SharePoint Intranet Redesign Resulting in Higher User Adoption and Engagement

Summary

A US provider of auto dealership management software had an intranet built on Classic SharePoint that was non-intuitive and inconvenient, leading to low user adoption. INNERLUXES redesigned it into a modern SharePoint Online intranet — a homepage plus department sites with rich web parts for news, people, events, open positions, and quick links — that became a unified hub for tools, information, and communication, driving higher intranet usage, event participation, and employee engagement.

About the Client

The Client is a US provider of auto dealership management software.

The Challenge

The Client had an intranet based on the Classic SharePoint UI design. It was non-intuitive and inconvenient to use, which resulted in low user adoption. The Client needed to make the intranet user-friendly and encourage wider use by employees. One of the main goals was to enable quick access from the intranet to the company's website and internal digital tools for business process automation, learning, and communication. The Client also wanted to make the intranet more engaging — encouraging employee interaction through fresh, diversified news and extended social features.

The Solution

The Client turned to INNERLUXES as an experienced SharePoint intranet developer. After discussing the Client's needs, our team suggested creating a new intranet based on SharePoint's Modern UI.

INNERLUXES's team implemented a SharePoint Online intranet consisting of a homepage and department sites. The main web parts of the intranet homepage include:

• News. This web part pulls data from various resources and displays four categories of news: company, team, department, and industry news.
• Employee Directory, Birthdays, Work Anniversaries, and Newcomers. Our team implemented these web parts with the help of Azure WebJobs, a feature of Azure App Service. It automatically fills these web parts by running a scheduled script, pulling relevant data from Azure Active Directory and saving it to a SharePoint list.
• Open Positions. This web part pulls data about open positions from the company's recruiting software.
• Events. This web part displays upcoming events relevant to a particular user and synchronizes them with the user's calendar, allowing users to enroll in corporate events directly.
• Quick Links. This web part enables one-click access to the company's website and a range of digital tools, such as ERP, a learning management system, a people management platform, a ticketing system, an employee recognition system, and more.

The Results

• The Client received a modern, easy-to-use, and functional intranet that serves as a unified repository of working tools, information, and communication.
• The intranet has empowered employees to handle their job tasks and interact with colleagues more effectively than before, and the Client has observed a rise in intranet usage.
• The new intranet has also contributed to an increase in corporate event participation, resulting in higher employee engagement.

Technologies and Tools

SharePoint Online, Microsoft Azure, PowerShell, SharePoint Designer 2013, Visual Studio Code.