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SharePoint vs Box: Do you need both?

Discover how we saved a client over £22,000 in Box licensing costs by leveraging SharePoint and Power Automate. Compare the features, pricing, and use cases of SharePoint and Box to make informed decisions on the best cloud-based content management tool for your business. Find out how you can maximise your Microsoft 365 licensing and streamline your workflows without the need for multiple subscriptions.

SharePoint

Published: 23 August 2024

SharePoint vs Box: Do you need both?

See below how we managed to save a client of ours over £22,000 in Box licensing costs utilising SharePoint and Power Automate.

Is SharePoint better than Box?

I am often asked which is the best cloud-based content management tool for businesses, with the most common comparison I am faced with being SharePoint and Box.

In my perhaps (definitely) bias opinion, I would say SharePoint is the best for a number of reasons such as:

– Its deep integration with the Microsoft 365 stack
– Being able to automate a documents journey through the Power Platform
– Being able to create beautiful intranets and share all types of content such as news, on top of just general file storage

What is Box?

Box is a cloud-based content management, collaboration, and file sharing platform designed for businesses.

It offers secure storage and easy access to files from anywhere, emphasising simplicity and mobile access.

However, compared to Microsoft SharePoint, Box lacks the extensive customisation and intranet capabilities that SharePoint provides.

SharePoint deeply integrates with the Microsoft Office suite and offers robust tools for enterprise-level collaboration, workflow automation, and document management, making it a more comprehensive solution for businesses seeking a highly integrated and versatile platform.

Features of SharePoint and Box

Recently, I have seen a growing number of our clients utilising both Box and SharePoint, meaning they are paying for 2 licenses!

But is this necessary? To aid with this, I have created the following comparison table to help understand the features of both:

SharePoint vs Box Pricing

From the comparison table above, you can see that both SharePoint and Box have very similar offerings, but how do they compare when it comes to pricing?

Now, it is worth noting that the pricing above is not all that meets the eye, you will need to consider that:

– Both products offer discounts for annual subscriptions.
– Both products have enhanced features for the more expensive plans (e.g. Box has larger file uploads, Microsoft 365 has additional products).
– SharePoint storage options may seem limited, but included in that is 1TB storage per user in OneDrive – this means that storing your files in the right location is important.
– If you truly need unlimited storage, Box could be the solution for you. However, it’s worth doing the maths and calculating which is the most cost effective for your business.

Now we have an idea of the capabilities and pricing of both options, we can hopefully make a more informed decision on which one to choose, and whether you need both.

I think that both tools have their place and neither tool is necessarily better than the other in regard to file storage and external collaboration.

However, paying for both is simply unnecessary.

SharePoint vs Box: Real World Example

For the price the client was paying for Box vs. what they were using it for, it seems like a huge money sink. All the functionality mentioned above is achievable in SharePoint but would likely require a champion user to set up each project, which could take large amounts of time, and can be easy to make mistakes in configuration. Thats where we developed an automated solution. The process would be as follows: 1. An end user creates an entry into a SharePoint list, filling out information regarding a project / client such as the name of the project, the users who would need access, the domain it's to be locked down to, potential admins, whether files should be downloadable, etc. a. This is presented as an 'Admin Page' where users can see an overview of all projects, add ore remove users, or archive the project as a whole: 2. A Power Automate process would be triggered off the back of this that would go off and provision a SharePoint site, locking the site down to only be shared with the domain specified, as well as applying any of the other settings defined in step 1. a. The site template is modified such that when users log in, they are only presented with the following options on the site: b. The site permissions of the site are modified, with custom permission sets being created so granular access to files can be granted. The permissions are defined below: View Only - Members are only able to view the files Download - Members can view and download the files Add - Members can view, download, and contribute files to the library Full Access - Members have full access to the files and folders Along with the custom permission sets, the ability to print a document is disabled for the newly provisioned site, along with the ability to share documents for people who do not have full control of the site 3. Once the site has been provisioned successfully, it is shared with the users defined in step 1 and they are notified. The SharePoint list item is updated to state the process has been successful. Note: To be able to share externally and lock the sites down by domain, you must have the SharePoint admin setting for external sharing set to New and Existing Guests for SharePoint. You can also then lock down all 'internal' sites to not be able to share externally or lock it down to sharing with only certain domains. All of this is achievable through no additional cost or licensing bolt-ons to SharePoint, simply some Power Automate and SharePoint rest API trickery! Now, with all this being said, Box has many other features, not all of which are covered by the solution outlined above. However, our client needs were met with standard SharePoint features, saving them over £22,000 annually! So, it's definitely worth reviewing the features you currently use in Box, and if you are doubling up on both your SharePoint and Box licenses when you might not need to! If you want to go into more depth with the comparison of the two tools, please check out the sources here. If any of the above resonates with you, or you have a similar issue that you think could be achieved through your existing licenses, please contact [email protected] and we can get the ball rolling on helping you maximise what you can get out of your Microsoft 365 licensing.