Microsoft SharePoint provides a flexible platform for everyday document management for many organisations. Proarc EDMS delivers additional capabilities focused on major engineering and capital projects, where technical documents, commercial records, and correspondence must follow defined workflows and remain controlled, traceable, and ready for handover.
In this comparison, I'll highlight the key differences between SharePoint and Proarc with regard to the specific needs capital projects have for their document control.
Jump To:
- Can SharePoint Be Used as a Document Management System?
- Has My Engineering/Capital Project Outgrown SharePoint?
- SharePoint vs. Proarc EDMS for Engineering and Capital Projects
- Final Verdict
- FAQs: SharePoint for Document Control
Can SharePoint Be Used as a Document Management System?
Yes. SharePoint works well for general document storage, collaboration, and project files that do not form part of the official handover set. Documents that require formal document control, structured reviews, revision management, transmittals, traceability, and handover typically benefit from being managed in a purpose-built engineering document management system, such as Proarc.
As organisations apply SharePoint to the project domain, the limitations of folders, files, versions, and built-in workflows become painfully evident. It can start to feel less like a ready-made solution and more like a platform that needs significant investment in workflow design, information management governance, and constant upkeep. This raises an important question: does your project team want to build and maintain a document control framework in SharePoint?
This is often where the conversation starts:
"The IT department says we own SharePoint, so we should use it."
One project team we spoke with described the challenge this way:
“We implemented a global management system for policies, procedures, governing documents, standard documents, etc. We went for the ‘simplest’ solution, SharePoint. We struggled a lot, especially with metadata. Search was not accurate. Changes in structure created issues. Revision and versioning created issues, e.g. you couldn’t have a generic link to the latest approved revision of a document.”
That experience does not mean SharePoint is a poor document management platform. It just means that generic document management and engineering document control are different problems.
SharePoint or Proarc: Which is the Best Document Management System for Engineering and Capital Projects?
SharePoint can support basic document management for engineering and capital projects, but it is usually not enough on its own for formal document control. In complex projects where engineered equipment is highly specialised, teams are managing drawings, technical documents, supplier submissions, comments, approvals, and deadlines across multiple stakeholders. They need to know not just where documents are stored, but:
- What client, project, and work package does the document refer to?
- Which revisions were issued in what formats, to which contracting parties and who responded?
- What documents are on the project schedule’s critical path?
- How are actions taken on the document logged and tracked?
For organisations running complex engineering work or capital projects, good document management is only the starting point. The real requirement is controlled, traceable document processes that reduce risk and keep projects moving. While SharePoint can be adapted to support limited document control processes, the burden shifts to your team to configure workflows, define governance, and maintain consistency across revisions, approvals, and transmittals.
Has My Engineering/Capital Project Outgrown SharePoint?
If your team is asking SharePoint to do more than support simple storage and basic document management, it may be time to assess the cost and risk of maintaining a custom document control model. SharePoint can be configured for managing documentation, but major project handover usually demands stricter revision control, complete metadata, transmittal records, audit trails, and delivery package management than generic document libraries provide without significant configuration.
You may have outgrown SharePoint for document control if:
- You can’t accommodate client or project demands for document numbering, coding, and transmittal.
- Document retrieval and review is slowing your engineers down.
- You can’t easily determine which revision has been issued, and which revision has been responded to.
- Your team lacks a clear audit trail across comments, assignments, and dates.
- Overdue comments and workflows are not automatically surfaced.
- Project reporting on receipts, planned dates, or completed drawings is difficult or manual.
- Your engineers can’t trust AI responses sourced from your SharePoint system.
These are signs that basic document management is no longer enough, and that formal document control in an EDMS is essential.
SharePoint vs. Proarc EDMS for Engineering and Capital Projects
|
Requirement |
Why It Matters for Engineering and Capital Projects |
SharePoint |
Proarc EDMS |
|
Document Control |
Major projects depend on structured document control, not just file access. |
Can support reviews, approvals, and workflow steps, but often through added configuration rather than as an out-of-the-box document control model. |
Controlled collaboration, workflow, revision control, transmittal automation and tracking, approval visibility, and document status reporting. |
|
Handling Complexity |
As projects scale, manual coordination creates risk, delay, and rework. |
As document volume and process complexity grows, the proliferation of folders and file copies in SharePoint creates project risk. |
A better fit where projects are larger, documentation is heavier, and control and execution efficiency become more important. |
|
Revision Control |
In engineering, knowing the current approved revision is critical for compliance, cost, and delivery. |
Built-in version history can support basic document management, but engineering teams often need more than saved file versions, including clearer revision status, approval visibility, and traceability across the document lifecycle. |
Both version control and revision control, including configurable revision status codes and generating new revisions from prior ones. |
|
Metadata and Search |
Technical teams need to find the right document quickly across large, complex information sets. |
Can support general document classification, but projects require domain-specific metadata with contextual document relationships for accurate searching. |
Metadata, indexing, document numbering, and structured retrieval across projects and suppliers. Provides context for industry domain, essential for AI trust. |
|
Reviews and Approvals |
Review and approval control is central to project quality, schedule, and accountability. |
Can support review and approval workflows, especially for approval status, publication control, and basic process routing. However, engineering design reviews often require more specialised capabilities for technical markups, stamps, symbols, consolidated comments, PDF renditions, and formal comment sheets. |
Supports engineering-focused review and approval workflows, including concurrent markups, comments, signatures, due date visibility, role-based workflows, PDF renditions, and generated comment sheets for client and supplier review processes. |
|
Transmittals |
Transmittals are essential when managing client, supplier, and contractor communication. |
Can be configured to support some transmittal-like processes, but engineering transmittal control usually requires custom setup for coversheets, document numbering, distribution matrices, PDF renditions, package records, and correspondence tracking. |
Supports controlled transmittal processes, including automated transmittal generation, advanced distribution matrices, PDF conversion, automated transmittal cover sheets, document numbering, revision handling, delivery package preparation, and audit-ready records of who sent or received documents and when. |
|
Auditability and Status Visibility |
Project teams need to know who did what, what is overdue, and what is ready for release. |
Weaker visibility when teams are trying to manage current revisions and formal control processes. |
Clearer visibility into where a document sits in the planned review and approval structure, with due dates and status reporting. |
|
External Collaboration |
Capital projects often involve multiple suppliers, clients, and external reviewers. |
Collaboration with Microsoft 365 platform is very effective, but can’t maintain associations to official document revisions, and encourages risky proliferation of file copies in different apps and folders. |
Support secure external access, governed document co-authoring (via Microsoft 365, Microsoft Office), and controlled file exchange linked to the appropriate official document revisions. |
|
Integrations |
Engineering environments often need an EDMS to fit into a wider project systems landscape. |
Strong within Microsoft 365, but major capital projects require common project applications for design, scheduling, cost, and project controls. |
Integrated with popular project applications such as Primavera P6, TeamCenter, and SAP, as well as Ascertra portfolio apps including Mpower Project Controls software. |
Final Verdict: Is Proarc Better for Major Project Document Control than SharePoint?
Yes, Proarc EDMS is a better document control solution for major projects. Engineering and construction projects present challenging requirements for each project and client, such as contractual document delivery terms, specific coding, numbering, formatting, and distribution standards. They need support for project document control processes, not just the generic document management features provided by SharePoint.
The gap widens further when project teams want to run AI prompts on project documents and information. Engineering teams need assurance of domain-specific context for documents before they can trust any AI responses generated from them – and Proarc EDMS provides this level of trust.
Download the Proarc EDMS brochure today to see how we can meet your process requirements.
