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SharePoint Intranet Development

Custom intranets engineered around how your organisation actually works, not configured from a template and hoped for the best. We design, build and support SharePoint intranets for enterprise teams across the US, Europe, Australia and the Middle East.

See a live intranet we built Talk to our intranet team

Why most SharePoint intranets fail

Almost every organisation we speak to has already built a SharePoint intranet. Very few are happy with it. The failure is rarely the platform. SharePoint is capable of far more than most deployments ask of it. The failure is in how the intranet was approached: as a site to be configured rather than a product to be designed.

What that looks like in practice:

That last one is common enough that we treat it as its own service: we regularly take over intranets built by someone else, assess what is sound and what carries risk, and bring them back into a supportable state.

  • It started as a document library and grew. Nobody planned the structure, so navigation reflects the order things were added rather than how anyone works.

  • It mirrors the org chart instead of the workflow. Employees know what they need to do, not which department owns the page that explains it.

  • Content has rotted. No owner was assigned to any section, so policies are three versions out of date and nobody trusts what they read.

  • It works on desktop and breaks on mobile. Which means the field, site and frontline teams who most need it never use it.

  • It was built by an agency or developer you no longer work with, and it has been quietly degrading through Microsoft's platform updates ever since.

What we build into a SharePoint intranet

Every intranet we build is different, because every organisation’s processes are. These are the modules that come up most often, built as real, engineered components rather than stock web parts pushed into a layout.

A searchable directory pulling live from Entra ID, so it is never out of date and nobody maintains a parallel list. Filter by office, department, skill, project or reporting line. We build the org chart as an interactive component that renders correctly at enterprise scale, with profile cards that surface a person's current projects, their team's channels and a direct route into Teams. For distributed organisations this is consistently the most-used module on the intranet, and the one that justifies the build to employees fastest.

A news hub with editorial control: scheduled publishing, targeted audiences, approval before anything goes live, and analytics showing what people actually read. News can be targeted to a region, a business unit or a role, so a Riyadh office update does not clutter the London homepage. We build the authoring experience for communications teams rather than developers. If publishing a post requires a ticket, it will not happen, and the intranet goes stale within a quarter.

Structured libraries with metadata that reflects your business rather than generic columns. Version control, approval workflows, retention rules and permission models that survive reorganisation. For regulated and asset-heavy organisations we build controlled document handling: current version clearly identified, superseded versions retained but visibly archived, and a full audit trail of who approved what and when. This is where a properly engineered intranet separates itself from a folder structure with a homepage on top.

A single authoritative place for policies, procedures and standards, with read-acknowledgement tracking so you can demonstrate who has seen what. Automatic review reminders to the named owner before a policy expires. Version history preserved for audit. For organisations operating across jurisdictions, we structure this so region-specific policies surface to the right employees automatically rather than presenting everyone with everything and expecting them to work it out.

A guided onboarding experience that starts before day one: pre-joining information, equipment and access requests raised automatically, a personalised checklist, and introductions to the people the new joiner will actually work with. Built on Power Automate so IT, facilities and HR tasks are triggered without anyone chasing. The same framework handles role changes, internal moves and offboarding: the process differs, but the mechanics are the same.

Provisioned workspaces that come pre-built with the structure a project actually needs (document sets, task tracking, milestone views, team membership and reporting) rather than an empty site somebody has to configure. Templates are governed centrally, so every project workspace is consistent and reportable across the portfolio. This was the core of the Trivandi platform, where project teams spanning four countries needed to work from a single shared structure.

Purchase requests, leave, travel, capital expenditure, IT access, content publishing: anything currently running on email threads and spreadsheet trackers. Built on Power Automate and Power Apps with conditional routing, value-based escalation, delegation when an approver is away, and a complete audit history. Approvers can act from the intranet, from Teams, or from their phone. We built a capital expenditure approval system on exactly this pattern, replacing a process with no audit trail and no visibility into where a request was sitting.

Search is the module that determines whether people trust the intranet. We configure managed metadata, result sources, refiners and result types so a search returns the right document rather than four hundred approximations of it. Knowledge base content is structured with proper taxonomy, owned by named people, and surfaced contextually: a project workspace shows the standards relevant to that project without anyone having to go looking.

Hub-and-spoke architecture that keeps regional and business-unit sites independent while sharing navigation, branding, search and news. Multilingual support where content can be authored once and translated, with users seeing their own language automatically. Permission models designed so regional autonomy does not compromise central governance. This is the architecture that separates an intranet which scales from one that has to be rebuilt at the next acquisition.

Connected people icons mapping out an organisation chart

Employee directory and org chart

A searchable directory pulling live from Entra ID, so it is never out of date and nobody maintains a parallel list. Filter by office, department, skill, project or reporting line. We build the org chart as an interactive component that renders correctly at enterprise scale, with profile cards that surface a person's current projects, their team's channels and a direct route into Teams. For distributed organisations this is consistently the most-used module on the intranet, and the one that justifies the build to employees fastest.

Built with
Entra IDMicrosoft GraphTeams
Employee reading the business news

Company news and internal communications

A news hub with editorial control: scheduled publishing, targeted audiences, approval before anything goes live, and analytics showing what people actually read. News can be targeted to a region, a business unit or a role, so a Riyadh office update does not clutter the London homepage. We build the authoring experience for communications teams rather than developers. If publishing a post requires a ticket, it will not happen, and the intranet goes stale within a quarter.

Built with
Audience targetingApprovalsAnalytics
Labelled binders and a folder on screen showing organised document libraries

Document management and controlled libraries

Structured libraries with metadata that reflects your business rather than generic columns. Version control, approval workflows, retention rules and permission models that survive reorganisation. For regulated and asset-heavy organisations we build controlled document handling: current version clearly identified, superseded versions retained but visibly archived, and a full audit trail of who approved what and when. This is where a properly engineered intranet separates itself from a folder structure with a homepage on top.

Built with
MetadataVersioningRetention
Signed policy document and pen on a desk with colleagues in the background

Policy and compliance centre

A single authoritative place for policies, procedures and standards, with read-acknowledgement tracking so you can demonstrate who has seen what. Automatic review reminders to the named owner before a policy expires. Version history preserved for audit. For organisations operating across jurisdictions, we structure this so region-specific policies surface to the right employees automatically rather than presenting everyone with everything and expecting them to work it out.

Built with
Read acknowledgementReview reminders
A Hello mug and phone welcoming a new joiner

Onboarding and employee lifecycle

A guided onboarding experience that starts before day one: pre-joining information, equipment and access requests raised automatically, a personalised checklist, and introductions to the people the new joiner will actually work with. Built on Power Automate so IT, facilities and HR tasks are triggered without anyone chasing. The same framework handles role changes, internal moves and offboarding: the process differs, but the mechanics are the same.

Built with
Power AutomateChecklists
Project lead sharing a dashboard on a tablet with their team

Project and team workspaces

Provisioned workspaces that come pre-built with the structure a project actually needs (document sets, task tracking, milestone views, team membership and reporting) rather than an empty site somebody has to configure. Templates are governed centrally, so every project workspace is consistent and reportable across the portfolio. This was the core of the Trivandi platform, where project teams spanning four countries needed to work from a single shared structure.

Built with
Site templatesGoverned provisioning
Manager approving a request on a smartphone

Request and approval workflows

Purchase requests, leave, travel, capital expenditure, IT access, content publishing: anything currently running on email threads and spreadsheet trackers. Built on Power Automate and Power Apps with conditional routing, value-based escalation, delegation when an approver is away, and a complete audit history. Approvers can act from the intranet, from Teams, or from their phone. We built a capital expenditure approval system on exactly this pattern, replacing a process with no audit trail and no visibility into where a request was sitting.

Built with
Power AutomatePower Apps
Searching for information on a laptop

Knowledge base and enterprise search

Search is the module that determines whether people trust the intranet. We configure managed metadata, result sources, refiners and result types so a search returns the right document rather than four hundred approximations of it. Knowledge base content is structured with proper taxonomy, owned by named people, and surfaced contextually: a project workspace shows the standards relevant to that project without anyone having to go looking.

Built with
Managed metadataSearch schema
World map with flags pinned on several regional locations

Multi-site and multilingual architecture

Hub-and-spoke architecture that keeps regional and business-unit sites independent while sharing navigation, branding, search and news. Multilingual support where content can be authored once and translated, with users seeing their own language automatically. Permission models designed so regional autonomy does not compromise central governance. This is the architecture that separates an intranet which scales from one that has to be rebuilt at the next acquisition.

Built with
Hub sitesMultilingual

Custom build, intranet product, or Viva Connections?

Three genuine options, and custom is not always the right one. Here is how we would compare them honestly.

Viva ConnectionsIntranet productCustom build
Time to launchFastModerateLonger
Fits your processesNoPartiallyFully
Ongoing licence costIncluded in M365Per user, recurringNone
ExtensibleLimitedWithin product modelUnlimited
You own the coden/aNoYes

When Viva Connections is enough

If what you need is a branded landing experience inside Teams (news, a few resource links, a dashboard of shortcuts), Viva Connections does that well and it is already in your licence. Do not pay anyone to rebuild it. We will tell you this on a call if it is the honest answer.

When an intranet product makes sense

Products like Unily, Powell and LiveTiles are well built and get you live quickly. They work when your processes are close to standard and you are willing to adapt how you work to fit the product's model. The trade is recurring per-user licensing on top of your Microsoft 365 spend, and a ceiling on what you can change. For many organisations that trade is worth making.

When a custom build is the right call

When the processes that matter most to your business are the ones no product accounts for. When you operate across regions with genuinely different requirements. When you have tried a template and outgrown it. When the intranet needs to talk to systems outside Microsoft 365. And when you would rather own the asset than rent it: a custom build has no per-user licence, so its economics improve as you grow, while a product's worsen.

How a SharePoint intranet project runs

  1. Discovery and information architecture

    We start with how people work, not what pages you want. Interviews across roles and regions, a map of the processes that matter, and an information architecture built around tasks rather than the org chart. This phase is where intranets are won or lost, and it is the phase most projects rush.

  2. Design and prototype

    Wireframes, then a working prototype you can click through before anything is engineered. You see the intranet and give feedback while changes are still cheap.

  3. Phased engineering

    We build in modules and release in phases, so the first part of the intranet goes live while later modules are still in development. You get value early and the scope stays correctable.

  4. Adoption and rollout

    The most common reason an intranet fails is not technical. It is that nobody uses it. We plan launch communications, train content owners, identify champions in each region and measure usage in the first ninety days so gaps get fixed while attention is still on the project. Most agencies treat this as the client’s problem. We do not.

  5. Support and enhancement

    Once live, an intranet needs maintaining: Microsoft ships platform changes continuously, and your business keeps changing too. We support what we build, and what others have built.

Built on the supported Microsoft stack

SharePoint Framework (SPFx)

Everything we build uses SharePoint Framework (SPFx) with React and TypeScript, which means components run natively inside the page rather than embedded in a frame. They inherit the user's authentication, respect existing permissions automatically, and behave correctly in the SharePoint mobile app rather than merely resizing in a browser.

Microsoft Graph and Azure

Microsoft Graph lets an intranet surface data from across Microsoft 365 (a user’s calendar, their Teams channels, their pending approvals, their files) in one view rather than sending them to four applications. Where an intranet needs to reach outside Microsoft 365 into an HR system, an ERP or a line-of-business database, we build that integration through Azure Functions.

Supported extensibility model

Because it is all built on Microsoft’s supported extensibility model, it keeps working through the platform’s release cycle rather than degrading with it.

Trivandi: one platform across four countries

The challenge

Trivandi is a major-events and venue consultancy working on some of the largest projects in the world, with teams in Brisbane, Dubai, London and Riyadh. Each office had developed its own way of working: its own document conventions, its own project tracking, its own places to look for information. As engagements grew larger and increasingly spanned offices, that divergence became a delivery risk.

The architecture decisions

Three decisions shaped the build.

  • Modular rather than monolithic: each capability was engineered as an independent module against a shared core, so new capability could be added later without rebuilding what already worked.
  • Hub-and-spoke site architecture, giving each office its own space while sharing navigation, search, branding and news centrally.
  • Role-based rather than location-based permissions, so a consultant working on a Riyadh project from London sees the right material without an administrator intervening.
I want to thank Chhaya from the MoreYeahs team, she has been a great partner to work with and really understood the project requirements.
Justin LiuAssociate Director, Tech & AI, Trivandi
See all case studies

Who we work with

We are a good fit if:

  • You are already on Microsoft 365 and want to build on what you are paying for
  • You have employees across more than one site or country
  • The processes that matter most to your business are specific enough that a template will not fit them
  • You have tried an out-of-the-box intranet and outgrown it
  • You want to own the platform rather than licence it indefinitely

We are probably not the right fit if you need something live in three weeks, if your requirements are genuinely standard, or if Viva Connections would do the job. We will say so early rather than late.

SharePoint intranet development: common questions

What teams ask us before commissioning an intranet.

In our recent SharePoint projects, a focused departmental intranet has typically run 4–8 weeks from discovery to launch. A multi-module enterprise platform of the kind we built for Trivandi is delivered in phases, so early modules go live while later ones are still being engineered. Discovery and information architecture should not be compressed: it is the phase that determines whether the finished intranet gets used.

It depends on scope, but the useful comparison is against the alternative. An intranet product carries a recurring per-user licence on top of your Microsoft 365 spend, so its cost rises as you hire. A custom build is a one-time engineering investment with no per-user licence, plus optional ongoing support. For larger organisations the custom route is frequently cheaper over a three-to-five year horizon, and you own the result. We give a firm figure after a scoping conversation.

Possibly. Viva Connections is included in Microsoft 365 and delivers a branded landing experience inside Teams: news, links, a dashboard of shortcuts. If that is what you need, use it. Where it stops is customisation: you cannot build processes into it, extend it meaningfully, or make it fit workflows it was not designed for. The organisations that come to us have usually deployed Viva Connections already and found it does not reach far enough.

Yes, and it is a substantial part of our work. We start with an assessment of the existing architecture, code and governance, and give you a clear view of what is sound, what carries risk and what should be replaced. Sometimes the answer is targeted improvement rather than a rebuild, and we will say so if that is the case. You do not need to have built it with us, and you do not need access to whoever originally did.

Yes, and this is worth being precise about, because responsive web design and genuine mobile support are not the same thing. Components built on SPFx render natively in the SharePoint mobile app, not just in a phone browser. That matters for frontline, field and site-based teams, who are usually the group least served by a typical intranet and the group where adoption gains are largest.

By designing it around tasks rather than the org chart, and by treating adoption as part of the project rather than something that happens afterwards. Practically: content owners named and trained before launch, champions identified in each office, launch communications planned, and usage measured in the first ninety days so gaps are fixed while the project still has attention. An intranet nobody uses is the most expensive kind.

Yes. We build multilingual intranets where content is authored once and translated, with users automatically seeing their own language. Regional sites sit in a hub-and-spoke architecture that gives each office independence while sharing navigation, search and branding centrally. Permissions and content targeting are designed so regional autonomy does not compromise central governance. It is the structure we used for Trivandi across four countries.

Other SharePoint services

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See what a custom intranet actually looks like

Rather than start with a sales conversation, we would rather show you a working intranet and let you judge. We will walk you through what we built, why it is structured that way, and what it would mean for your organisation.

Response within one business day from a technical lead, not a bot.
NDA on request before you share anything sensitive.
Prefer to book directly? Grab a 30-min architecture slot on our calendar.