You search “SharePoint intranet examples,” and every result looks like a magazine spread — personalized banners, interactive dashboards, slick department portals with custom branding. Then you open SharePoint Online, create a communication site, and stare at a blank page with a stock image hero web part. The gap between what you see online and what you can actually build feels massive.
Here’s the thing most of those posts don’t tell you: many of those “examples” require third-party add-ons or custom development that goes well beyond what SharePoint ships with. That doesn’t mean you can’t build a great intranet. It means you need examples organized by what they actually solve — not just how they look.
This guide walks through nine SharePoint intranet examples organized by business purpose, explains what’s achievable out of the box versus what needs custom work, and covers the patterns that look impressive but fail in practice.
What Makes a SharePoint Intranet Worth Copying?
A good-looking intranet that nobody uses isn’t a good intranet. The SharePoint intranet examples worth studying share a few traits that have nothing to do with visual design:
People can find what they need in under 30 seconds. That means clear navigation, a functional search experience, and content organized by task — not by org chart. If employees have to click through four levels of department sites to find the PTO request form, the structure is wrong.
Content stays fresh without heroic effort. The intranets that survive past launch are the ones with realistic governance. Someone owns the homepage. Department leads own their sections. News has a publishing rhythm. When no one owns the content, pages go stale within weeks — and employees stop visiting.
It helps people do their jobs, not just read announcements. The most-used intranets are the ones that tie into daily workflows: submitting a help desk ticket, finding a policy document, checking project status, onboarding a new hire. Every section should answer the question “what can someone accomplish here?”
When we build intranets for mid-size teams, these are the criteria we evaluate before discussing a single design choice. The examples below are organized around these principles.
9 SharePoint Intranet Examples by Business Purpose
Each example below includes what it solves, the key SharePoint features involved, and whether you can build it with native tools or need something more.
1. Company Homepage (The Digital Front Door)
What it solves: Gives every employee a single starting point for company news, quick links to frequently used tools, and a search bar that actually works.
Key features used: Communication site as the home site, news web part with audience targeting, hero web part, quick links, and highlighted content for pinned resources.
Build complexity: Achievable out of the box. SharePoint’s “Set as Home Site” feature combined with audience-targeted news and quick links covers 80% of what most organizations need. Custom branding (matching corporate colors, fonts, and logo) can be done with the built-in “Change the Look” settings, though advanced branding beyond theme colors requires custom CSS or a third-party tool.
2. HR Self-Service Portal
What it solves: Reduces repetitive HR questions by centralizing policies, benefits information, PTO procedures, and frequently asked questions in one place.
Key features used: Communication site with sections for benefits, policies, and FAQs. Document libraries for policy storage. Quick links to external HR systems (payroll, benefits enrollment).
Build complexity: Mostly out of the box. The structure is straightforward — pages with sections and embedded documents. Where it gets more complex: if you want dynamic forms (like a PTO request submitted through the intranet), you’ll need Power Apps or a connected form tool. A static “here’s where to find everything” HR hub? That’s native SharePoint.
3. IT Help Desk & Knowledge Base
What it solves: Gives employees a self-service path for common IT issues before they submit a ticket. Reduces support volume.
Key features used: Communication site with categorized FAQ pages. Highlighted content web part pulling from a knowledge article library. Search configured to surface IT articles. Link or embed to ticketing system (ServiceNow, Jira, etc.).
Build complexity: The knowledge base structure is out of the box. Integration with a ticketing system depends on the tool — some embed via iframe, others need Power Automate or API connectors. The search experience is where this either works or doesn’t: SharePoint search is capable but needs intentional configuration (result sources, search schema) to surface the right content.
4. New Employee Onboarding Hub
What it solves: Replaces the “first-week email chain” with a structured onboarding experience. Day-by-day or week-by-week task lists, links to required training, introductions to key contacts.
Key features used: Communication site with a checklist-style layout. Planner or Microsoft Lists integration for task tracking. Quick links to training materials. People web part for team introductions.
Build complexity: Mostly out of the box. Microsoft Lists or Planner handle the task-tracking element natively. Where teams add custom work: personalized onboarding paths by role or department (using audience targeting or Power Automate to assign specific checklists). A basic “welcome, here’s your first week” site is one of the easiest wins in SharePoint.
5. Department Communication Site
What it solves: Gives each department (Finance, Legal, Operations) a home for their team-specific news, documents, and processes — without cluttering the company homepage.
Key features used: Communication site per department, registered to a hub site for shared navigation. News web part for department updates. Document library for team files. Events web part for team meetings or deadlines.
Build complexity: Out of the box. This is exactly what SharePoint communication sites are designed for. Hub site registration lets you share navigation and branding across department sites without duplicating content. The key decision is governance: who creates content, who approves it, and how often it gets reviewed.
6. Project Dashboard Site
What it solves: Provides stakeholders with a single view of project status, milestones, documents, and team assignments — without requiring access to the full project management tool.
Key features used: Communication site with embedded Power BI visuals or Microsoft Lists for status tracking. Document library for project deliverables. Highlighted content web part pulling from multiple project sites.
Build complexity: Mixed. A basic project status page with Lists and document libraries is native. If you want live dashboards pulling data from Project for the Web, Planner, or external tools, you’ll need Power BI embedded web parts — which are native to SharePoint but require Power BI licensing and data modeling. This is where the line between “intranet” and “business intelligence” starts to blur.
7. Document Management Center
What it solves: Centralizes controlled documents — SOPs, policies, contracts, regulatory filings — with version control, approval workflows, and permission-based access.
Key features used: Document libraries with metadata columns, content types, and retention labels. Approval workflows via Power Automate. Managed metadata for classification.
Build complexity: SharePoint handles document management well out of the box — version history, check-in/check-out, and permissions are native. Where it gets complex: multi-stage approval workflows, custom metadata schemas for regulatory environments, and large-scale permission structures. These are buildable with Power Automate and SharePoint’s native features, but they need careful planning.
8. Leadership & Executive Communications Portal
What it solves: Gives executives a dedicated channel for strategic updates, town hall recordings, and company performance metrics — separate from the noise of day-to-day news.
Key features used: Communication site with video web parts (Stream integration), hero web part for featured messages, and audience-targeted content that surfaces executive updates only to relevant groups.
Build complexity: Out of the box. Stream (on SharePoint) handles video hosting natively. The main design consideration is keeping this portal lean — executives won’t maintain a complex site, so build it around 2-3 repeatable content types (video update, written message, Q&A recap) and make publishing as simple as possible.
9. Frontline or Field Team Portal
What it solves: Gives employees without a desk — field technicians, warehouse staff, facility workers — mobile access to schedules, safety procedures, and reporting tools.
Key features used: Communication site optimized for mobile. Viva Connections for a Teams-based mobile experience. Quick links to shift schedules, safety documents, and incident reporting forms.
Build complexity: The site itself is out of the box (SharePoint is responsive by default). The real value comes from Viva Connections, which surfaces the intranet inside Microsoft Teams — including on mobile devices. For organizations with frontline workers, this is the difference between an intranet that exists and one that gets used. Power Apps can add mobile-friendly forms for field reporting.
What SharePoint Gives You Out of the Box vs. What Needs Custom Work
This is the question that should come before any design discussion. Here’s where the lines fall as of early 2026:
| Capability | OOTB SharePoint Online | Needs Customization |
| Company homepage with news & links | ✓ Communication site + home site designation | — |
| Department hub structure | ✓ Hub sites with shared navigation | — |
| Document libraries with version control | ✓ Native with metadata columns | — |
| Audience-targeted content | ✓ Built into news & quick links web parts | — |
| Custom branding (colors, logo) | ✓ Change the Look settings | Advanced branding (custom fonts, layouts) needs CSS or SPFx |
| Interactive dashboards | — | Power BI embedded web parts (requires licensing) |
| Workflow-driven forms (PTO, requests) | — | Power Apps + Power Automate |
| Personalized experience by role | Partial (audience targeting) | Full personalization needs Viva Connections or custom development |
| Mobile-first frontline access | Partial (responsive sites) | Viva Connections for Teams-integrated mobile experience |
| Integration with external tools (ServiceNow, SAP) | — | Power Automate connectors or custom API work |
The takeaway: you can build a solid, functional intranet with native SharePoint features. Where most teams hit a wall is personalization, interactive forms, and integration with non-Microsoft tools. That’s where the decision to build custom, bring in a consultant, or add a third-party layer comes into play.
Not sure where your intranet falls on this spectrum? Talk to Nexinite about planning a Microsoft 365 intranet that matches what your team actually needs — without over-building.
SharePoint Intranet Patterns That Fail
Not every popular intranet pattern deserves to be copied. Here are the ones we see fail most often:
- The “beautiful ghost town.” A polished homepage with custom branding and zero content behind it. Teams spend months on design and launch with placeholder pages. Employees visit once, find nothing useful, and never come back. Design follows content — not the other way around.
- The org-chart intranet. Every department gets a site, organized exactly like the org chart. The problem: employees don’t think in org-chart terms. They think in tasks — “Where do I submit an expense report?” doesn’t map neatly to “Finance > Accounts Payable > Forms.” Organize by what people need to do, not by who reports to whom.
- The everything intranet. Trying to be a news hub, a document center, a project management tool, an employee directory, and a social platform — all at once, all on day one. The teams that succeed start with 2-3 high-impact use cases, get those right, and expand from there. We’ve written about why modern intranets fail when this happens.
- The no-owner intranet. No one is responsible for keeping the homepage current. No one reviews department pages for accuracy. No governance model exists. Within six months, the intranet is a graveyard of outdated announcements and broken links. Every intranet needs at least one person accountable for content freshness.
How to Go From Example to Execution
Inspiration is step one. Here’s how to turn these examples into a working intranet:
Audit what you have. Before building anything new, inventory your existing SharePoint sites, shared drives, and communication channels. Most organizations already have fragments of an intranet scattered across Teams channels, shared mailboxes, and forgotten SharePoint sites. Understanding what exists prevents duplication.
Pick 3-5 priority use cases. Don’t try to build everything at once. Look at the nine examples above and identify which ones solve your most pressing pain points. For most mid-size teams, the company homepage + HR portal + document center combination covers 70% of what employees need. Start there.
Pilot the homepage first. Your intranet homepage is the gateway. If the homepage works — clear navigation, fresh content, useful links — employees will explore further. If it doesn’t, nothing else matters. Intranet homepage design best practices can help you get the foundation right.
Plan governance before launch. Who owns each site? Who publishes news? How often does content get reviewed? These aren’t exciting questions, but they determine whether your intranet is alive in six months or abandoned. Build governance into the project plan, not as an afterthought. Our SharePoint intranet best practices for mid-size teams covers governance models in detail.
Decide build vs. buy vs. hire. Based on the OOTB vs. custom table above, determine whether your priority use cases are buildable internally, need a third-party intranet-in-a-box product, or require a Microsoft Partner to configure and customize. For organizations already on Microsoft 365, extending what you already own is often the most cost-efficient path to a modern intranet.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I build a SharePoint intranet without a developer?
Yes — for the basics. SharePoint Online provides communication sites, web parts, hub site navigation, and site templates that non-developers can configure. A functional company homepage, department sites, and document libraries are all achievable without writing code. Where you’ll need development help: custom branding beyond theme colors, interactive dashboards, complex approval workflows, or integrations with non-Microsoft systems.
How much does a SharePoint intranet cost?
If you already have Microsoft 365 business or enterprise licenses, the SharePoint infrastructure is included. The real costs are planning, design, content creation, and customization. A basic out-of-the-box intranet can be built internally with staff time. A customized intranet with branding, Power Platform workflows, and third-party web parts typically ranges from $15,000 to $75,000+ depending on scope, though costs vary widely by organization size and complexity.
What’s the difference between a SharePoint communication site and a team site for intranet purposes?
Communication sites are designed for broadcasting information to a broad audience — they’re the right choice for intranet pages, department portals, and company news. Team sites are built for collaboration within a specific group — document co-authoring, task lists, shared calendars. Most intranets use communication sites for the public-facing pages and team sites for workgroup collaboration behind the scenes.
How long does it take to launch a SharePoint intranet?
A basic intranet homepage and 2-3 department sites can launch in 4-6 weeks with dedicated effort. A full intranet with custom branding, governance planning, content migration, and Power Platform integrations typically takes 8-16 weeks. The timeline usually stretches not because of technical work, but because of content — getting stakeholders to decide what goes on each page is consistently the longest phase.
The best SharePoint intranet examples aren’t the prettiest ones — they’re the ones employees open every morning because they’re actually useful. Start with what your team needs most, build it well, and expand from there.
If you’re planning a SharePoint intranet and want to skip the trial-and-error phase, reach out to Nexinite. We’ve built Microsoft 365 intranets for mid-size teams across the U.S. and can help you move from examples to a working intranet faster than starting from scratch.