A local software firm will soon host two free seminars that will help businesses on the Island to harness the power of a popular technology.Hundreds of thousands of businesses and organisations around the world use Microsoft SharePoint, but consultants at Bespoke Software say few use it to its fullest potential.“SharePoint is extremely flexible and customisable, you can use it to build applications for almost any business process that you have,” said Jacqui Kipfer, a business intelligence consultant for Bespoke. “But if you don’t know what it can do, it can be overwhelming to actually use it.”SharePoint is typically associated with intranet content management and document management. But recent versions can do much more. With a Microsoft Office-like user interface and integration with the Office suite, SharePoint can be used to provide document and file management, collaboration, social networks and more.“In our software development work with many on-island clients, we have noticed that a lot of companies have SharePoint but don’t know how to harness its power,” she said.Bespoke Software is holding two free educational events at the aimed at local business professionals who have or may need to use the software.“SharePoint has a huge amount of functionality, is highly customisable and can cover a wide range of technical skills such as web development, business analysis, database integration and programming,” Ms Kipfer said. “Most companies don’t have full time dedicated SharePoint developers to build systems for them, so they lack in house experience and technical skill.”“Our showcase events are aimed at showing business users and IT staff what they can do with SharePoint and how and how quickly it can be done.”The first event, “Case Tracking & Document Management” on Tuesday, September 18, is targeted at Lawyers or any other companies who need to track some kind of case — whether it’s a legal case, a claim or even a sales contact — anything that involves sharing information with others in the company. The showcase will demonstrate how to track documents, e-mails, clients, vendors, contacts and events associate with a particular case.The second event, “Submissions Tracking & Document Management” on Thursday, September 20, is targeted more at insurance and reinsurance companies who need to track the life cycle of a submission as part of their daily operations. A submission is much like a case in that it has documents, e-mails, clients, vendors, contacts and events that are associated with it and that information often needs to be shared and managed across many individuals within the organisation.The events, which are for both IT professionals and business professionals learning to use the application, will demonstrate how to utilise functionality within SharePoint to build fully functioning customised solutions in less than an hour.“If they are a business person, they’ll get a better understanding of what they can ask IT to deliver. If they are an IT person they will have a better understanding of what the tool can do.”Both showcases are free and are held from 8.30am to 10.30am at BUEI. Breakfast is also included. To register, visit www.bespoke.bm.