SharePoint Intranet & #Space
A SharePoint intranet your staff will actually use
Deployed in your Microsoft 365 tenancy. Live in six weeks.
Most intranets start with good intentions and end up abandoned. Staff can’t find what they need, communications don’t reach the frontline, and IT ends up maintaining a platform nobody opens. We’ve seen this often enough to build a better way. #Space is Antares’s SharePoint intranet accelerator — refined across 200+ deployments and built to go live fast, without sacrificing the things that determine whether people actually use it.
The intranet situation most organisations are in
Your staff have too many tools and not enough of the right information
In the Microsoft 365 stack alone, staff are navigating Teams, SharePoint, Viva Engage, OneDrive, Outlook, and a growing list of other platforms. Nobody has told them which to use when. Corporate knowledge lives in email threads. Policies sit in forgotten folders. New starters spend their first fortnight asking colleagues where things are.
Information nobody can find
Staff waste time looking for policies, forms, and documents that exist but aren’t where anyone expects them to be. Search returns outdated results. People default to emailing someone instead.
Comms that don’t reach the frontline
Messages get passed on second or third hand — or not at all. Staff without a desk have no reliable way to stay connected to what’s happening. The gap between leadership intent and frontline awareness keeps growing.
An intranet that nobody maintains
The intranet went live two years ago. The homepage still shows last year’s CEO update. Nobody owns the content because ownership was never defined. The platform is still technically running — it’s just not doing anything useful.
These aren’t edge cases — they’re the norm. In our experience, most organisations sit at a similar point: they have the right technology in their Microsoft 365 licence, but nobody has stitched it together in a way that works for how their people actually operate. That’s the problem #Space is designed to solve.
#Space by Antares
A proven intranet framework — not another product to buy
#Space is Antares’s SharePoint intranet accelerator. It deploys directly inside your existing Microsoft 365 tenancy — no new vendor, no separate licence, no data leaving your environment. Your staff see a fully branded intranet that feels like yours, built on the platform they already use.
The accelerator covers around 80% of what most organisations actually need out of the box — news and announcements, a staff directory, document management, team collaboration spaces, and emergency alerts — all pre-configured to SharePoint best practice. The remaining 20% is where your specific requirements live, and that’s where the real configuration work happens.
What comes standard in #Space
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OneSearch staff directory
Searchable profiles integrated with Microsoft Entra ID. Find people by name, role, team, or location.
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News and communications hub
Publish, manage, and distribute internal news with content ownership built in from day one.
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Rotating emergency alerts
High-visibility, time-sensitive notices that surface prominently across the intranet — no development required.
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Personalised quick links
One-click access to staff essentials — email, calendar, tasks, and personal shortcuts — delivered on the homepage.
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Viva Connections and Teams integration
The intranet surfaces directly inside Microsoft Teams — including on mobile for frontline and field-based staff.
“At NRMA, our revamped intranet is one of our key initiatives transforming the employee experience. It’s not just a platform — it’s a tool that enhances collaboration and communication, knowledge-sharing, and fosters a culture of shared purpose.”
Jo Cullen, General Manager People Experience, The NRMAThe delivery approach
From kickoff to go-live: a proven three-phase process
We don’t start by building. We start by understanding. Every #Space engagement follows the same structured delivery model — one that’s been refined across more than 200 intranet projects.
Planning and discovery
We run a series of structured workshops to review your current environment, map existing content to SharePoint Modern Sites features, and lock in your information architecture and scope. This is where we identify what’s standard and what’s genuinely unique to your organisation — and make decisions about both.
Build and configure
We deploy the #Space framework into your Microsoft 365 tenancy and configure it to meet the scope agreed in Phase 1. This includes custom branding to match your visual identity, content structure, permissions model, and integration with Microsoft Teams and Viva Connections. You’re involved throughout — not presented with a finished product at the end.
Go-live and adoption
We launch the intranet with a structured user adoption and training programme — because go-live without adoption is just another platform nobody uses. We identify content champions, train your team to publish and maintain the intranet, and stay with you as issues emerge. Most organisations treat go-live as the beginning of the programme, not the end of it.
After go-live: fortnightly sprints and ongoing managed service
Once your intranet is live, Antares offers ongoing managed service — including fortnightly development sprints, a dedicated Technical Lead, and monthly roadmap reviews. Your intranet will need to grow and adapt. We’re set up to do that with you rather than handing back the keys.
#Space tiers
Three tiers, one platform
Every #Space deployment starts from the same Microsoft 365 foundation. The tier determines the scope of features, communications capabilities, and governance controls delivered at go-live. All tiers include discovery, build, custom branding, and go-live training.
- SharePoint Modern intranet homepage and hub structure
- OneSearch staff directory (Entra ID integrated)
- News and announcements hub
- Document library and policy repository
- Custom branding to your visual identity
- Information architecture and content model
- Governance and content ownership framework
- Go-live training and adoption programme
- Rotating emergency and priority alerts
- Personalised quick links and staff dashboard
- Microsoft Teams and Viva Connections integration
- Team collaboration workspace templates
- Events calendar and group pages
- Power Automate content review workflows
- Search optimisation and metadata model
- Mobile-first configuration for frontline workers
- Advanced personalisation and audience targeting
- Viva suite integration (Engage, Learning, Insights)
- Custom SPFx web parts for unique requirements
- Reward Gateway or third-party engagement tool integration
- Lifecycle management and content governance automation
- Analytics and usage reporting dashboard
- Ongoing managed service and fortnightly sprints
Detailed feature comparison available on request. Enquire about the right tier for your organisation →
Real results
A fully working intranet, delivering results in weeks
Not a proof of concept. Not a phased rollout that takes a year to feel useful. A 100% functional SharePoint intranet — custom branded, fully adopted, and delivering measurable outcomes — in weeks. These are the organisations that have already done it.
Insurance & Services · 3,000+ staff
Modernising NRMA’s intranet for a largely frontline workforce
More than 80% of NRMA’s workforce are frontline workers, away from a desk and often unreachable through traditional communications channels. Messages were reaching staff second or third hand — or not at all. Antares designed and built a new intranet on SharePoint Online, integrated with Microsoft Teams and Viva Connections and built around a mobile-first strategy. Human-centric design workshops shaped every part of the experience.
Not-for-Profit · 1.1 million files
A leading Australian charity moves 1.1 million files to Microsoft 365
A major Australian charity was managing approximately 1.1 million files and 149,000 folders across aging on-premises file shares. Accessibility was limited, infrastructure maintenance costs were high, and collaboration was difficult. Antares delivered a phased, four-wave migration to Microsoft 365, with SharePoint Online as the document management foundation. The result: secure, anytime-anywhere access, real-time co-authoring, and significantly improved data security.
Professional Services · Classic → Modern
From SharePoint Classic to Modern Sites — in a matter of weeks
A leading Australian professional body needed to migrate from SharePoint Classic to SharePoint Modern Sites. There’s no direct conversion path — the organisation effectively needed a new intranet. Antares deployed the #Space accelerator to fast-track the build, eliminating the need for a custom solution while covering the features the organisation required. Interviews, workshops, and user testing shaped the design. An 80/20 approach meant go-live was achieved quickly, with scope to extend post-launch.
Document management · Property services
AVEO Group — document management reimagined on SharePoint
Antares began with a comprehensive assessment of AVEO’s existing document management practices, validated the future state, and delivered a modernised SharePoint solution that gave teams the structure, searchability, and access controls they needed. The approach — assess before building, not the other way around — is how we approach every engagement where the risk of a wrong decision is high.
An honest assessment
#Space is the right fit for most organisations — and we’ll tell you if it isn’t
We scope every engagement carefully before quoting. If #Space isn’t the right approach for your situation, we’ll say so — and explain what is. The organisations below will recognise themselves on one side or the other.
#Space works well when…
- You’re already on Microsoft 365 and want to use what you’ve already paid for
- Your primary needs are news and communications, document management, and a staff directory
- You’ve had a previous intranet that wasn’t adopted — and you want to avoid repeating the experience
- You’re migrating from SharePoint Classic to Modern Sites
- You have frontline or field-based workers who need mobile access to information
- You need to go live within weeks, not months
- You want an ongoing partner who will grow the intranet with you over time, not just hand over a finished build
A fully custom build makes more sense when…
- Your intranet must deeply integrate with multiple line-of-business systems (ERP, CRM, case management) in complex ways
- You have regulated document management requirements that go well beyond standard SharePoint workflows
- You’re a large, multi-tenancy organisation with significant cross-company publishing and permissions complexity
- Your visual or UX requirements are sufficiently unique that a configurable template won’t satisfy them
Antares builds custom SharePoint intranets too — for organisations where the complexity genuinely warrants it. The first conversation is usually about which path is right for your situation.
Why SharePoint and Microsoft 365
Your people already use Microsoft. Your intranet should too.
Some intranet vendors build their own platform and sell it as an overlay on SharePoint. Others offer stand-alone SaaS products that require separate licences, separate logins, and separate integrations. We build inside Microsoft 365 natively — because that’s where your data is, where your identity management is, and where your staff already spend their day.
No new vendor. No new licence.
SharePoint is already in your Microsoft 365 subscription. You’re not adding another product to your environment — you’re finally using the one you’ve already paid for.
Your data stays where it is
Everything lives inside your Microsoft tenancy. Your governance policies, your data sovereignty settings, and your Microsoft security controls apply from day one — there’s nothing to integrate and no third-party data access.
Connects to the tools staff already use
SharePoint connects natively to Microsoft Teams, Viva Connections, OneDrive, Outlook, Power Automate, and Power Apps. Your intranet is a hub for the tools your people already use — not another siloed system.
Lower total cost of ownership
No per-user SaaS licence. No platform maintenance. Microsoft updates SharePoint as part of your Microsoft 365 subscription. Your total cost is implementation and ongoing managed service — not an ever-growing licence bill.
Frequently asked questions
Questions we hear most often
#Space is Antares Solutions’ SharePoint intranet accelerator — a pre-built, configurable intranet framework deployed inside your existing Microsoft 365 tenancy. It delivers the core features most organisations need out of the box: a staff directory, news hub, document library, rotating alerts, personalised quick links, and Microsoft Teams and Viva Connections integration. Because it starts from a proven template refined across 200+ deployments, implementation typically takes six to eight weeks rather than several months, at a fraction of the cost of a fully custom build.
With the #Space accelerator, a fully functional SharePoint intranet can go live in as little as six weeks. This covers discovery and information architecture workshops, configuration and custom branding, content migration planning, and go-live with user adoption and training. A fully custom build typically takes three to six months. The right approach depends on how complex your requirements are — and the first conversation is usually about working that out together.
No. SharePoint is included in most Microsoft 365 licences. If your organisation is already on Microsoft 365, you already have the platform. #Space is deployed directly inside your existing tenancy — no new vendor, no separate licence, no data leaving your environment.
#Space is the right starting point when your requirements are broadly standard — news, document management, a staff directory, team collaboration spaces, and internal communications. It goes live faster and at lower cost, and can be extended over time. A fully custom build is appropriate when requirements are genuinely complex — deep integration with line-of-business systems, high-volume regulated document workflows, or large multi-tenancy architecture. Antares delivers both. The first conversation is usually about understanding which fits your situation better.
Yes. #Space is built on SharePoint Online and accessible from any device — including mobile for workers not at a desk. Viva Connections integration delivers a curated intranet feed directly inside Microsoft Teams on mobile. NRMA deployed #Space across a workforce of 3,000+, more than 80% of whom are frontline workers, with a mobile-first approach central to the solution design.
Yes. #Space is designed to grow with your organisation. After go-live, Antares offers ongoing managed service with fortnightly development sprints, a dedicated Technical Lead, and monthly roadmap reviews. Your intranet will need to evolve — and we’re set up to help you do that rather than handing back the keys at launch.
Yes — this is one of the most common scenarios we work through. There’s no direct upgrade path from SharePoint Classic to Modern; it requires building a new intranet. #Space is purpose-built to fast-track that process. We run discovery workshops to map your existing content to a new information architecture, then deploy #Space as the foundation, configured to meet your core requirements. The result is a modern, scalable intranet without the time and cost of a ground-up custom build.
Start the conversation
Ready to see what your intranet could look like?
We run a short intranet discovery call — usually 45 minutes — to understand your situation, show you what #Space looks like in practice, and tell you honestly whether it’s a good fit. No pitch deck. No commitment.
Already know what you need? Email us at info@antaressolutions.com.au