10 SharePoint site & page templates for your intranet
- John Scott
Intranet teams sometimes struggle with how their intranet should look. Luckly, there are a whole range of SharePoint design templates that can help you. SharePoint templates for intranets cover both sites and pages, and also a whole range of different use cases. In this post we’re going to:
- Look at what SharePoint intranet templates are.
- Explore why and how SharePoint templates for intranets provide value.
- Share some of our favourite SharePoint design templates that we’ve produced.
What is a SharePoint site 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 intranet design templates to use internally within your organisation, for example across your publishing or content creator community.
SharePoint site template examples
- SharePoint intranet homepage site template
- SharePoint employee engagement campaign site template
- SharePoint knowledge base site template
- SharePoint employee on-boarding site template
- SharePoint employee benefits site template
1. SharePoint intranet homepage site template
The main homepage of an intranet is arguably the most important. It needs to provide the right blend of features and content that is appropriate for the organisation, but also the employees. This normally means a mixture of content types and links, ideally tailored to the needs and interests of different employee groups and types. Additional personalisation options give additional control to the employees.
2. SharePoint employee engagement campaign site template
Intranets are the ideal place to launch and keep employees updated on company initiatives. These can range from innovation drives, to embedding brand values or peer recognition. The aim is to create engaging pages full of content, discussions and ideas that will engage your people and make them feel that they are part of the initiative.
3. SharePoint knowledge base site template
Intranets are go-to places to access knowledge, establishing 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 do I” pages 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.
What value does this SharePoint template bring?
- This SharePoint page template is flexible in that it can present any collection of knowledge or controlled documents; it I useful for any function that needs to provide a set of resources that employees need to reference.
- The scoped search and browse facility provide strong findability so is very useful in connecting employees to the resources they need.
- Content owners love this SharePoint template because it allows them to easily present a collection of resources in a user-friendly way.
- The Knowledge base template uses Lightspeed365’s powerful handbook feature which is not available out of the box with SharePoint.
- Additional features like ‘Must read’ are powered by Xoralia controlled document management for SharePoint
4. SharePoint employee on-boarding site template
When new employees start working at an organisation, they often have a lot of questions about the way the organisation works, how it is structured and how to navigate its various knowledge areas. An onboarding area on the intranet is the ideal place for them to orient themselves and get answers to questions quickly. They can also be guided through common on-boarding activities like registering for employee benefits and completing mandatory training.
5. SharePoint employee benefits site template
Employee benefits are typically of great interest to your people, so laying them out clearly on the intranet is a great way to add value to the platform and ensure you have frequent visitors. In some organisations the benefits are financial or health related, but others include career development opportunities.
What about SharePoint page templates for your intranet?
SharePoint page templates are a little different to site templates, in that they are designed to be a single page and not a homepage of a site/section. Typically they are found lower down in the information architecture/hierarchy.
Lightspeed365 allows you to create beautiful, flexible and high value SharePoint pages (and therefore accompanying SharePoint templates!) that really do make a difference.
Below we share six essential SharePoint page templates for an intranet. Note that these templates include both out-of-the-box SharePoint web parts but also some Lightspeed365 features:
- News article SharePoint page template
- ‘How do I?’ guide SharePoint page template
- Department or location SharePoint page template
- Employee directory SharePoint page template
- Triage SharePoint page template
1. News article SharePoint page template
Internal communications is one of the fundamental jobs of an intranet. A news page will inevitably be one of the most used SharePoint page templates, helping to deliver and elevate news stories for your employees.
What value does this SharePoint template bring?
- Brings consistency to news items across different areas of the intranet encouraging familiarity, engagement and adoption.
- Encourages the use of headlines to break up a story, helping make it more digestible and supporting clarity of message.
- Provides flexibility to add elements such as images and quotes to make a news item more inviting and engaging.
- Ultimately, this SharePoint template will encourage views and increase the impact and success of news items, in turn supporting wider internal communications goals and employee engagement objectives.
2. ‘How do I?’ guide SharePoint page template
The How Do I 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 simple tasks such as how to log an IT support ticket or claim expenses, or something more complex like applying for paternity leave.
What value does this SharePoint template bring?
- This SharePoint intranet template makes it easy for employees to follow each of the steps in completing a task and adds further detail with embedded documents, process diagrams and even forms to trigger workflow.
- The template layout also includes a prominent contact display for users to get in touch if they have questions about the task or process.
- Ultimately, this SharePoint design template helps employees to get things done quickly and efficiency, in turn supporting productivity and encouraging standardisation in terms of processes.
- It also saves time for IT, HR and other internal helpdesks, meaning employees don’t need to contact them asking how to achieve a task.
3. Department or location SharePoint page template
Most intranets have information about different departments or locations, particularly in large, global and complex businesses. This department or location SharePoint template provides information and news about a particular department, function, region, country or office and can either be aimed at people based in that department/location, or the rest of the business and be about that department/location. (It’s usually not best to mix both these use cases.)
What value does this SharePoint template bring?
- This versatile SharePoint page template provides useful targeted information about amenities and travel for both people located at a particular office or site, or those wanting to travel to it.
- The template tends to provide a route to more detailed pages or sections but can also provides news as well as links. It also includes key contacts at a particular location.
- Because it is a template it encourages and provides a consistent and complete set of information for each location which invariably is extremely useful.
- This SharePoint template has multiple benefits – helping support people who visit a site less frequently (more common in the age of hybrid working), supporting efficiency and productivity, and encouraging connections regardless of geography.
4. Employee directory SharePoint page template
Intranets often help connect people to each other. The employee directory SharePoint 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.
What value does this SharePoint template bring?
- This SharePoint template ensures people can view team details divided appropriately into different areas with contact details prominent, as well as the ability to click through to individual profiles.
- The search box supports findability while additional links to other resources to the right also provide additional context about the team.
- The people directory template could be part of a wider SharePoint site template for a department, team or location page or areas.
- This flexible SharePoint design page template helps to encourage connection across an organisation, but also establishes the right person to contact, helping people get things done and waste less time.
5. Triage SharePoint page template
The Triage SharePoint page template provides a high value design 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.
What value does this SharePoint template bring?
- The Triage SharePoint design template is very versatile and can be used for initiatives, information resources on areas such as strategy, service hubs for HR or IT and more.
- It provides a consistent and attractive way to guide users toward the resources they need, bringing structure and clarity to intranet content, while also increasing findability.
- The SharePoint template not only helps employees find that they need, but also encourages content owners to think about content structure and how they can satisfy common user needs and support user journeys.
- 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.
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 templates 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. However, 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 SharePoint intranet templates helps do some of the heavy lifting around SharePoint page design for your site admins, publishers and content creators 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.
- Establishing consistency and content standards
- Using SharePoint intranet 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.
- Make the best use of Lightspeed365 features
- Many of our Lightspeed365 features increase the usability of native SharePoint, while also extending design and brand options. Many of the Lightspeed365 features have also been designed around key use cases. Using the right SharePoint intranet templates will ensure you’re making the best use of Lightspeed365’s rich library of additional web parts.
SharePoint homepage templates for your intranet
The most important page on your SharePoint intranet is the homepage. SharePoint intranet homepage templates can make a real difference in driving adoption and value. As these kind of SharePoint templates can support intranet success, we’ve created a separate article with seven great SharePoint intranet site examples. This article includes several SharePoint homepage templates for your intranet – from the “balanced intranet homepage” to the “social hub intranet homepage.”
The power of the SharePoint templates
SharePoint page templates and SharePoint site templates help to ensure your site is consistent, on-brand, attractive, usable and accessible. If you want to see how you can use Lightspeed365 features in combination with SharePoint templates, then why not book a demo?