Microsoft SharePoint has been the backbone of digital work environments for years. It is a powerful foundation for collaboration, document management and internal communication. You can also use SharePoint as an intranet, especially for organizations with fairly standard requirements it is very suitable. But as soon as the requirements become more complex, you run into the limits of standard SharePoint.
Fresh Intranet builds on the foundation of SharePoint. It runs entirely within your own Microsoft 365 tenant and adds smart modules, AI and user-friendly features. This way, you combine the best of both worlds: the reliability of SharePoint and the power of Fresh, which makes your intranet truly come alive.
SharePoint provides a powerful search function that allows users to find documents and information within the organization’s SharePoint environment. In practice, however, that search feature often proves too broad, sometimes leaving intranet content snowed under among other files and sites. This is because this search function searches within the entire SharePoint environment and cannot be limited to only within the intranet.
Fresh Intranet makes search easier and more relevant. The search function is tailored specifically for intranet purposes and offers smart filters and topic areas. This allows you to search intranet-wide, without including irrelevant results from outside the intranet.Employees find what they need faster without getting lost between documents or sites. This increases ease of use and therefore productivity.
In standard SharePoint, employees can post news items, build pages with Web parts and schedule publications. This works conveniently but is not sufficient for every organization. Once a lot of content is published or if you have a large organization in which employees need to be actively reached with news and updates, more extensive capabilities are often desired.
Fresh Intranet provides those additional capabilities for managing and publishing content. It features an integrated editorial environment with a clear calendar, workflows and the option to send newsletters directly from the intranet. Content can easily be reused in different places within the intranet. And that’s just the beginning of what’s possible.
In SharePoint, rights, policies and access levels can be set up extensively. With this, IT easily manages who is allowed to do what within the environment.
What often requires more attention is keeping content current and monitoring ownership. In standard SharePoint, that usually remains a manual process. Fresh Intranet makes this management a lot smarter. You simply set evaluation dates and manage ownership via a clear dashboard. As a result, information remains up-to-date, governance is demonstrable and compliance is better secured, without IT or communication having to spend continuous time on it.
With standard SharePoint, you can post news items. However, the reach is limited because employees have to actively go to the intranet to read something.
Fresh Intranet offers more ways to make news and information visible. For example, you can show page-blocking notifications for important updates, distribute content via newsletters or send a notification via Teams or Outlook when a new post is online. In addition, you can publish content targeted to specific audiences so that users only see information relevant to them. This makes communication more targeted, visible and effective.
Basic reports are available in SharePoint that allow you to see how often a site or document is viewed and how many users are active. That gives a rough picture of usage but says little about how effective your internal communications actually are or what content has the most impact.
Fresh Intranet makes this much more insightful. With extensive intranet analytics, you can see exactly how employees are using the intranet: which news items are well-read, which are clicked on a lot and which search terms are popular. You gain insight into reach, involvement and trends over time. This way you can discover which content is successful, which is less effective and which channels are most effective in reaching your employees.
And this is not all. There are even more differences between standard SharePoint and Fresh Intranet. You can read more about the differences in our white paper. Download the white paper here.
With Fresh Intranet, you get the most out of Microsoft 365. You turn SharePoint into not just a functioning intranet, but a place that really lives within the organization. A central environment where people collaborate, communicate and get inspired.
Everything runs securely within your own tenant, without external platforms or separate links. IT maintains control, management is simplified and everyone benefits from an intranet that is pleasant to work with and used daily.
