Integrate Sharepoint with WordPress for seamless document management
Developed by Microsoft as a web-based collaboration platform, SharePoint enables users to securely store, organise, share, and access vast amounts of information from any device, making it indispensable for over 200,000 organisations. Most widely trusted by global brands as a central document management system, its features cover everything from version control to workflow automation, ensuring compliance and consistency across even the most dispersed teams.
Additionally, SharePoint can seamlessly serve documents and reports to the public where needed, automatically converting files into a web-friendly PDF format. As such, integrating the system with WordPress is essential for enterprises that need to harness the strength of both platforms, resulting in a unified, efficient solution for document management.
How you can integrate Sharepoint with WordPress
There are several ways to integrate SharePoint with WordPress, each offering different levels of complexity and functionality:
Embedded iFrames
For organisations looking to simply display SharePoint-stored content within a WordPress site, it’s possible to embed it via an iFrame. Although a really quick and easy method, it’s worth noting that embedded content limits interaction, reduces usability, and may not support all SharePoint functionalities.
API Integration
By creating a custom WordPress plugin or using a code snippet to fetch data directly from SharePoint’s REST API, any content stored within the document management system can be displayed across a WordPress site. This method requires extensive coding expertise as well as security and authentication handling, however it offers full control in terms of how, what and where data is presented, and can save development costs across the longer term if well-executed.
Ready-made plugins
For organisations looking for an off-the-shelf solution, pre-built WordPress plugins – such as WP SP Manager – can simplify and speed up the setup of a SharePoint integration. Importantly however, costs can mount up depending on the number of pages, sites and users in a multisite network, and plugin limitations can be a major blocker for brands that need greater flexibility.
Embedded libraries
Alternatively, embedding SharePoint document libraries in WordPress can enable users to access documents directly within the CMS, however, organisations should carefully consider what level of customisation and interaction is required before opting for this method, as it offers limited capabilities in these areas.
Webhooks
Via Power Automate – Microsoft’s end-to-end cloud automation platform – data synchronisation can be automated between SharePoint and WordPress and triggered by certain events, such as the creation of a new item. By creating and configuring a webhook flow to make requests to a WordPress site’s REST API to create or update content, manual effort can be significantly reduced.
Unlocking archives for Amnesty International
As the legacy document management system of Amnesty International, SharePoint holds over 150,000 documents on behalf of the human rights organisation, including digitised materials dating right back to the 1960s. With such a vast archive and the complexity of multilingual documentation, Amnesty needed a robust integration to make this wealth of information accessible across its WordPress multisite network.
To meet this objective, the Big Bite team developed a custom integration using SharePoint’s REST API, enabling secure authentication and real-time synchronisation of documents between SharePoint and WordPress. This included the build of a custom endpoint to automatically sync updates – whether documents are added, edited, or deleted – ensuring that the enterprise’s WordPress sites always reflect the latest changes.
Thanks to this seamless integration, Amnesty’s entire archive of legacy content, policies, and journals is now accessible to the public, and users can quickly locate specific documents by searching via tags, keywords, or specific document index numbers. As a result, its vast and complex repository is both navigable and user-friendly, preserving the organisation’s rich history and ensuring that vital information remains readily available.
To discover how you can seamlessly integrate Sharepoint into your WordPress site, speak with our team who can advise on the best solution for your organisation