Top 5 features of a SharePoint Intranet

In this vlog I discuss my Top 5 Features of a SharePoint Intranet within Microsoft 365.

Vlog: Top 5 features of a SharePoint Intranet

Click the image below to open the short video or continue reading this article for more information.

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SharePoint Intranet

Designing a SharePoint Intranet

As many followers of my videos will already be aware, I am a big advocate of creating out-of-the-box SharePoint solutions. Avoiding unnecessary custom code and modifications.

If you know what you are doing with SharePoint Online you can create some amazing Intranets that look modern, friendly, and engaging to your business.

Intranets provide a great boost to internal communications with not only news posts but events, useful links, and materials.

All of which is readily available on any device. Not only will your employees be accessing a Modern SharePoint Intranet via their laptops and computers. They will also expect to be able to access their Intranet via mobile phones and tablets.

The SharePoint app that you can install from the app store on your mobile devices makes for a great experience and super simple to access internal communications and information on the go.

SharePoint Mobile

Top 5 features of a SharePoint Intranet

Below are my top 5 features of a SharePoint Intranet that are readily available to all users of SharePoint Online.

5. News Carousel Layout

So, you might already be aware that modern SharePoint intranets have a news web part for displaying the latest internal and external news articles.

However, you might not know that you can change the layout of the news web part to an automated slider.

Intranet

4. SharePoint Auidence Targeted Navigation

This is not a new feature of SharePoint; it has existed since the dawn of time (well SharePoint). But it can be useful to have certain links only display to certain groups of users.

Now you can show/hide hyperlinks in both the site navigation and the Hub navigation bar by selecting up too 10 specific security groups or Microsoft Teams.

3. Organization Chart

This is a new web part that has been added by Microsoft into SharePoint Online. Previously, if you wanted to show a hierarchy of a Team and who they report too you would have needed to purchase a third-party plug-in web part.

Microsoft now provide this web part completely free and it can be a real asset to any SharePoint Intranet.

Org Chart

2. SharePoint Vertical Section Layout

Microsoft have put a lot of work into making SharePoint Online intranets look and feel so much better in recent years.

My favorite update to this is the vertical section layout that has been added to the communication site template.

This can be seen in the screenshot above to the right-hand side of the news carousel as a solid purple section of the page.

The layout gives a nice modern feel to the site and breaks it away from feeling like a stuffy corporate Intranet.

1. SharePoint News Digest

My number one feature of a Modern SharePoint Intranet is the SharePoint news digest feature.

Every time I demonstrate this feature to the comms team, I can visibly see their eyes light up. It is a great way to create quick and simple newsletters based on popular content that has already been created.

So often this feature will be used as a quarterly or seasonal update of what has been going on.

You can see an example of what the output email of the news digest looks like below.

Top 5 features of a SharePoint Intranet

SharePoint Online has come a long way with how the look and feel has been improved.

Most people that have distance memories of SharePoint as a stuffy document dumping ground are shocked to see how the user interface has recently improved.

It is worth reviewing all of the possibilities that SharePoint Online has out of the box such as using different layouts, sections, SharePoint color themes and new web parts. Before looking for third party plugins and customizations.

You can now also include PowerApp embeds in SharePoint pages to provide customization. If you are interested in PowerApps then please download our free PowerApps white paper.

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    Next Steps

    I hope you found my top 5 favorite SharePoint features useful and perhaps learnt a few things existed that you were not aware of beforehand.

    If you have any questions about getting started setting up a Modern SharePoint Intranet, please feel free to contact me with any questions.

    Author

    Dougie Wood

    Solutions Architect