The Best SharePoint Tools

For computers to share information and resources, they are often connected in networks. A computer network is formed when two or more computers are connected by some form of network media. To create a computer network, a variety of network devices and media are required to work together.

Because of its capacity for multitasking and support for multiple users, a computer running the Linux operating system has the potential to be integrated into any kind of network, regardless of its size. The System / Network Administrator is responsible for ensuring that both the computer system and the network are operational at all times.

SharePoint Server comes pre-installed with monitoring features from Microsoft SharePoint out of the box, which enables the platform to be customized to better meet the requirements of individual businesses. These features include SharePoint metrics reporting, the collection of usage and health statistics, and diagnostic logging that gathers data about the environment of a SharePoint Server farm. Apart from all this information, here is a list of the best SharePoint tools to help you out in one place.

Here is our list of the best SharePoint Tools:

1. SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor – FREE TRIAL The server and application monitoring offered by SolarWinds enables users to save time and reduce the number of alerts received. Start a 30-day free trial.
2. ManageEngine SharePoint Manager Plus – FREE TRIAL You can generate reports on all program output, including statistics, security reports, activity reports, and usage analytics. Get a 30-day free trial.
3. Paessler PRTG Network Monitor – FREE TRIAL When it comes to managing individual devices, PRTG's skills begin to emerge and shine brightest. Start a 30-day free trial.
4. eG Enterprise The application also allows you to control the size of your SharePoint database, and detect capacity patterns before they materialize in slowdowns.
5. NSLookup It makes it easy to execute DNS lookups by providing a streamlined interface. Several Linux distributions already have NSLookup installed.
6. Metalogix It is a helpful tool for gaining insights into SharePoint, SQL servers, and the network as a whole, which enables you to swiftly detect and handle issues.
7. SPDocKit It is a fantastic auxiliary tool that supports SQL Server settings, and it can be used with bigger SharePoint implementations.

The Best SharePoint Tools

1. SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor – FREE TRIAL

Monitoring, alerting, and reporting capabilities, as well as server administration, are all included in the agentless application and server monitoring software that SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor provides. This reasonably priced and user-friendly server monitoring software supports a wide variety of hardware providers, such as Dell, HP, and IBM System x, in addition to the underlying hardware for your VMware hosts.

Key Features:

• Built for massive networks.
• Auto-discovery produces real-time network topology maps and inventory lists based on network devices.
• Has effective, easy-to-use alerting functions.
• Monitors SNMP and analyzes packets.

Monitoring and administration of servers for a variety of different hardware vendors: Monitor the health of the hardware for several different suppliers, in addition to the health and performance of the application and virtual infrastructure. Using SNMP, WMI, CIM, and VMware API protocols, SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor can monitor the critical health indicators of your HP ProLiant, Dell PowerEdge, IBM System x, server blade chassis, and VMware ESX/ESXi host servers. These are all supported platforms.

The application and server monitoring software offered by SolarWinds makes use of out-of-the-box application monitors for more than 150 different programs. This gives you the ability to keep a careful check on almost all aspects of your mission-critical business software applications.

Download Free Trial: Start a 30-day free trial.

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor Start a 30-day FREE Trial

2. ManageEngine SharePoint Manager Plus – FREE TRIAL

ManageEngine SharePoint Manager Plus includes management tools, such as tools for managing SharePoint user permissions and tools for managing SharePoint security groups and access rights. In addition, it enables continuous health monitoring for your SharePoint services, covering all endpoints and sites. If an issue occurs, it notifies you via notifications of what went wrong.

Key Features:

• It integrates smoothly with SharePoint's organizational structures and rights settings.
• You can analyze SharePoint's performance and consumption with Usage Analytics reports.
• Search history optimizes query performance.

Regarding service health, you can check the service's status, start and end times, and event IDs. Endpoint monitoring records connection failures as incidents for alerting; similarly, if a connection takes a long time to resolve, you will be notified to take note. The site statistics function allows you to view and monitor the online quota, allowing you to determine the maximum amount of storage accessible to each site tenant and the amount that has already been consumed.

In addition to these capabilities, SharePoint Manager Plus also contains reporting and auditing tools. Modifications to document libraries, lists, and security settings, such as permission and group changes, can be viewed at the component level.

This log data can be maintained for variable durations, allowing you to comply with auditing needs at a later date. You can generate reports on all program output, including statistics, security reports, activity reports, and usage analytics.

Download Free Trial: Start a 30-day free trial.

ManageEngine SharePoint Manager Plus Start a 30-day FREE Trial

3. Paessler PRTG Network Monitor – FREE TRIAL

Paessler PRTG Network Monitor is a seasoned and well-known workhorse in the field of network monitoring. Its perpetual license, which covers 500 sensors and begins at $1,750, is one of the most affordable options available. If you can get past the licensing system, this is an outstanding management platform that's built squarely for IT professionals who not only know what they're doing but also what they're managing.

Key Features:

• Objects that are constantly running and consuming resources.
• Templates and the size of the global heap.
• Any time, any place, any user, known or unknown.
• Total number of files sent and received.

If you can get past the licensing arrangement, you'll find that this platform has a lot to offer. It has a remarkable feature depth and device compatibility, and it is even user-pleasant, all of which win it our Editors' Choice label, which it shares with another competition called Progress WhatsUp Gold.

The evident attention to detail that has been put into producing network maps is the one visual exception to the generally aesthetically uninspiring interface. Other than that, the interface is not very impressive graphically. These are stunning in every way. However, to construct one of them, you will need to climb a very high learning curve first, even though they may be visually appealing.

When it comes to managing individual devices, PRTG's skills begin to emerge and shine brightest. Before you can proceed with adding a device, the first thing you need to do is set up all of your credentials. Since the server needs to make remote connections to other systems, this is a very common step for all agentless monitoring technologies. It allows for distant communication.

When that is finished, the rest of it is a piece of cake. Go to Devices and then click the “Add Device” button to add a single device. From there, you will need to provide an IP address, select the sort of device that you will be installing, and then choose whether or not you want it to automatically discover the necessary sensors that you might want to utilize. That sums it up well. If you would like to go about things differently, you may easily use auto-discovery.

A tree structure is displayed for each different kind of device. Simply selecting the auto-discover option brings about an instant start to the process of filling devices. Under each found device, there is room for more sensors to be added. I tried a few different auto-discovery methods, but I must say that this one is by far the most straightforward and tasteful of them all.

Real-time notifications are immediately given to the most relevant people, providing insight into the locations of problems to accelerate the process of correcting them. E-mail or text message notifications may be sent out as alerts. Start a 30-day free trial.

Paessler PRTG Network Monitor Start a 30-day FREE Trial

4. eG Enterprise

This program provides many IT monitoring and performance utilities, including general monitoring, diagnosis, and troubleshooting tools for applications, networks, user experience, storage hotspots, servers, and virtualization. In addition, eG Enterprise provides SharePoint monitoring.

Key Features:

• Topological maps show system bottlenecks and dependencies.
• Real-user monitoring gives precise UX metrics.
• Both on-premise and cloud-based.

The monitoring options accessible with eG Enterprise afford you end-to-end visibility over your SharePoint setup, including sites and site collections, web apps and components, databases, services, logs, events, and even content growth. You may monitor your entire SharePoint infrastructure and set up alerts to let you know if a bottleneck has arisen, or if an uncommon pattern in behavior is taking place.

With historical reporting capabilities, you can undertake capacity planning and perform diagnostics. The technology also makes it easier to debug, as you can more quickly pinpoint which portion of the infrastructure is causing the lag.

Using eG Enterprise, you may improve performance concerning SharePoint sites and web pages, and content. By assessing the availability of services (including search, index, or timer job), you may evaluate whether your sites and pages are in excellent health.

Reports contain information on user activity, trends, and content growth, all of which might give hints as to how your sites and pages are doing and being used. The application also allows you to control the size of your SharePoint database, and detect capacity patterns before they materialize in slowdowns.

Importantly, you can utilize the built-in user monitoring to measure the experience of users on your SharePoint site. Your examination of the end-user experience can be reduced down to geographical regions to pinpoint slowdowns, which will assist you to establish which particular users have been affected when it happened, and where they are.

5. NSLookup

No question navigating the internet would be more difficult in the absence of DNS name resolving or an analogous service. A malfunction with DNS has the potential to flip our world upside down for an extended period. We are in luck since we have a tool called NSLookup, a command-line software that can assist us in troubleshooting DNS problems.

Key Features:

• Poll DNS servers for records, domain names, and IP addresses.
• Reverse DNS lookup.
• View authoritative domain information.
• Poll DNS servers for records, domain names, and IP addresses.

Use the command NSLookup with the domain name in question as the parameter to obtain the IP address associated with a certain domain name. The lookup operation will then be carried out utilizing the system's predefined DNS configuration settings.

There are several different commands available for you to use if you would want to obtain further information. You can seek the Start of Authority (SOA) by using the -type=soa command in conjunction with a URL. This will allow you to access information such as the domain serial number and the email address of the domain admin.

NSLookup makes it easy to execute DNS lookups by providing a streamlined interface. Several Linux distributions already have NSLookup installed; however, if you are using Ubuntu, Debian, or Linux Mint and you do not have it, you may run install dnsutils to get it. Installing bind-utils is an additional option available to users of CentOS, Fedora, and RedHat operating systems.

6. Metalogix

The Quest Software product known as Metalogix Diagnostic Manager is responsible for monitoring the entirety of the SharePoint system. As part of this process, it provides full insight into the content of your company, including where it is kept and who it is shared with. A level of visibility like this can, in particular, protect the sensitive information you own.

Key Features:

• Offers simple SharePoint monitoring, supporting versions as far back as SPS 2007.
• Sortable by farm, servers, pages, and groups.
• The Diagnostic Manager provides a simple method for monitoring.

Metalogix provides an easy-to-use dashboard that provides a comprehensive overview of your SharePoint setup. Because Metalogix treats SharePoint farms as a single entity rather than as a collection of individual servers, it can provide an all-encompassing perspective on the environment. The ability to identify underperforming servers and the problems affecting them is one of the benefits of having such a view.

You have the option of configuring this tool to deliver both manual and automated setups if certain parameters exceed the thresholds you have set. In addition, you have the option to enable both on-premises and cloud applications to send you alerts whenever new content is added.

In-Depth Analysis and Insights Metalogix will keep a close eye on your tool 24 hours a day, seven days a week to prevent any workflow disruptions and lost productivity that could be caused by SharePoint issues. In addition to this, it offers insights into SQL Server configuration as well as database fragmentation, allowing for these issues to be resolved alongside the others. Metalogix is a helpful tool for gaining insights into SharePoint, SQL servers, and the network as a whole, which enables you to swiftly detect and handle issues.

7. SPDocKit

In addition to managing SharePoint, SPDocKit is a useful tool for producing reports, carrying out audits, and other similar tasks. SPDocKit automatically adds data to farm documentation. SPDocKit is a tool that helps with farm documentation and also develops it. It creates it for you by performing a scan of your network and automatically customizing the settings. In addition, it will furnish you with SharePoint Analytics and real-time permissions monitoring.

Key Features:

• Helps save time by automating a large number of processes.
• Your data security will be improved, and it will be protected from breaches.
• Produces documents for the farm very quickly.
• Contributes to the preservation of the principles of least privilege.

In its most basic form, SPDocKit is intended to assist with SharePoint administration and auditing. It is designed to make your procedures more streamlined and reduce the number of boring tasks. The software is offered in two distinct editions: Farm, which is designed to manage on-premise farms, and Consultant, which is intended for use by MSPs.

Your data security will be improved, and any potential breaches will be avoided, thanks to the tool. It is a fantastic auxiliary tool that supports SQL Server settings, and it can be used with bigger SharePoint implementations.

Best SharePoint Tools – Editor’s Choice

Using a SharePoint administrator tool, you can monitor different components for issues such as latency and do more in-depth troubleshooting if an issue is discovered. When minor performance issues can have a significant impact on end-users, it is even more critical to monitor SharePoint performance closely.

Our top choice is SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor which makes use of a contemporary interface. Although it is an improvement over more dated solutions such as Nagios XI, the aesthetic appeal of this product is not quite on par with that of Progress Whatsup Gold. Having stated that, it is not only convenient but also makes it simple to find your way to the location you require.