Redesigning SharePoint Intranet for Brand Consistency and Usability
Customer
The Customer is a European logistics company providing air, sea, and overland transportation services. With over three decades in the domain, the company ships a variety of goods with care and all needed precautions. Simultaneously, the Customer is developing four other non-logistics service lines in diverse industries such as real estate and agriculture.
SharePoint Intranet Had UX and UI Issues
The Customer had an intranet based on SharePoint Online but was dissatisfied with it. The interface was unhandy and did not align with the Customer’s brand book. A tangled hierarchy of document folders made the search tricky and time-consuming for employees.
In addition, the Customer needed to adjust the structure of the intranet to its new business directions and had a backlog of several new features to implement. Since the Customer lacked the necessary SharePoint skills in-house, it decided to outsource the work to a competent vendor and partnered up with ScienceSoft.
Improving the Usability and Brand Identity of the Intranet
ScienceSoft’s SharePoint developers started by redesigning the high-level structure of the intranet. We implemented five separate websites for the Customer’s respective business directions and created dedicated department spaces (accounting, marketing, HR, and administrative) for each of them.
As the Customer requested ScienceSoft to focus on its main business direction first, the project is currently dedicated to the intranet for the logistics services division.
Improving document search
ScienceSoft reorganized document folders and added metadata for each document (e.g., creation date, creator, department ownership). This allowed users to search documents by their specific attributes and made intranet navigation faster. ScienceSoft also provided training and introduced intranet users to the new approach to document organization.
Creating a branded interface
We adjusted the intranet’s UI in line with the Customer’s brand book for a unified and polished look.
Evolving the home page
ScienceSoft enhanced the home page with new features required by the Customer:
- A news widget (a.k.a. SharePoint web part) with corporate and industry news.
- A currency rate widget showing exchange rates for the main currencies used by the Customer.
- A world clock widget showing the current time in the Customer’s different business locations.
- A ticketing system for employees to request office supplies. The responsible office managers receive automated notifications from the system when a ticket is submitted or overdue.
- A section with quick access to the main document libraries.
- Quick links to the spaces of different departments.
What the Customer Likes about Its Upgraded Intranet
As of October 2023, ScienceSoft has launched the new intranet functionality and received positive feedback from the Customer’s team. The daily work with the intranet has become far more convenient. The Customer’s employees retrieve the necessary documents much faster, stay up-to-date on corporate news, and are more involved in corporate life.
The Customer is eager to proceed with its intranet improvement and plans to involve ScienceSoft in more of its SharePoint initiatives.
Technologies and Tools
SharePoint Online
