About Us
Our team, are passionate about understanding your business needs, so that we can deliver a quality product that is right for your SharePoint environment, backed by outstanding customer service and care.
Lightning Tools is a global Independent Software Vendor (ISV) specializing in Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Office 365 tools and web parts.
Lightning Tools is a global Independent Software Vendor (ISV) that specializes in Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Office 365 tools and web parts. We formed in 2007, with our initial tool “BDC Meta Man”, and have since grown to offer a range of products to our customers worldwide.
At Lightning Tools, we put our customers needs first. We offer a range of products that fill genuine gaps within Microsoft SharePoint. Our product is not just the software itself however! When you buy from Lightning Tools, we ensure that you get outstanding customer care from our customer success managers and technical support representatives.
Lightning Tools is proud to have achieved the Microsoft Gold Partner status in Application Development, and in Collaboration and Content. We ensure that our in-house developers and technical support staff are Microsoft accredited, so that you benefit from a well developed and supported product.
Our products go through rigorous testing internally through our Quality Assurance staff before testing externally through SPCaf from Rencore for code quality.
“The Rencore Development Best Practice Certification enables companies that build solutions, product, and add-ins around SharePoint to check if they pass our rigorous tests and audits to sport our program’s seal of quality. With this seal, we approve highest security, sustainability, and effectiveness of the very product. Tested against our ISO 25010-based SharePoint specific metrics, our clients will be constantly reassessing their product quality to ensure they stay up to date with latest best practice once approved by us.”
Microsoft Office Apps and Services MVP and Lightning Tools CEO Brett Lonsdale has a strong passion for Microsoft SharePoint and enjoys seeing SharePoint and the Lightning Tools product range grow year on year.
Lightning Tools is proud to have achieved Microsoft Gold Partner status for both Application Development and Collaboration and Content.
Co-Founder and CEO - Brett Lonsdale (Office Apps and Services MVP)
Brett Lonsdale co-founded Lightning Tools in 2007 as a Microsoft SharePoint Independant Software Vendor (ISV) . Brett had a passion for Microsoft SharePoint and wanted to develop products that assisted SharePoint Administrators, Developers and End Users with tools that would assist businesses to focus on their needs.
Brett Lonsdale (Co-founder and owner of Lightning Tools) chose to specialise in Microsoft SharePoint when SharePoint 2003 was first launched. Brett had already successfully established a Microsoft SharePoint training company and helped author and teach Microsoft SharePoint developer classes. Later, Brett authored two Microsoft SharePoint books and contributing to many more including the “Developers Guide to the SharePoint Business Data Catalog” and “The Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Business Connectivity Services” books.
In 2007, Brett moved to Florida, and began to create Lightning Tools. Lightning Tools was initially created around a single product which was BDC Meta Man. BDC Meta Man was used worldwide by customers building connections to external data sources. We began to add to our portfolio based on other needs of our customers such as cross site collection rollup, Data Viewer, Discussion Forums, Permissions Management and Charting products.
In 2018, Brett was proud to have been awarded the prestigious Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Award for his SharePoint community involvement and contributions.
Brett enjoys speaking at SharePoint events worldwide on a variety of SharePoint subjects such as SharePoint Permissions Best Practices, SharePoint Hub Sites, SharePoint Column Formatting, and of course Business Connectivity Services.
“Without the full Lightning Tools team, we couldn’t deliver to our customers our promise. Lightning Tools is proud of the outstanding commitment and skill set of the developers, technical support team, and sales staff”
Brett is based in a small village called Shawell in England where he lives with his wife Sara, 3 amazing children, and an awesome dog.
