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7 great SharePoint intranet site examples

Posted on by John Scott

1. The balanced intranet homepage

2. The knowledge collection intranet homepage

3. The daily work intranet homepage

4. The social hub intranet homepage

5. The subject hub intranet homepage or landing page

6. The GTD (Getting Things Done) intranet homepage

7. The News Centre intranet homepage

Intranets are highly flexible, scalable and valuable. They support a wide variety of use cases and processes and have multiple areas of value, including supporting communications, productivity, task completion, engagement and knowledge sharing. Inevitably different organisations will have different needs and priorities and the role of the intranet and its homepage often reflects this; an intranet for a global tax consultancy might look quite different to a small media company, for example. One size does not fit all.

The good news is that SharePoint intranets (and their homepages) are extremely flexible so organisations can invariably build an intranet that reflects their particular needs. One of the reasons for this is the sheer number of web parts that are available within SharePoint Online, straight out of the box.

Web parts are essentially building blocks with different functionality and features that can be combined together into multiple ways to build an intranet homepage. However, SharePoint does not have enough web parts to meet all modern intranet needs, which is why we built Lightspeed365, a set of additional web parts and features that enable you to build an even richer experience and wider variety of different homepages. You can achieve the intranet that your organisation needs, and that your users want.

We’re often asked about the kind of SharePoint intranet homepage experiences that be built using both SharePoint Online web parts and Lightspeed365. With so many different possibilities, there are a very wide variety of intranets to suit every need.

In this post we’re going to show you seven real world examples of very different SharePoint homepages that we have built and have a particular function or focus. You can use this post to help you get thinking about what your perfect homepage might look like.

Here’s seven SharePoint intranet site homepages that use both web parts and Lightspeed365 features.

1. The balanced intranet homepage

Intranets perform a huge variety of different functions and support multiple processes. A balanced intranet homepage provides an overview to reflect these multiple activities with a different web parts and features – supporting internal communications, improving productivity, driving collaboration and helping employees complete tasks. Large, global and complex businesses tend to adopt this kind of balanced homepage, helping a diverse workforce to stay informed, get things done, be engaged and find what they need.

In this example:

  • A personalised greeting helps make the intranet feel less corporate, and also indicates it is a personalised experience.
  • The news is displayed prominently to support internal communications, with an alert at the top for immediate operational or urgent messages.
  • The My Apps area provides a personalised launch pad to key apps and tools, to help employees complete their day-to-day work and drive productivity.
  • Tasks are highlighted in the dashboard section to help employees get things done, in this case leveraging the Viva Connection dashboard feature.
  • A middle panel provides a personalised overview of key tasks that employees need to complete, including relating to individual and team learning, as well as policies that must be read. Typically a feature like this could involve integrations with SharePoint-based solutions including policy management software such as Xoralia, or a Learning Management System like Learn365 from Zensai.
  • A “My news” area presents personalised news relevant to the individual, which is important for intranet adoption and valuable in highly diverse workforces.
  • Collaboration, discussion and dialogue is supported by the “Engage” panel which highlights activity within Viva Engage groups.

2. The knowledge collection intranet homepage

Intranets have proved to be adept at housing valuable reference information, the “one source of truth”.  This means intranets are often a key channel in supporting knowledge management and can act as an effective knowledge base for corporate or organisational knowledge. Typically, this kind of approach might be adopted by a professional services, consulting or engineering firm.  A knowledge collection intranet homepage encourages findability through search but also in encouraging links to resources.

In this example:

  • A prominent search box allows and encourages users to search for documents and through knowledge collections, with the potential ability to filter items on areas such as project type and country, using metadata based on the company’s taxonomy. There’s a link to a more advanced search for convenience.
  • A “go to” section provides links to key knowledge collections or resources by topic, providing an opportunity to discover knowledge items or to find what someone needs through browsing.
  • A significant proportion of the homepage is dedicated to personalised access to knowledge, including collections of knowledge, previous searches, personalised recommendations of knowledge (potentially based on role, preferences and previous searches), as well as curated sets of resources.
  • Calls to action encourage users to add knowledge to the collection as well as share useful feedback for improvement.

3. The daily work intranet homepage

Intranets can act as a central point for employees to keep on top of all their daily work and support them in their role. In this “daily work” intranet, the homepage acts more as a dashboard, providing access to project sites and workspaces where employees carry out their day-to-day, as well as helping employees keeping on top of their priority tasks.  In this way, the intranet becomes a dynamic channel that supports employee productivity.

In this example:

  • There is a custom-built system status web part giving RAG (Red Amber Green) status updates on key software platforms, with the ability to drill into more detail.
  • A personalised feed from Viva Engage surfaces the latest conversations that are going across different working groups or communities.

A personalised “My Workspaces” area links through to the SharePoint team sites or even Microsoft Teams spaces where collaborative work is carried out on different projects.

4. The social hub intranet homepage

Some “social” intranets are more focused on supporting community and connection between employees, facilitating conversations, dialogue, interaction and even collaboration. A social intranet hub homepage helps to surface both internal and external conversations, bringing together discussions, updates. and events.  It also seeks to help employees feel more connected to a brand. Typically, a social hub intranet might be used by companies where employee engagement is high on the agenda, for example in a media or retail company.

In this example:

  • The intranet page has a distinctive look and feel and uses highly attractive imagery, aligning with the organisation’s brand and helping employees to connect to it.
  • Events are also prominently displayed, encouraging registrations, and again stressing participation.
  • News and promoted content is presented in an eye-catching way in the hero.
  • Internal conversations from Viva Engage, the company’s social collaboration platform of choice, are highlighted within the “Conversations” section. The feed can be targeted to different groups for relevance.
  • Updates from the company’s external social channels are also relayed, providing information on how the organisation goes to market and interacts with customers.
  • Press and media updates are also given, again providing a balance to internal and external social media feeds.

5. The subject hub intranet homepage or landing page

In practice intranets tend to be made up of a number of different sites, often maintained by the relevant teams and groups within an organisation, all tied together by an overall homepage, navigation and search. Sometimes sites within a wide intranet can be dedicated to a particular department and team, while others act as a place to access resources on a particular topic. This screenshot shows a potential subject or topic hub – in this case about patient wellbeing.

In this example:

  • A visually striking carousel links through to headline content, prominent reference information and major updates about the subject in question.
  • Featured resources including story updates and knowledge collections on the topic, with indicators of the number of likes and comments to reflect their popularity.
  • A noticeboard feature presents the latest subject-specific quick updates, aggregated from different sites across the intranet. The most viewed and downloaded items are also displayed, to drive engagement.

“Show more” and “View more” buttons allow the user to view more content, ensuring the initial homepage experience remains focused and uncluttered.

6. The GTD (Getting Things Done) intranet homepage

A key function of a good intranet is to help employees get things done efficiently and in the right way, supporting productivity and saving time. The GTD intranet homepage focuses on task completion, making the intranet the go-to place to complete simple tasks, and also a valuable asset that supports increased productivity.

In this example:

  • A welcome bar at the top includes a link to an intranet tour which automatically loads when an employee first visits the intranet, and walks users through the main intranet features and the information that can be found.
  • The homepage leverages the Viva Connections dashboard to deliver a common tasks panel to highlight common tasks such as logging an IT ticket, and to highlight key activity; integrations with common enterprise systems often means that employees don’t actually need to visit these applications if just needed to view data or perform simple transactions.
  • A searchable database of “How Do I” information provides succinct information on how to get things done across a wide variety of topics, helping to streamline and standardise processes and supporting productivity.
  • “How Do I” information is also targeted based on an employee’s profile, so for example a person sees the right process information based on their location.
  • Personalised links to relevant pages also mean employees can reach the apps, sites or pages they frequently need to access or refer to in getting things done.
  • A handy people search allows a quick search of employee profiles to help contact the right person which is often necessary for task completion.
  • Other features such as news and events also ensure the intranet continues to keep people informed and supports engagement too.

7. The News Centre intranet homepage

Keeping employees informed and supporting internal communications is one of the most important roles for an intranet; in fact, many intranets are owned by the internal comms function. The News Centre intranet homepage keeps employees informed by providing news updates from right across the organisation – often personalised to different groups. The News Centre intranet has particular value in larger global businesses with multiple locations and diverse workforces.

In this example:

  • The header displays local weather, the stock price but also the local time across a number of key locations – this is not only useful in helping contact colleagues in a different time zone, but also makes the page feel a little like a global newsroom where there is always something happening.
  • There is major news from across markets with also a primary news item. In the layout on this page there are more news items than on homepages which tend to be dominated by a carousel, and where items can sometimes get lost.
  • Engagement data such as views, comments and reactions indicate the most popular items.
  • A separate feed of London news is personalised to the location of the user based on their profile or their preferences – this could potentially say New York, Frankfurt, Mumbai or elsewhere.
  • A special area for operational announcements is also shown under the news – again this might be for an item such as an unexpected IT outage and could be targeted, for example saying that there will be fire alarm for a particular office.
  • The news centre is also balanced by more “How to” and operational-related content in the lower half of the homepage, including a database of “I need to” information on how to complete key tasks, as well as links to apps and resources.

Building the right intranet homepage for you 

We hope these examples have given you a bit of inspiration! The combination of SharePoint web parts available out of the box and additional Lightspeed365 web parts means that you can build the right homepage that meets your organisational needs and culture, and highlights the main functions of your intranet. 

If you’d like to discuss your intranet project or how Lightspeed365 intranet could add value to your intranet, then get in touch!

Optimize your intranet with 6 SharePoint templates

Posted on by John Scott

One of the most powerful qualities of SharePoint is its sheer flexibility, especially when it comes to creating intranets. You can more or less build any page by assembling different combinations of web parts together it means you can achieve a SharePoint page design to suit almost every different business need – from your intranet homepage to a departmental landing page to a community page to a highly engaging news article.

However, because the design possibilities are so wide sometimes teams struggle to know which is the best SharePoint layout for their specific need. This is particularly true when devolved publishing is in place and there are content owners who are not trained communicators or are less used to using SharePoint. Left to their own devices they can come up with a SharePoint page design that isn’t focused on the user or meet the required publishing standards.

One of ways to tackle this issue is to leverage SharePoint templates. These are pre-set SharePoint site and page designs that reflect good practices and common business needs. SharePoint templates provide an excellent starting point to creating user-focused intranet sites and pages that deliver value.

In this post we’re going to do a deep dive into SharePoint templates covering what they are, why they’re so valuable and the common templates that get used for intranets. We’ll also show you five of our favourite templates to give you some inspiration, covering both SharePoint site templates and SharePoint page templates.

What is a SharePoint template?

A SharePoint template is essentially a pre-determined SharePoint layout for a page or site than be used as the starting point for creating a part of your page or site on your intranet.

SharePoint templates come in two main types:

  • SharePoint site templates that provide a shape of an overall site (a collection of pages that sit within your broader intranet)
  • SharePoint page templates that deliver a specific SharePoint page design.

There are number of different SharePoint templates that can be deployed directly from Microsoft that are explored in the Microsoft SharePoint look book.  However, you can also create your own SharePoint templates to use internally within your organisation, for example across your publishing or content creator community.

What are the benefits of SharePoint site templates and SharePoint page templates?

SharePoint templates deliver value in a number of different ways. 

Saving time

A SharePoint site or page template provides a significant starting point for creating a page or site, providing the right layout and web parts which can then be edited as appropriate. This can save large amounts of time and support the productivity of busy site editors and authors.

Inspiring ideas

SharePoint’s flexibility is a strength but having that much creativity can mean it is hard to know just exactly where to start, particularly for less experienced publishers. SharePoint templates provide an excellent source of inspiration for both seasoned intranet professionals and less confident users to achieve the ideal SharePoint layout.

Supporting your publishers

Using templates helps do some of the heavy lifting around SharePoint page design for your site admins, publishers and content creator who may not be professional communicators and are infrequent users of SharePoint. It gives them a starting point that also reflects your publishing standards and best practices. 

As part of our user adoption and change management support we provide a site with SharePoint template examples that also come preloaded with guidance for your publishing community. This has always proved to be popular with intranet teams and publishers.

Establishing consistency and content standards

Using SharePoint templates helps to enforce publishing and content standards across your intranet, establishing consistency in the look and feel and ensuring everything is on-brand. It also provides a consistency in layout across different sites and content types making it easier for users to find what they are looking for on a particular page.

Six essential SharePoint page templates for your intranet

At Content Formula we help our clients to create SharePoint templates that make a difference. Below are six essential templates for an intranet. For a change, we haven’t included homepage designs – you can view these in a companion article about SharePoint design. Note that these templates include both out-of-the-box SharePoint web parts but also some Lightspeed365 features.

1. News page template

News will inevitably be one of the most used SharePoint page templates within your intranet. This SharePoint template can bring some consistency to news items across different areas of the intranet. It encourages the use of headlines to break up a story, as well as eye-catching elements such as images and quotes to make a news item more engaging and inviting.

2. How do I page template

This How Do I page SharePoint template provides instructions for employees on how to complete a task and get things done. A task can be simple or have multiple steps. Typically, the How Do I template is used to explain how to log an IT support ticket or claim expenses, or something more complex like applying for paternity leave.  

This SharePoint page design makes it easy for employees to follow each of the steps and adds further detail with embedded documents, process diagrams and even forms to trigger workflow. The SharePoint layout also includes a prominent contact display for users to get in touch if they have questions about the task or process.  

3. Region or location template

Most intranets have information about different locations. This Region or location template provides information and news about a particular region, country or office and can either be aimed at people based in that location, or the rest of the business and be about that location. (It’s usually not best to mix both these use cases.)

To a certain extent this versatile SharePoint page template provides a route to more detailed pages or sections, but also provides news as well as links. There are also key contacts.

4. Contact information template

Intranets often help connect people to each other. The Contact information template is an attractive and useful way to introduce members of a team or department to a wider audience, helping encourage the right person to contact. This SharePoint template ensures people can view team details divided appropriately into different areas with contact details prominent, as we well as the ability to click through to individual profiles. The search box supports findability while additional links to other resources on the right also provide additional context about the team.

The Contact information template could be part of a wider SharePoint site template for a department or team section of the intranet.

5. Triage template

The Triage SharePoint page template is another versatile page for your intranet. Some pages act as places to guide users to other important pieces of content based on their needs. The Triage template presents options to different pages in an attractive way with images for each resource. These can then be arranged under different headings. At the bottom of the page there is an opportunity to place an option for people who haven’t found what they are looking for.

The Triage SharePoint page design can be used for initiatives, information resources on areas such as strategy, service hubs for HR or IT and more.

6. Knowledge base template

Intranets are go-to places of knowledge providing a single source of the truth. The Knowledge base SharePoint site template is an excellent way to present a collection of knowledge such as a policy library, list of “how to” details or even brand assets. While the top section provides details and context about the collection and also can highlight specific items within it, it’s the A-to-Z listing and search facility which often provides the most value. Note that the Knowledge base template uses Lightspeed365’s powerful handbook feature which is not available out of the box with SharePoint.

The power of the SharePoint template

SharePoint page templates and site templates help to ensure your site is consistent, on-brand, attractive, usable and accessible.  If you want more information on SharePoint templates or improving your SharePoint layout and design right across your intranet, then get in touch!

15 essential SharePoint web parts that every intranet needs

Posted on by John Scott

A key strength of a SharePoint intranet is its flexibility and versatility to craft experiences to meet the needs of your business and your employees. It’s possible to configure each individual site and even page to a highly granular level, while also still remaining on-brand and delivering a consistent look and feel. This is achieved through SharePoint web parts – the “building bricks” of SharePoint that can be assembled together at the page level to create a world-class intranet.

We often get asked which are the must-have SharePoint web parts that an intranet needs. While every intranet is different, there are some SharePoint web parts that deliver essential intranet features and capabilities. In this article we’re going to explore fifteen of the most essential web parts, illustrated with screenshots.

What are SharePoint web parts?

SharePoint web parts are building blocks which can be assembled together to deliver a SharePoint page. Each web part does something slightly different. It might deliver a block of text, display an image, or add a SharePoint capability such as a document library, set of links or even integrate feeds from other Microsoft tools like Viva Engage.

An editor can choose from a wide range of different SharePoint web parts to add to their page, rearrange them and then even configure each web part separately. From this detail they can then build up an engaging and useful intranet page.

Out-of-the-box SharePoint web parts vs additional web parts every intranet needs

Microsoft provide a wide range of modern SharePoint web parts that are available straight out of the box and ready to deploy. These are very useful, but they can only go so far. They fall short of all the web parts an intranet needs to be truly world-class, and meet the needs of employees, internal communicators, business functions and more.  These “missing” web parts limit an intranet’s design options and key capabilities.

Recognising that SharePoint out of the box is not enough we built Lightspeed365 to add a whole new set of additional SharePoint web parts that complement what already exists in SharePoint and give you all the features and design flexibility you need to deliver an excellent SharePoint intranet. These web parts all delivered within the same editing experience so content owners and admins can edit their page in the same way, but just have a greatly expanded set of web parts to choose from.

15 must-have SharePoint web parts

Let’s dive into our must-have web parts that every intranet needs. Below we explore both modern SharePoint out-of-the-box web parts and Lightspeed365 web parts.

1. Hero area

Intranets need to look modern, progressive and attractive to drive adoption. The Hero area is a pleasing web part available out of the box that is usually used at the top of a homepage or landing page to highlight key content. It does this in a highly visual way with the use of images, but it can also display videos. You can include up to five items in the Hero area, with different configuration and layout options.

2. News feed

News is an essential part of any intranet and is usually highlighted not only on the homepage but also within departmental or topic-based sites, for example displaying HR news. SharePoint does have out-of-the-box web parts that display news but these often fall short of what internal communication teams require. We built a News feed web part for Lightspeed365 that includes additional attractive ways and configuration options to present news, and also makes it easier to target news to different audiences, ticking the box for internal comms.

3. Card links

Intranets help users find the results they need, often providing links to both internal and external resources, Subsequently the Quick links web part is one of the most used on any intranet. However, for such a ubiquitous web part the display options are limited. The Lightspeed365 Card links web part provides a range of templates and configuration options to display your links in a clear and eye-catching way. It’s also possible to target links to different audiences.

4. Document library

Intranets are used as the one source of truth for reference content, while SharePoint is often used a document management solution in its own right. The Document library web part allows a site or page to display a SharePoint document library allowing users to share particular documents with users across the business. Different permissions can be applied to restrict access to particular files.

5. Events

The events web part enables communicators and different business teams to display information about upcoming events with all the information about each individual event that employees need. This useful web part can cover enterprise-wide events like town halls or more targeted events like a wellbeing session.

6. Highlighted content

The Highlighted content web part is one of the most useful out-of-the-box web parts in SharePoint Online because it allows you to highlight different types of content in a variety of different ways and is highly configurable. This means you can dynamically display the latest news, documents, videos, pages and more based on highly flexible criteria, or highlight fixed or single items if you prefer. It consistently proves to be a very useful way to guide users to the resources they need.

7. List

We love SharePoint lists! They are an excellent way store and display information that is frequently updated and needs to act as one source of truth.  You can also do sophisticated things with a list such as apply workflow, permissions and formatting to different parts of it. A List web part allows you to embed a List in a page meaning you could display information such as a list of offices, approved suppliers, external sources or internal first aiders, for example.

8. People directory

The People directory is always one of the most used parts of any intranet. The Lightspeed365 People directory web part provides a very useful way for users to search through the directory on any page that is deployed, with results linking through to Microsoft 365 profiles that display within the web part itself. This helps to drive a more consistent and uninterrupted user experience where an employee can search but stay on the page.

9. Microsoft Viva Engage

One of the strengths of a SharePoint intranet is its ability to seamlessly integrate other Microsoft 365 tools. The Viva Engage webpart allows you to embed a Viva Engage feed, meaning you can feature topic or community discussions in context with other related content and resources – for example for an employee resource group or Community of Practice. You can also embed a Viva Engage feed on your homepage, perhaps relaying personalised updates from an all-company group.

10. Page tour

A great way to support users and drive adoption is by providing a custom “page tour” that walks a user through key intranet functionality or a particular feature, ensuring it has context relating to your organisation and intranet. This is usually triggered when a new user logs in for the first time but it can also be made available on-demand. This highly useful and popular feature is not available out of the box, so we created a special web part within Lightspeed365.

11. App launcher

Modern Intranets play an essential role as the entry point into the wider digital workplace and the multitude of apps that employees need to access in the working week. Providing a list of personalised icons on the intranet homepage where employees can reach all the apps they use is consistently one of the most popular user features and helps drive adoption. Surprisingly this is not available out of the box. Our Lightspeed365 App launcher web part delivers allows employees to configure the apps that matter to them and drive productivity.

12. Handbook

The Lightspeed365 Handbook feature is another handy web part that allows content owners to present pages within their site as a searchable index. This is perfect for presenting information such as a Handbook or a series of “How to” content together to help employees find what they need successfully and quickly.

13. Welcome bar

An engaging intranet provides a highly personalised experience for users to drive relevancy and make it feel like it is built for employees rather than just being a corporate tool. The Welcome bar web part is another popular Lightspeed365 feature. This delivers a personalised message but also additional local details like the weather. This not only signals the intranet is personalised to the individual, but also makes it more welcoming.

14. External social feeds

Many intranet teams choose to add their company’s external social feeds into their intranet homepage to help drive awareness of how they are going to market ad provide a more rounded view of communications. The External social feed feature in Lightspeed365 is a web part that allows you to integrate updates from major platforms like X and LinkedIn. It uses a third-party service called Juicer.

15. Accordion

One of the aims of additional Lightspeed365 web parts is to extend the options to present information in SharePoint in a useful and engaging way. The Accordion feature is yet another web part that enables intranet teams to present information such as FAQs in an efficient way via expandable and collapsable sections. This means you can present the content employees need to reference while ensuring a page stays tidy and is not overwhelming.

The essential SharePoint web parts for your intranet

Every intranet is different but there are some web parts that prove to be essential for the majority. If you’ d like to discuss SharePoint web parts or how Lightspeed365 features can extend the power of your SharePoint intranet, then get in touch!

Lightspeed365: Distinctively ahead in the digital workplace

Posted on by Dan Hawtrey

Lightspeed365 adds useful functionality and design options to SharePoint that will appeal to organisations looking for some additional features without going for a full intranet in-a-box product.

ClearBox Intranet and Employee Experience Report 2024

The recently published ClearBox Intranet and Employee Experience Report 2024 shines a spotlight on Lightspeed365, revealing its standing as a leader in the digital workplace domain.

According to the report, Lightspeed365 sets itself apart in the digital workplace sector with its unique features. The platform’s user interface is lauded for its ease of use and intuitive design, fostering a positive user experience.

Its integration capabilities are a standout, allowing seamless interconnectivity with a wide range of external tools. Furthermore, Lightspeed365 excels in supporting robust internal communication and collaboration, key factors in enhancing employee engagement and productivity.

These distinct qualities underscore Lightspeed365’s leading position in the market, making it an ideal choice for modern organisations.

Download the report

How to use the SharePoint Lookbook

Posted on by Dan Hawtrey

How to use the SharePoint Lookbook

Modern SharePoint is an extremely flexible tool that can meet multiple use cases to support communication and collaboration inside an organisation. This means intranet teams and site owners have a lot of choice in how they structure and design individual sites and pages. Recognising this, Microsoft has created the SharePoint Lookbook, a collection of site templates and designs that can be viewed and then actually deployed on to your SharePoint tenant. The Lookbook is an extremely useful resource that both provides inspiration and a way to give teams a head start in setting up a site. In this post we’re going to explore what the SharePoint Lookbook is, why it is useful, the kind of templates it contains, and what to consider when using it.

The flexibility of SharePoint

One of the strengths of SharePoint is its flexibility and versatility to support multiple use cases, usually as part of a wider intranet. A strategy page for leadership communications, a departmental site for the sales function, a site for onboarding employees, a place for your volunteering community to come together. All these and more can be achieved using modern SharePoint. One of the reasons for this flexibility is the ability to add, arrange and configure multiple web parts – the basic “building blocks” of SharePoint – on any given site and page. This means you can have multiple combinations on a page to create different experiences that meet various needs. It also gives intranet teams and individual site owners a lot of choice in how they design and structure individual sites, which are either standalone or sit within a wider intranet structure. Of course, design flexibility has limits unless a site is customised, retaining some of the standard look and feel of modern SharePoint. While this means it’s not always possible to meet all design and branding needs, in our view this is generally not a problem, as modern SharePoint has an attractive, intuitive and consistent interface. This flexibility can leave some teams wondering what the best structure and design is for their site. This is where the SharePoint Lookbook can act as a useful resource for both reference and deployment.

What is the SharePoint LookBook?

The SharePoint LookBook is a publicly available site provided by Microsoft that can be reached at https://lookbook.microsoft.com/.  As Microsoft itself describes it, it provides an opportunity to “discover the modern experiences you can build with SharePoint in Microsoft 365” and to “get inspired with these designs or add them to your tenant to start building your next stunning site with them.” Within the Lookbook there is a gallery of SharePoint templates divided into different categories. You can explore the themes and view each template in more detail. As well as the showing the design on the page, the Lookbook contains template-specific information on site features, web parts used and content included. There is then a call to action for administrators to deploy a Lookbook template to their tenant, an automated process which takes minutes, as long as an administrator has the necessary rights and your tenant meets the minimum system requirements.

What type of templates are available in the SharePoint Lookbook?

The Lookbook is divided into a number of different browsable categories that explore a wide range of useful use cases. However, the differences between some of the categories are pretty narrow, so it’s worth taking a look through the entire library of templates. Current categories are:
  • Organisation: covering key organisation-wide types of communication site including initiatives for leadership communications, crisis comms, a news centre, Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) and more.
  • Department: examples of department-specific sites or hub covering areas such as sales, HR, training, marketing and even a key conference.
  • Team: this covers team-specific sites for four different use cases covering a project, a collaboration need, a product team and general team communication.
  • Community: this covers two examples of a community site, one being a brand and resources site, and another relating to a charity or CST initiative.
  • Solutions: templates for a range of useful business scenarios including providing Microsoft learning resources, employee onboarding, pre-boarding for new hires, workplace transformation, dealing with a freelance community and more.
  • Schools: templates for schools and colleges.
  • SharePoint Syntex: two templates covering key Syntex user cases including contracts management and promoting the use of Syntex inside your organisation.

What are the benefits of using a SharePoint Lookbook template?

There are a number of benefits in using templates from the SharePoint Lookbook.

Providing inspiration

As already noted, SharePoint is highly flexible and sometimes it is hard to know where to start when designing a site. The Lookbook is an excellent place to start because it provides tangible and achievable examples of site designs across multiple use cases and scenarios. If you need a place to simulate ideas and provide inspiration, then the SharePoint Lookbook is a great starting point.

Increasing speed to market

Using a Lookbook template gives any site owners a huge head start in providing a template that can be deployed in minutes and then modified to suit your needs. It can significantly reduce the “speed to market” if you need to get a site up and running quickly.

Supporting new and busy site owners

Site owners for many areas of an intranet (or for specific intranet sites) can lack confidence in using SharePoint or can be very time-stretched. They are unlikely to be trained communicators. The head start given by a Lookbook can support confidence and resourcing.

Encouraging good use cases and adoption

Lookbook templates reflect good practices and showcase the best of what SharePoint has to offer. They demonstrate the art of the possible and also highlight the range of different web parts that can be deployed. Using templates can help encourage using SharePoint for some use cases that might not have been considered, and generally support adoption from potential site owners across an organisation.

No costs involved

The use of the SharePoint Lookbook is completely free so does not come at any additional cost on top of your normal Microsoft 365 subscription.

Things to consider when using the SharePoint Lookbook

However, there are some considerations in using the SharePoint Lookbook and its templates.

A template is not a finished site

A Lookbook template is not going to be complete. It will likely need more work on it to truly optimise it to meet a particular business need within your organisation. For example, it might be missing a particular web part. However, site owners might consider a site “complete” because it is a Microsoft template and therefore reflecting best practices. It is likely that content owners still need additional guidance and support from the central intranet or communications team to complete a site.

Still needs to fit in with your Information Architecture and security

A deployed template site also needs to fit into your existing Information Architecture and align with your security policies, so any site generated from the Lookbook will need further configuration.

Might bypass governance processes

Many intranet, communication and digital workplace teams want to establish governance about the use of SharePoint sites to deliver business value, minimise duplication, ensure adherence to standards and support alignment with a content strategy. This often means having some kind of approval workflow on site provisioning to stop site proliferation. Automatically deploying a template on your tenant could bypass provisioning and other governance processes, particularly if your IT function carries out SharePoint administration duties but has a different view on site creation to the intranet team. For example, it can encourage the creation of a lot of standalone sites that can start to get out of control leading to problems with findability.

Not aligning with custom branding

Some organisations want to establish specific designs for their digital workplace or intranet so choose to deploy custom branding or use an “in a box” product that extends the design options of SharePoint. A Lookbook template will not align with that branding.

Getting the best out of the SharePoint Lookbook

In our view the SharePoint Lookbook is an excellent resource that used properly can help save time, and encourage the best use of SharePoint. However, to get the best out of the templates in SharePoint Lookbook there are other things you need to consider. We regularly help intranet and digital workplace teams in certain areas.

1. Strategy

Defining a digital workplace and intranet strategy, or a related content strategy, that can help define the use cases (and therefore templates) you’ll need in your SharePoint tenant.

2. Design

Helping establish the best design for sites, that can potentially leverage the site and page templates contained in the Lookbook.

3. Additional web parts

Providing the additional web parts that you need to add to Lookbook templates in order to drive business value. Sometimes these are completely custom, or are provided as part of our Lightspeed Modules package, a collection of high value web parts that fill many of the gaps in SharePoint.

4. Information architecture

We can help you design your information architecture to ensure sites created by Lookbook templates are truly findable.

Need help? Get in touch!

If you’d like help in using the SharePoint Lookbook and design, or want to discuss other aspects of your Microsoft 365 powered digital workplace, then get in touch!

Designing an intranet homepage: seven must-have web parts

Posted on by Dan Hawtrey

Intranet teams often ask us questions about how to design an intranet homepage and which web parts (widgets) or features they should include on it. Of course, there is no right or wrong answer; no two intranet home pages are the same, and depending on the needs of your users, the web parts to include will vary from organisation to organisation.  However, it’s also safe to say that there are some web parts that are extremely common to find on a homepage, with some appearing on the majority of intranets.

In this post we’re going to look at seven must-have web parts or features that appear on multiple homepages. To help illustrate these, we’ve included a screenshot (with dummy content) of a global intranet based on SharePoint Online.  Let’s explore seven of the key web parts or features that are featured on the intranet, and are likely to feature on your homepage too.

1.Personalised greeting

Many intranets now choose to display a personalised greeting at the top of the page. For example, in this screenshot “Good morning, Kelly” is displayed. This personal greeting has three main functions; firstly, it helps to make the intranet feel less formal and corporate, with a friendly greeting. Secondly, it confirms to the user that they are authenticated into the intranet and it recognises who they are, critical if a user is expecting some level of personalisation. Thirdly, it can also be a place for some hyper-local content that perhaps sits less well elsewhere – a link to the local weather forecast, for example.

 

2. Hero area

Virtually every intranet homepage has a hero area which will display major news or campaign items – this should be a much sought after spot to promote and spotlight important content. This intranet contains four items, but other intranets can display five or six. In some intranets this has been displayed as a news carousel in the past.

Using attractive images in the hero area helps to draw attention to these pieces, but also gives some balance to the overall intranet design. In many organistions, the news or content presented in the hero area is relevant for all employees, although it can also be personalised to ensure relevance.

 

3.Personalised news feed

Personalisation is key to the success of an intranet in a global, large and complex organisation. A news feed for personalised news (“My news”) should aggregate items that are the result of content targeting based on user profile, but also include additional items subscribed to by a user. Subscriptions might be extra additional targeted content that a user wants to see – for example for another division or location – as well as topic-related items that are of interest. In the screenshot, labels on each story show their intended audience. Other metadata to consider displaying here can relate to engagement including the numbers of views, likes and comments of each news item.

 

4.Other communication feeds

Sometimes you’ll also want to display other kinds of news on your homepage that you want to distinguish from the more general items. In this example there is a “People focus” area with items that are more focused on highlighting the specific work of different teams. But in your organisation this may be product news, something relating to your values, more blogs and user-generated content, customer success stories or perhaps something else entirely.

 

5.Links to apps and sites

A major use case for your intranet is as a convenient gateway to all the apps and sites that people need to access during the week to complete tasks and carry out their role. When intranet teams ask a user what they rely on their intranet for, this feature is always near the top of the list.

Including useful links is a must-have for any homepage. In this example there are links to “My tools” and also “My sites”. Ideally, users should be able to configure their own list of links, with the aid of a central directory of apps to choose from to help them, and existing default links to get people started, ideally personalised to different sections of the organisation to ensure relevance.

 

6.Content spotlights and promotions

Intranets are there to guide people to the most important content, so content spotlights and promotions that reflect priorities and campaigns are a common part of any homepage. These might be an organisational priority (COVID-19 updates) or be important because they are timely (Black Friday deals for employees).

 

7.Yammer / Viva Engage feed

Many intranet teams choose to include a feed from their social collaboration platform on their homepage. This could be a general personalised feed for users, or from a specific community, although the latter will usually be company-wide if appearing on a homepage.

Including a social feed helps to encourage adoption of the social platform, supports the role of the intranet as the “front door” to the wider digital workplace and also brings the employee voice into the homepage to balance more “top-down” internal communications messaging.  With a SharePoint intranet including a feed from Yammer (now being rebranded as Viva Engage) is super easy with web parts that are available out of the box.

Need help with your homepage or looking for web parts to help you build your intranet?

lightspeed modules
Read more about Lightspeed365 Features

How Lightspeed Modules adds most of the web parts you need

Content Formula’s Lightspeed Modules is a product from Content Formula that adds many of the custom web parts that you need for your intranet, effectively extending the value of SharePoint, and filling many of the gaps in functionality.  Lightspeed’s web parts are based on the work we’ve done across hundreds of projects over the years. These are easily added to your tenant and can then be added by your content editors just like all the other standard SharePoint web parts

Because intranet and internal communication teams now have a more complete set of web parts to support a SharePoint Online intranet, it can prove to be highly cost effective, because it reduces the need to purchase a more expensive “in-a-box”  intranet solution.

Examples of some of the most popular Lightspeed web parts include:

  • A page tour, highlighting key intranet features for new staff.
  • Branding customiser, extending branding and theming options for SharePoint.
  • Share price, allowing teams to embed a stock price on the homepage.
  • App launcher, allowing users to personalise their own links to apps.
  • Tabs, allowing multiple web parts to be displayed in a tabbing format to save page real-estate.
  • Table of content to appear at the top of a page to support findability for long-read content.
  • Site provisioning, to embed the provisioning process for different Microsoft collaboration sites including Teams.
  • External social feeds from different sources.
  • Floating search, providing the ability to add a contextual search anywhere on a page.
  • Feedback, allowing structured feedback on the intranet and its content from any page.
  • Welcome bar, for personalised welcome messages to users to create a more engaging experience.
  • Noticeboard, for employee classified adverts and notices.
  • And more!

Want to know more about web parts? Get in touch!

Web parts are one of the elements that make SharePoint such a valuable and flexible platform. If you want to know more about using web parts, or want more information on our Lightspeed Modules offering, then get in touch!

What are SharePoint web parts and how do I use them?

Posted on by Dan Hawtrey

Web parts are one of the core elements of SharePoint and therefore of any intranet built on SharePoint. They are the basic building blocks that make up the different sites within SharePoint; every page can be broken down into a series of different web parts. If you are creating an intranet based on SharePoint or even just contributing content to it, it really helps to have an understanding of what web parts are and the kind of web parts that you can deploy to deliver your overall content and experience.

In this article we’re going to take a deep dive into SharePoint web parts. We’re going to cover what they are, the different kinds of web parts there are, what a custom web part is and the kind of value that custom web parts can bring to a SharePoint Internet.

What are web parts in SharePoint?

Web parts can be defined as the basic components of SharePoint. Microsoft themselves describe them as “the building blocks of your page” with the ability to “add text, images, files, video, dynamic content and more.”  

Web parts are a significant part of the editing experience in SharePoint. Web parts can be arranged in different ways on a page. Content editors in SharePoint modern can also add new web parts, selecting from a number of web parts that come as standard with the platform.

Web parts can display SharePoint content but can also integrate feeds from other Microsoft 365 tools including Viva Engage / Yammer and Viva Connections.  Each web part also has extensive configuration options around elements such as what to display or link to, how items are sorted or filtered, and how they are displayed.  The combination of the sheer number of web parts and configuration options is one of the factors which enables SharePoint to be a highly flexible tool that can be used across multiple use cases.

What kind of SharePoint web parts are there?

There are currently around fifty SharePoint web parts that are available out of the box. These include everything from the ability to format calls to action or featuring a Power BI report to embedding a video or even a world clock. There isn’t enough space here to go into all the web parts that are available, but some of the most popular include:

  • Connectors: provides options to bring in different feeds from external services based on the connectors available.
  • Document library: displays a SharePoint document library.
  • Events: displays upcoming events with the ability to click through for more information for each event.
  • File viewer: the ability to embed a file such as a Word or PDF document to read within a page.
  • Hero: displays up to five items at the top of a page, usually on a home or landing page.
  • Highlighted content: a flexible web part that displays a dynamically generated list of content based on its type such as documents, videos or images, and other salient criteria.
  • List: displays a SharePoint list, again another very flexible way to display and manage information.
  • Microsoft Forms: embeds a Microsoft Form, and can be used for forms, polls and surveys.
  • News: displays news items with different formatting options.
  • People: displays details of a selected group of people, such as a team or key contacts, with links to individual profiles.
  • Quick links: the ability to display quick links to other pages, apps, external sites and more.
  • Yammer (Viva Engage): embed a personalised Viva Engage / Yammer feed on a page, for example to support a community.

Standard web parts and gaps in functionality

Despite the high number of web parts and the ability to configure them, in practice there are still some gaps in functionality and features that can be particularly frustrating for intranet teams and internal communicators who want to deploy a high value SharePoint intranet or site with strong adoption.

Sometimes these “gaps” relate to branding and design options around the look and feel of a web part being limited or not quite right. At other times, it might be that there simply isn’t a web part available out of the box that delivers particular functionality. For example, a popular intranet feature that is not available in SharePoint out of the box is the ability for users to add their own personal links to frequently used apps that can then be displayed on an intranet home page.

Sometimes there also might be no web part available that delivers content from a different external system or application, where there might need to be an integration, and there is no current connector.

What are custom web parts?

When there is gap in functionality, organisations have the option to deploy a custom web part. A custom web part is one that has either been custom developed from scratch or has been modified from a standard SharePoint web part. A custom web part therefore can be considered to be any web part that is not supplied by Microsoft as standard and has involved some degree of additional coding. Custom web parts are often designed to give you functionality and features that is very specifically suited to delivering a great intranet experience.

Custom web parts tend to fall into two types:

  • Those developed specifically for the needs of an individual organisation.
  • Those provided more generically by intranet software vendors that fil the gaps in SharePoint.

Here at Content Formula, we produce both types, regularly creating specific custom web parts as part of an intranet build, but also now delivering a standard set of custom web parts as part of our Lightspeed Modules service.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of custom web parts?

Custom web parts both have advantages and disadvantages. On the upside, they complement SharePoint and complete the gaps, adding value by:

  • Enabling “classic” intranet features that have been overlooked by Microsoft in SharePoint when its used straight out of the box.
  • Supporting richer options for internal communicators.
  • Delivering more engaging and flexible design options.
  • Supporting additional integrations not supported by out-of-the-box connectors that drive a more connected digital workplace experience.
  • Supporting specific business processes and automation, helping raise productivity and efficiency

The disadvantages of custom web parts include the additional cost involved. If you choose to develop your own individual custom web parts then this will involve development resources and effort; however, if you choose to purchase customised web parts that have already been developed by a vendor, they will be considerably cheaper than developing your own, following the usual rules around “buy vs build”.

The other disadvantage comes with customisation in general. Most IT functions want to limit custom development as much as possible because they create technical debt, makes upgrades harder and can require ongoing management. However, buying additional custom web parts from a vendor that are completely managed removes this issue.

lightspeed modules
Read more about Lightspeed365 Features

How Lightspeed Modules adds most of the web parts you need

Content Formula’s Lightspeed Modules is a product from Content Formula that adds many of the custom web parts that you need for your intranet, effectively extending the value of SharePoint, and filling many of the gaps in functionality.  Lightspeed’s web parts are based on the work we’ve done across hundreds of projects over the years. These are easily added to your tenant and can then be added by your content editors just like all the other standard SharePoint web parts

Because intranet and internal communication teams now have a more complete set of web parts to support a SharePoint Online intranet, it can prove to be highly cost effective, because it reduces the need to purchase a more expensive “in-a-box”  intranet solution.

Examples of some of the most popular Lightspeed web parts include:

  • A page tour, highlighting key intranet features for new staff.
  • Branding customiser, extending branding and theming options for SharePoint.
  • Share price, allowing teams to embed a stock price on the homepage.
  • App launcher, allowing users to personalise their own links to apps.
  • Tabs, allowing multiple web parts to be displayed in a tabbing format to save page real-estate.
  • Table of content to appear at the top of a page to support findability for long-read content.
  • Site provisioning, to embed the provisioning process for different Microsoft collaboration sites including Teams.
  • External social feeds from different sources.
  • Floating search, providing the ability to add a contextual search anywhere on a page.
  • Feedback, allowing structured feedback on the intranet and its content from any page.
  • Welcome bar, for personalised welcome messages to users to create a more engaging experience.
  • Noticeboard, for employee classified adverts and notices.
  • And more!

Want to know more about web parts? Get in touch!

Web parts are one of the elements that make SharePoint such a valuable and flexible platform. If you want to know more about using web parts, or want more information on our Lightspeed Modules offering, then get in touch!

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