In today’s world of digitalization, businesses often employ various strategic methods to enhance their customer relationships & data management processes. In the pursuit of achieving these goals, companies adopt multiple technology platforms.
Salesforce is one such innovative platform that enterprises use to manage their sales, service, and marketing processes, optimizing marketing campaigns, maximizing lead acquisition, minimizing sales cycles, delivering top-grade customer service, and maintaining long-term customer relationships. However, when it comes to document management, there are certain limitations as this is not a part of Salesforce’s core capabilities.
This is where SharePoint comes in. When it comes to Salesforce vs SharePoint, the difference is simple: Salesforce handles customer relationships, while SharePoint makes document management scalable and cost-effective.
This article provides a comparative analysis to help you determine which platform best suits your organization.
Understanding Salesforce and SharePoint
CRM and document management go hand-in-hand, but each platform specializes differently. To dive deeper, let’s start by breaking down each and its role in handling enterprise files.
What is Microsoft SharePoint?
SharePoint is one of the leading document management & storage platforms. Powered by Microsoft, it offers organizations an advanced, highly configurable, and relatively cost-effective document storage & collaboration platform. Through its cloud-based application, SharePoint Online, & the in-house application, SharePoint On-premise, it has a user base of over 250 million worldwide.
What is Salesforce?
Salesforce is a leading CRM platform that focuses on managing customer relationships and sales processes. While it primarily serves as a CRM, it also provides file storage and management functionality within its platform.
This brings us to an important consideration: how does Salesforce compare to optimizing document storage in SharePoint Online for better scalability?
Comparative Analysis: SharePoint vs Salesforce
| Feature | Salesforce | SharePoint |
|---|---|---|
| Primary Purpose | Customer Relationship Management (CRM) | Document Management & Team Collaboration |
| Document Storage | Limited storage; upgrades are costly | Scalable, flexible, and cost-effective storage |
| Collaboration | Collaboration mostly within the CRM context | Strong collaboration tools (Teams, Sites, sharing) |
| File Handling | Basic file storage, version control are limited | Advanced versioning, metadata, and file organization |
| Best Use Case | Managing customers, sales, and service processes | Managing enterprise documents at scale, collaboration, and compliance |
| Compliance & Security | Secured within the Salesforce ecosystem | Enterprise-grade compliance (GDPR, HIPAA, retention policies) |
In short, Salesforce is best for CRM, while optimizing document storage in SharePoint Online gives enterprises the scalability, collaboration, and compliance they need to manage growing volumes of business files effectively.
Salesforce Customer Portal vs SharePoint
When it comes to managing documents and customer interactions, businesses often compare Salesforce Customer Portal vs SharePoint.
Files uploaded to Salesforce Customer Portal are stored in Salesforce file storage, which is limited and costly at scale. In contrast, SharePoint Online offers scalable document storage, advanced collaboration, and greater customization options, making it a stronger choice for businesses handling large volumes of files.
Why Choose SharePoint as Secondary Storage to Store Salesforce Files
Managing documents using SharePoint is a smart choice considering the powerful capabilities of the tool. SharePoint can easily make your entire document management process organized and efficient.
A Slim Wallet Solution
As you might know, Salesforce allows a limited volume of files (10 GB) to be stored in its system. Whenever you opt for storage upgrades, the additional costs are significant, as each extra GB costs $5, regardless of the edition.
Storing Salesforce files in SharePoint will definitely reduce massive storage costs, allowing teams to work more efficiently without facing storage or performance issues. SharePoint storage includes a base of 1 TB plus an additional 10 GB for each qualifying licensed user.
Understand Salesforce File Storage Cost, Full Details Available
Organized Document Libraries
When you offload Salesforce files to SharePoint, they can be organized into document libraries, like “Customer Contracts” or “Marketing Assets.” For example, instead of all files sitting in Salesforce under a single account object, SharePoint lets you group them into structured folders, assign metadata, and keep things clean.
Leveraging SharePoint Tagging
When you’re dealing with a vast directory of files, even proper naming conventions might not be enough. That’s where SharePoint tagging becomes invaluable. You can apply metadata tags to documents and content, helping you categorize and organize files based on attributes like keywords, topics, or themes, making them easier to find and manage.
Bring Clarity and Control to your Document Organization
Real-time Collaboration
Imagine a sales rep uploads a proposal into Salesforce. By linking it to SharePoint Online, other teams, such as marketing or legal, can co-author the same document in real time through SharePoint without pulling it out of Salesforce. You can keep track of changes with full version history, rollback options, and co-authoring capabilities.
Multi-Site Support
If your teams are spread across different states, countries, or business branches, SharePoint’s multi-site architecture brings everything together. It centralizes documents from multiple locations into one unified system. This ensures consistent access for everyone, improves collaboration, and gives your organization full visibility into all files.
Seamless Integration with Microsoft 365
As part of Microsoft 365, SharePoint allows Salesforce files to connect effortlessly with tools like Word, Excel, Teams, and Outlook. For example, a contract pulled from Salesforce can be updated in Word, and changes sync instantly back to SharePoint.
XfilesPro Integrates Salesforce and SharePoint with Ease, Even Without Our Help
Advanced Compliance & Security
With sensitive customer data, compliance is non-negotiable. SharePoint offers next-level compliance with audit trails, eDiscovery, and data loss prevention. By storing Salesforce files in SharePoint, organizations ensure regulatory alignment (HIPAA, GDPR, etc.) while maintaining full visibility and control.
How to Integrate Salesforce with SharePoint for Document Management?
There are multiple ways to integrate both Salesforce & SharePoint for document management. However, most of the organizations adopt one method among the three below.
Files Connect
Salesforce Files Connect can be used to set up an integration between both platforms. However, this has certain limitations in terms of features & functionalities.
Custom Application
Building a custom app in-house can do the job; however, this can be expensive and time-consuming. Custom applications will never give you capabilities beyond basic requirements.
AppExchange Application
The third option is finding a ready-to-use application from AppExchange. Salesforce offers thousands of enterprise-grade applications through its AppExchange platform, built & maintained by third-party vendors.
Easy Guide to Salesforce SharePoint Integration
XfilesPro for Salesforce & SharePoint Integration for Document Management
XfilesPro is one of the most popular & advanced file management applications that can help with Salesforce-SharePoint integration in simple clicks & quick steps. The solution not only enables easy & automated Salesforce file storage in SharePoint but also offers multiple in-built features to deliver you a world-class file management experience within Salesforce.
With XfilesPro, Salesforce users can;
- Offload a large number of files to SharePoint.
- Drag and drop files from Salesforce to SharePoint.
- Organize files in SharePoint using template folders or custom folders.
- Automatically sync files between both systems.
- Preview files stored in SharePoint from Salesforce.
- Move files from 3rd-party Salesforce apps or customer portals to SharePoint.
- Tag files in SharePoint.
- Manage files in multiple SharePoint sites.
- Manage all files in the Salesforce1 mobile.
Conclusion
Salesforce and SharePoint serve different purposes, but together they create a powerful ecosystem for both customer relationship management and document handling. While Salesforce focuses on driving sales, service, and customer success, SharePoint complements it by making document management scalable, secure, and cost-effective.
For businesses looking to overcome Salesforce storage limits, improve collaboration, and maintain compliance, integrating Salesforce with SharePoint is the smartest move. With the right integration approach, especially through a ready-to-use solution like XfilesPro, you can streamline file management without heavy custom development or limitations.
In short, Salesforce keeps your customers closer, while SharePoint keeps your documents under control.
See the Transformation: Salesforce, Azure, and SharePoint Online Working Together for Global File Management
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