SharePoint that doesn’t look like SharePoint: property group enhances collaboration with custom-branded intranet

SharePoint that doesn’t look like SharePoint: property group enhances collaboration with custom-branded intranet

Antares combines functionality and design to deliver a winning intranet solution for a global property group.

Overview

It’s no secret that the best intranets are those employees actually use. But how do you ensure your intranet becomes a go-to source of information instead of a document graveyard? A focus on user experience and design can help.

The challenge

This global property group owns, develops and manages industrial real estate. With offices across Australia and around the world, its success hinges on effective collaboration.

Unfortunately, its ageing SharePoint infrastructure didn’t get the memo. With limited social and knowledge sharing capabilities, it was just a place to store documents. Teams communicated by email. Information disappeared in inboxes. And if an employee resigned, the organisation risked losing hard-won corporate knowledge.

The organisation needed to upgrade its intranet to:

• Support teamwork and collaboration
• Provide a central location for company news and updates
• Make information easy to find
• Provide users with relevant content according to role and location
• Not look like a ‘typical’ SharePoint environment

To prevent migration headaches and continue using a familiar platform, stakeholders decided to upgrade to SharePoint’s latest version.

The solution

While the organisation knew it wanted SharePoint, it was unsure which deployment model would provide the most value: SharePoint Online or SharePoint on premises. Antares conducted a feasibility study and identified SharePoint Online as the best way forward.

Building on its pre-configured intranet framework, Antares redesigned the organisation’s intranet to focus on collaboration and knowledge sharing. Highlights included:

• Configuring social networking tool Yammer
• Adding a targeted news feed that adjusts content based on user location
• Creating sections for sharing company news, events and policies
• Producing company-wide forms and workflows – check

At the same time, a graphic designer met with the organisation’s marketing team to develop a custom SharePoint design that:

• Reflected the organisation’s culture and values
• Didn’t look like a ‘typical’ intranet
• Supported an intuitive and engaging user experience

The project took three months to complete. This included time to develop specific customisations not included in the pre-configured intranet framework, such as the custom branding and deep Yammer integration.

Result

The intranet has become a go-to source for corporate news, updates and policies. With collaboration tools at their fingertips, employees no longer rely on email. They can find information quickly, work more efficiently and ensure valuable corporate knowledge is preserved.

What next?

Imagine deploying a custom-branded SharePoint and Office 365 intranet solution in just a few weeks. With Antares, it’s possible. Our pre-configured frameworks leverage years of experience developing intranets for leading Australian businesses. It’s fast, hassle-free and cost effective.