3 Integration with Microsoft 365 and other Microsoft tools

A major draw of SharePoint is the ability to integrate with other Microsoft tools, increasingly without any help from developers. Integrating Viva Engage feeds, lists of Teams spaces and OneDrive documents is straightforward and can often be done by content editors without needing to fall back on developers. There are also exciting opportunities to weave process improvement (using Power Automate, for example) and reporting (Power BI) into your intranet too. It also works the other way, so you can integrate the intranet experience into popular applications like Teams.

Having a close relationship between your intranet and your 365 suite of tools allows you to create a great digital workplace experience, while also using your intranet to drive adoption of Office 365 and establish some governance. The Microsoft Power Apps now also give us the ability to rapidly build custom apps that can integrate easily with your intranet – great for automation, advanced workflow, connecting to other company applications and more…

 

4 Flexible, scalable, customisable

One of the most powerful capabilities of SharePoint is its flexibility and scalability. It’s used for intranets both by companies with 100 employees and 100,000 employees and supports a range of capabilities including internal communication, content services, collaboration, search & findability and more. Flexibility and scalability come into their own as organisations restructure and as strategic priorities change over time. SharePoint is also customisable, so it is perfectly possible to craft an intranet (or even an entire digital workplace) truly wrapped around the way you work. Many IT functions want to avoid customisation if they can, but it remains an option for particular use cases, and we’ve worked on many SharePoint intranets that have customisation.

 

5 SharePoint supports most content publishing needs

Fundamentally intranets are about content, and you can fully utilise SharePoint for sophisticated content publishing and management to meet most of your needs around internal communications and where content needs to be carefully managed. Although communication sites have helped to bring more publishing capabilities to SharePoint, actually more sophisticated content publishing features like approval workflow, news templates, editorial calendars, automated content reviews and more tend to be included in in-a-box products.

SharePoint’s modern editing canvas makes it even easier to delegate content control out to colleagues and teams members – with simple point and click editing experiences, it has never been easier to manage pages and documents in SharePoint. 

 

6 Integrating collaboration into the intranet

Traditionally SharePoint has always been a strong collaboration platform, mainly through team sites. While perhaps Microsoft Teams has perhaps now taken over the crown as the flagship collaboration tool, a SharePoint intranet can still bring collaboration into the heart of the intranet experience and the daily flow of work. Team sites are still available, but easy integration of Microsoft Teams and Viva Engage means that the collaboration continues to be part of a SharePoint intranet.

 

7 Document sharing and management

Many organisations information distribution, collaboration, knowledge assets and project output remain resolutely document-centric. While that is perhaps not always ideal, it’s a fact. SharePoint’s relatively robust document library capabilities therefore have always been a valuable part of SharePoint, allowing for document sharing and distribution, knowledge management, collaboration and more. The easy integration of SharePoint libraries into your SharePoint intranet has always been a strong capability that is not always acknowledged.

 

8 Supporting personalisation and content targeting

Most modern intranets include personalisation capabilities, so that content can be targeted to different groups  such as all employees at one location, or in one division or function, or based on their seniority. This means that differently themed content can appear seamlessly together, targeted for each individual employee. Additionally, some intranets allow users to subscribe to different topics of interest.  SharePoint and SharePoint Online intranets can very effectively support personalisation and content targeting, leveraging easy integration with Active Directory profiles to deliver truly relevant intranets. It’s another reason why SharePoint is an excellent base technology for your intranet.

 

9 The modern experience

The development of SharePoint modern experiences with attractive designs, far easier publishing interfaces, better performance, some very useful site templates and a whole host of other improvements has been at the centre of SharePoint improvement over the past two years. This is very different from classic SharePoint it produces a far better intranet but also allows the intranet team to be far less reliant on the IT function, something which has been frustrating for many teams in the past. The modern experience is one of the things we love about SharePoint both as geeky developers and as SharePoint consultants too, helping clients implementing fantastic intranets.

 

10 Microsoft’s Ongoing Investment in SharePoint

The evolution of SharePoint, including SharePoint Online, is a testament to Microsoft’s continuous investment in its capabilities. A key highlight in this journey is the integration with Microsoft Viva, Microsoft’s latest employee experience platform. Viva brings together communications, knowledge, learning, resources, and insights, directly through the SharePoint environment. This integration significantly enhances not just workflow efficiency, but also enriches the entire user experience with personalized content and easy access to learning and development resources.

The advancement of AI and machine learning in SharePoint represents another significant stride, refining how we engage with the platform. These enhancements introduce smarter search functionalities and personalized content delivery, tailoring the SharePoint experience to individual user needs. The strengthened synergy between SharePoint and Microsoft Teams supports more fluid collaboration in today’s hybrid work environments, enabling seamless communication and content sharing.

User experience improvements in SharePoint, focusing on intuitive navigation and better mobile responsiveness, make it more user-friendly than ever. Additionally, security and compliance have seen substantial upgrades, ensuring that SharePoint aligns with current data protection and governance standards.

Looking ahead, the roadmap for SharePoint indicates Microsoft’s robust commitment to ongoing development and innovation. The potential integration of AI-driven tools like Copilot into SharePoint and the broader Microsoft 365 suite is particularly exciting. Imagine an AI assistant that not only enhances content management and creation but also automates routine tasks and provides advanced analytics. While the full capabilities of Copilot within SharePoint are still unfolding, its integration is a clear indication of SharePoint’s position as a cutting-edge solution for intranets, ready to adapt and evolve with the changing needs of businesses.

These ongoing developments in SharePoint, bolstered by the capabilities of Microsoft Viva, not only improve functionality but also reinforce our confidence in SharePoint as a top-tier intranet solution. SharePoint continues to evolve, meeting the complex demands of modern enterprises and shaping the future of digital workplaces.