DocRead for SharePoint

Assigning policies to groups inside SharePoint

DocRead for SharePoint is a policy management add-on for SharePoint and Microsoft 365. It targets policies and procedures to chosen groups of users. Almost any item held in a SharePoint library can be assigned, including office documents, videos, images and PDFs. Assignments are made from existing SharePoint lists, and audiences can be built from the people and groups already in the SharePoint environment, so there is no separate distribution list to maintain.

The company says users read and confirm documents inside SharePoint without being sent elsewhere. A feature called Smart Move keeps assignments accurate when documents are moved, and deadlines can be set so that completion is monitored automatically.

Tracking acknowledgements and proving compliance

Acknowledgement tracking is the core of the product. Reports and charts show which people have acknowledged each document and which have not, and drill-down views help an administrator find the teams or documents that are behind. The company says these records are what an organization needs at audit time, because evidence of who read what and when is gathered in one place. The product is positioned for compliance work in areas such as ISO 27001, COBIT and ITIL, and for regulatory requirements in general.

The company also offers DocSurvey, a companion product, and reports that its customers include many organizations across the world.

Deployment for Microsoft 365 and SharePoint Server

The company describes two deployments. DocRead for SharePoint in Microsoft 365 runs inside a customer's own tenant, while the SharePoint Server version supports organizations that still run on-premises servers. Both keep existing security, permissions and version control in place, so users never have to leave the interface to read and confirm a policy.

The product has been developed over more than a decade, and the company says it suits distributed organizations whose staff sit in several locations and use several devices. Administration is straightforward, and support is handled directly by the vendor, which the company says responds quickly.