s a significant portion of the system. It needs to be assessed before starting, and that figure is what determines whether to flatten the directory structure or abandon the copy.
It’s not the content that’s the problem; it’s what’s been built around it. Staying at home doesn’t protect you from anything in this regard: two widely used features lost their support on July 14, 2026, even in the subscription edition — basic authentication, on which most integration scripts written before 2020 rely, and InfoPath forms. An add-in installed on the farm, an integration that writes using a service account, an in-house development project: each one must be checked individually, and some must be rewritten. An inventory of these integrations is the first thing we ask for, and it does not depend on the hosting choice.
The one thing we never keep an eye on is storage. Your organization’s capacity is 1 terabyte, plus 10 gigabytes per purchased license: that’s plenty—until the day when version history, recycle bins, and image libraries double the usable volume. Microsoft puts it bluntly: an organization that exceeds its limit risks being switched to read-only mode, at which point users can no longer add or modify anything. This can be managed—through cold archiving, version retention, and emptying the trash—but someone has to keep an eye on it.
How AI Is Changing Your Life
It’s already there, so for everything running on the tenant, the order of operations is reversed: we shut things down while they’re still running, starting with the sites that handle payroll, contracts, personnel files, and ongoing cases. It’s doable—in fact, that’s what we do most often—but it’s simply more inconvenient than doing it beforehand. Whatever remains on your servers isn’t affected: the site agents are a Microsoft 365.
You have the one thing most people lack: time ahead of you. Use it to review permissions, not to wait—the availability of site administrators won’t get any faster. Deploying AI on properly configured permissions goes off without a hitch; the opposite becomes apparent within a week.
It’s not on the agenda, and that’s a perfectly defensible position. Just keep two things in mind: the launch no longer depends on an administrative decision as of mid-June 2026, but on a license being granted; and the review of rights is useful even without AI—it’s just less urgent.
What You'll Receive
- The Access Map: Sites, Public Shares, Open Links, Guests, and Sites Without an Owner
- A list of what doesn't migrate—and why—with the corresponding number
- A Proposed Scope of Work: Scope, Workload, Timeline, Deliverables
This conclusion is indicative: it is based on your four answers, without any knowledge of your circumstances. It does not constitute an offer. The preparation of the offer is free of charge; the audit is the first step in the engagement. We will respond within 24 business hours.
Copilot doesn't break anything. It reveals.
It does not grant any rights
An agent responds with what the person asking the question could already open: nothing more, ever. That’s not where the difficulty lies. The difficulty is that no one, in a house of two hundred people, knows what “could already open” actually means after ten years of sharing done in a hurry.
It eliminates the friction that used to protect
A document that was shared far too widely was protected by the fact that no one knew it existed: search engines had trouble finding it, it was hard to locate, and the file name gave nothing away. A question asked in French clears these three obstacles at once.
It doesn't change the risk; it changes the date.
This excessive income disparity existed before, and it might never have come to light. What has changed is that it’s now coming to light—anyone can discover it on a Tuesday morning simply by innocently asking how much a coworker earns.
Search Restrictions
An organization-wide list of authorized sites, intended as a temporary measure while the terms of use are reviewed. Microsoft itself states that it is not a security boundary and does not change any permissions: files that a user has already opened or received via direct sharing will continue to be accessible.
Its actual limitations: a maximum of 100 sites on the list, a side effect on search results throughout the entire home—including for those who do not use AI—and, as of July 31, 2026, no new activations will be possible.
The Discovery Restriction
This is applied on a site-by-site basis. It removes the site from search results across the entire organization and from AI responses, and it also removes the entry points: no more Copilot button, no more assisted actions menu, and no more agent creation on that site. Again, it does not change any access rights.
Its actual limitations: it requires a Copilot license, it is marketed as a temporary solution, and on a site with more than 500,000 items, the update may take more than a week. The agent exclusion list, meanwhile, is capped at 100 addresses.
Neither of these two safeguards solves the problem, and Microsoft doesn’t claim otherwise: both are documented as temporary measures, to be removed once the permissions have been validated. The only thing that solves the problem is to take back control of access— site by site, with a designated person in charge for each one, and the right to say no. That is exactly the mandate we are taking on, and it involves human effort before it involves tools.
The Two Houses
At your place or at Microsoft: both are correct answers.
We can do both: set up and operate a farm at your location, or take you to Microsoft 365. That’s where our advice comes from —when we have a firm grasp of both options, we can choose the one that best serves your needs and goals, rather than the one we know how to sell. That’s why the following table presents both options along with their pros and cons, rather than a single “right” answer followed by a counterexample.
At Home, on the subscription edition
This is the only version of SharePoint still maintained on-site, and we’ve been deploying to it directly since 2016 as well as since 2019, by migrating the databases. This choice is perfectly justifiable: it’s necessary when a text, a mandate, or a contract prohibits external hosting—and it’s a deliberate decision when you have the team and want to retain control.
- +The data never leaves your premises, and this can be verified without relying on a contractual commitment from a third party
- +You remain in control of the update schedule: nothing changes behind your back, and no features appear without your approval
- +Deep integrations and in-house developments remain possible even where the online service does not allow them
- —No Copilot SharePoint, no site agents, and no cold archiving: these are services from Microsoft 365
- —Patching, monitoring, and recovery are your responsibility— and a farm exposed to the Internet is a well-documented target
- —The real cost isn't the license—it's the servers, the database, backups, and operating hours
We install, migrate, and operate SharePoint on-site. This is a line of work we haven’t given up on.
Microsoft 365, with data from Switzerland at rest
Switzerland is one of the countries where Microsoft is committed to the local region. For SharePoint, OneDrive, Exchange, Teams and Copilot, the commitment to data residency at rest is subject to the product terms— provided that the tenant’s default region is Switzerland, which is the case: a tenant created ten years ago does not necessarily have it.
- +The content of a site and the files uploaded to it OneDrive remain stored locally
- +No more servers to maintain, and the latest features— agents, cold archiving, governance—are available
- +A paid option, Advanced Residency, extends the commitment to a specific local data center and to more services, and provides priority migration
- —You no longer have control over the schedule: a role can be assigned without any administrative action, such as the agents in June 2026
- —You are subject to the service’s six limitations: path length, fee thresholds, and the organization’s quota
- —Compliance is based on a contractual agreement that you need to understand and have your legal counsel review
That’s the most common response, even when it comes to sensitive data— but “the most common” has never meant “yours.”
What the law says—and what it doesn’t say. The Federal Data Protection Act does not prohibit external hosting: it requires that you know where the data is located, who has access to it, and that you be able to prove it. The two columns above allow you to demonstrate this. What distinguishes them, therefore, is almost never the law: it is your contracts, your client, your industry, your objectives—and your desire to remain in control. We’ll tell you what we would do in your shoes, and why; we won’t tell you that one of the two columns is outdated.
The Numbers
Six constraints that determine the project.
None of them are secret: they’re all published. But they’re almost never revealed until you’ve started, and each one has already thrown a schedule off track. Here they are, along with what everyone thinks they are versus what’s actually written.
| The limit | What We Believe | What Is Written |
|---|---|---|
| The Length of the Path | Whether a file passes or fails depends on its size. An office document is a few megabytes, so it's not an issue. | What is written: The full path, including folders and the file name, cannot exceed 400 characters. On a 15-year-old file share, with folders at 11 levels and names containing the date, the client, and the quote number, this is not an exception—it’s a significant portion of the system. It’s measured beforehand, and it’s this figure that determines whether the directory tree needs to be flattened. |
| The number of items | A library can hold millions of files, so you can easily upload an entire network drive to it without a second thought. | What iswritten: 30 million, yes. But once a list, library, or folder contains more than 100,000 items , you can no longer break the inheritance of rights or restore it. In other words: the massive library we create to make our lives easier is precisely the one on which we will no longer be able to apply specific permissions. The structure must be decided before the first item is added. |
| Specific Rights | You can assign a specific permission to each folder, and even to each file: that's what the network drive did. | What is written: Thesupported limit for single authorizations is 50,000 per list or library, but the general recommendation is 5,000. A tenfold difference between what is feasible and what is reasonable: this is Microsoft’s admission that a permissions model replicated folder by folder will not work. Permissions are set per site, not per folder. |
| The organization's inventory | The storage capacity is ample, and we can always buy more if needed. No one has ever filled up a terabyte with documents. | What’s written: The capacity is 1 terabyte plus 10 gigabytes per purchased license. What fills it isn’t the document itself but its history: up to 50, 000 major versions per file, plus the trash bins, which also count. And the consequence is written in black and white: an organization that exceeds its limit risks being switched to read-only mode. No one can add or modify anything anymore. |
| Synchronization on the workstation | We synchronize the libraries on the workstations, just like a network drive, and users don't notice the difference. | What it says: The recommendationis to not exceed 300,000 files per synchronized library — and the same limit applies to everything a computer synchronizes, including shortcuts, even if not everything is open. Beyond that, you don’t get an error message: instead, you experience slowness that users attribute to SharePoint, and technically, they’re right. |
| Moving Content | Once online, we can reorganize: we can move a folder from one site to another whenever we want, since it's the same service. | What is written: A transfer or copying operation between sites is limited to 100 gigabytes and 30,000 files; a file- OneNote d to 2 gigabytes; and a copy between geographic regions is limited to 15 gigabytes per file. A large-scale reorganization cannot therefore be done with a mouse: it is planned in batches, like a migration. |
We measure these six metrics across your system during the audit, and the results often change the scope of the project: that’s when we discover that a significant portion of the files has a path that’s too long, or that a library has already crossed the threshold beyond which permissions become locked. Sometimes the conclusion is not to migrate everything. We document this when it happens: a scope that we cannot defend before senior management does not survive the first review.
Without any visible warning
Four things have stopped, and no one told you.
Four calls, and four support requests that all start with the same phrase: “It was still working last week.” None of them come with a clear error message: something isn’t working anymore, and no one can pinpoint when the problem started.
Your old automations no longer run
In Microsoft 365, the creation and execution of workflows SharePoint 2013 were disabled for existing customers. The remaining workflows can now only be opened as raw XML files, and no extension options were planned.
What we do: We use the assessment tool Microsoft 365 on your tenant to identify what was already in place, then we rewrite the processes that matter using Power Automate —eliminating, along the way, the steps that no one could justify anymore.
Your integration scripts are no longer authenticating
Basic authentication—a username and password sent with the request—is no longer supported, even in the subscription edition. There were, however, early signs of this: since the September 2024 update, it had already become impossible to create a new web application based on it.
What we do: We log every incoming call, and then we forward it to a trusted identity provider. This is the replacement method that Microsoft recommends, and it requires processing the scripts one by one.
Your InfoPath forms have reached the end
InfoPath Forms Services is no longer supported, including in the subscription edition. These are often the oldest and most frequently used forms in an organization: a leave request, a work order, or an employee onboarding form.
What we do: We convert them to Power Apps, which is what Microsoft explicitly recommends. This is a good opportunity to make them usable on a phone—something InfoPath has never been able to do.
Your hybrid search looks on both sides separately
The internal service that powered the previous hybrid search has been removed. Unless you upgrade the farm to version 25H1 of the subscription edition or a later version, on-premises content and content from Microsoft 365 can now only be searched separately.
What we do: First, we check the actual version of the farm—not the one in the contract. Then we decide whether to set up the farm or handle the matter in the migration, which is often less expensive.
Our Approach
Nothing will happen until the access map is in place.
It is this policy that sets us apart, and it is non-negotiable: we do not move documents unless we know who will be viewing them. The fourth step is the one that costs the least and provides the greatest peace of mind: the old environment remains in place until you provide written approval.
Inventory and Access Map
We identify what actually exists: sites, libraries, volumes, versions, farm versions, connections, and surviving automations. And above all, the map of access: organization-wide shares, open links, guests, and sites with no identified owner.
The six limits published by Microsoft are measured here, based on your own data. It is this measurement that determines the actual schedule, not the other way around.
The decision, including cost estimates and options that were ruled out
We outline the possible courses of action, quantify each one, and explain why the others are ruled out. A decision-making document that shows only the selected option cannot be defended before senior management.
This is also where we cut out what doesn’t migrate—and there’s always something. Saying it now costs a meeting; discovering it along the way costs a wave.
The Construction of the Target
The sites and thematic networks, the characteristics that describe the documents, retention periods, confidentiality labels, and rights by profile. Then the tests, conducted from actual workstations and on each site —a test performed from an administrator’s workstation proves nothing.
The access review begins here, in parallel: each site is approved by someone who has the authority to say no.
The migration in waves, the old one still standing
Service by service, on agreed-upon dates, with a final review of any discrepancies. The production environment is never shut down without your written approval, even when everything has gone smoothly and the resource appears to be idle for no reason.
We're in for a few weeks of running two systems simultaneously. That's the price of a reversible decision, and we're not negotiating it.
Archiving, corrections, and someone to proofread the rights
A document management environment does not stabilize on its own: sharing resumes, guests accumulate, and the volume of files increases. Access reviews must be conducted on a fixed schedule, with a designated person in charge—this is the only role in this type of project that has no equivalent on a network drive, and it is the one that people often forget to assign.
We can continue under a service contract, or hand over the work to your teams, including the documentation. The choice is yours.
Let's talk about your situation
What is your situation?
Seven entry points. These are the seven phrases used to call us; all you have to do is recognize yours.
Your server SharePoint is no longer up to date
A farm from 2016, 2019, or earlier. It works, no one is complaining about it, and that’s exactly what makes it dangerous. There’s no reprieve to be had with this product: there are only two options—upgrade to the supported version or walk away.
A Copilot license has arrived, and no one knows who can see what
The good news: it can be fixed—and quickly. The bad news: it has to be worked out with the business stakeholders, not in a console.
Your documents are still on a network drive
Or in a document management system from another vendor, or with an online storage provider. The migration is a familiar process: the challenge isn’t the volume of data, but rather the excessively long paths and the directory structure—which must not be replicated under any circumstances.
A process has stopped, and no one knows what it was doing anymore
A " workflow," a form, a notification that no longer arrives. We find what it used to generate, rewrite it, and document it this time—so that the next service outage won't turn into an investigation.
You are merging with or separating from an entity
Bringing two tenants together, or finalizing a lease with all the necessary documents, rights, and history. It’s a task in its own right, with its own pitfalls—and it’s not handled like a migration routine one.
"We can't find anything," and it's not a technical problem
The search works: the problem lies with the documents that aren't described. No relocation can fix that. The solution is to decide what defines a document—and to stick to it.
Are you looking for a team to lead your project, or to strengthen your own team?
We can take on the entire project, or we can assign an engineer to your team for a fixed period. We have been licensed to provide staffing services since 2018, which makes the second option just as simple as the first.
Why Choose Us
We make the most of both worlds.
We build and operate farms SharePoint on-site, and we work with tenants Microsoft 365. This isn’t just another line in a catalog: it’s what allows us to advise you on your challenges rather than on our offerings. A service provider who can only provide one of these two responses will always assume it’s yours.
The engineers you meet are the ones who will do the work
Not a salesperson accompanied by a pre-sales representative. And the same engineers handle both on-site and online support: the one who recommends a solution is also the one who knows how to build it. Three offices in French-speaking Switzerland: Renens, Sion , and Châtel-Saint-Denis.
We take over environments that we didn't build
A farm set up by someone else, a tenant whose rights have lapsed, a migration one that was started and then abandoned— these are often the very reasons that bring us to a client. We don’t ask to start from scratch in order to accept a mandate.
We'll tell you how much the on-site service costs you, and how much Microsoft 365 it costs you
Both come at a cost, and they aren’t the same expenses. We calculate the cost of both, including the hours your own teams spend on operations— the expense that cost comparisons always overlook, and the one that most often tips the scales in making a decision.
What we build must be able to stand on its own without us
Documentation, training for your administrators, and a written permissions template. We can continue under a service contract; we don’t seek to make ourselves indispensable. A service provider you can’t do without isn’t a good service provider.
Frequently Asked Questions
What we're asked to do before we begin.
The eight questions that come up on every first date—including two on this site— are the ones we’re asked most often. The answers are deliberately specific: a vague answer at this stage isn’t helpful to anyone.
Should we put everything on SharePoint Online?
No, and that’s rarely a good idea. In almost every park we audit, there are sets of documents that cost more to migrate than they’re worth: archives that no one ever opens, files with path lengths that exceed the limit, and libraries tied to software that will be replaced in two years.
Those collections either don't get moved at all, or they're moved to cold storage rather than to a living library. What matters is that the cutoff point be determined based on numbers and documented, rather than being determined by what was easiest to migrate first.
Can our data remain in Switzerland?
Yes. Switzerland is one of the countries where Microsoft is committed to a local region, and for SharePoint, OneDrive, Exchange, Teams , and Copilot, the commitment regarding data at rest is governed by the product terms—provided that the tenant’s default region is indeed Switzerland. This is a valid point, because a tenant created ten years ago may not necessarily have that setting.
There is also a paid “Advanced Residency” option, which extends the commitment to a specific local data center and additional services, with priority given to migration tenant priority. We recommend this when the request comes from an auditor with a specific date; it is not the default.
Do we really need to leave the site?
No. We install, migrate, and operate farms SharePoint on-premises, and that’s a line of business we haven’t given up. The subscription edition is still supported, receives regular updates, and we’ve been deploying directly to it since 2016 as well as since 2019. Keeping your documents on-premises is a perfectly valid decision— whether due to regulatory requirements or simply because you want to retain control over the update schedule.
What is not justifiable is sticking with a version that no longer has any patches. These are two different issues, and they are often confused: “staying at home” and “staying on the 2019 version” are not the same thing.
Can we keep our 2016 or 2019 server for another year or two?
Technically, yes: it doesn't stop working. But there's no extension you can buy. For Exchange, Windows Server and SQL Server, there is a paid program for extended security updates; for SharePoint Server , there is none. As of July 14, 2026, 2016 and 2019 will no longer receive any updates at all.
And the risk is not just theoretical. In July 2025, a remote code execution vulnerability on SharePoint on-premises was actively exploited against servers exposed to the Internet: Microsoft identified two state-sponsored groups and a third actor that was deploying ransomware. A vulnerability of this type today would no longer be patched in either the 2016 or 2019 versions. If you choose to wait, you must at the very least take the farm offline.
The least expensive option isn't always the migration : setting up the same farm on the subscription plan puts you right back in the system without having to move anything. We’ll provide cost estimates for both options.
Will Copilot show people things they shouldn't see?
It will never display anything that the user couldn't already open. This isn’t a marketing promise—it’s how it works: the responses respect existing rights. The problem lies elsewhere: in most households, what people “could already access” is much broader than management imagines, because ten years’ worth of content shared in a rush is never reviewed.
What AI eliminates is the friction that used to provide protection: a document that was shared incorrectly was, in practice, impossible to find. A question asked in French makes it findable. The answer, therefore, is not to restrict AI—the two measures intended for that purpose are documented as temporary, and one of them no longer activates— the answer is to reclaim the rights.
How long does it take to transfer ownership?
The technical part is quick: just a few days to create the access map and identify high-risk sites. What takes time is the decision—and it’s not up to us: we need one person at each site to agree to specify who is authorized to see what, and to sign off on it.
For a company with two to three hundred employees, allow four to eight weeks for sites that pose a real risk—payroll, contracts, personnel files, ongoing matters—followed by a fixed-schedule review process. We do not bill for the time spent waiting for approvals; we coordinate them, which is not the same thing.
What about our files? Will we lose the folder structure?
We lose some of it, and that’s by design. Replicating an eleven-level directory tree replicates all the flaws of the network drive, plus the path length limit, plus a permissions model that the platform itself advises against: the general recommendation is five thousand unique permissions per library, whereas a folder-by-folder breakdown results in many more.
Instead of folders, we use attributes: the client, the document type, the year, and the case. A single library can then be viewed by client or by year as needed, without moving a single file. The transition requires support—this is the part of the project we advise you not to underestimate.
Are you going to keep running it, or are you leaving?
Both options are possible, and the choice is yours. We can continue under a service contract: Level 2 and 3 support, periodic review of access rights, inventory tracking, and patch management. We can also transfer everything —including documentation and access rights templates—to your teams or your usual service provider.
What we don't do is build an environment that no one but us knows how to maintain. We're not trying to stay; we're trying to ensure that your administrators know how to maintain the target after we're gone.
About the Documents
What a project SharePoint always touches.
A documentary project is never a standalone endeavor: it touches on personal files, email, permissions, the servers that power the farm, and sometimes two tenants who need to be brought together. Here are the twelve neighbors it encounters.
Let's start with the access map
Tell us where your documents are stored, what’s going on, and whether you’ve received a Copilot license. We’ll get back to you with a scope, workload, timeline, and specific deliverables—along with a list of what we don’t recommend you do.
Preparing a quote is free; the audit is the first step in the engagement. We’re happy to arrange a meeting with the engineers who will be doing the work. We’ve been licensed to provide staffing services since 2018: an engineer SharePoint can also join your team for a fixed term.
Who at your organization can say today who has access to the personnel file?
If someone can answer from memory and prove it with just two clicks, your rights are guaranteed: turn on the AI—it won’t throw any surprises your way.
If the answer is “we’d have to look into it, ” then it’s no longer a matter of documents. It’s a matter of rights, and it must be addressed before anything else—not after the first incident.