Designing and deploying a SharePoint Online intranet from scratch — information architecture, governance, and adoption for 200+ users
I was given full ownership to design, build, and maintain a SharePoint Online-based digital workplace platform from scratch for YellowCom Ltd, serving as the company's central hub for 200+ users across multiple departments. The initiative encompassed every dimension of the project — from defining the information architecture and metadata taxonomy through to site provisioning, navigation design, governance frameworks, and end-user adoption.
The platform replaced a fragmented landscape of shared drives, email chains, and ad-hoc file stores with a structured, searchable, and governed intranet. At its core sits a knowledge management hub containing 75+ articles and training guides that I authored and maintain, which has directly contributed to a 30% reduction in repeat support queries. The project also established comprehensive governance policies covering content lifecycle management, permissions models, and site provisioning standards.
This case study demonstrates end-to-end digital workplace ownership: from blank tenant to a fully operational intranet that serves as the single source of truth for an entire organisation.
When I joined YellowCom Ltd, the organisation had no centralised digital workplace. Information was scattered across personal OneDrive accounts, legacy shared drives, email attachments, and various third-party tools. There was no standardised way for employees to find company policies, process documentation, or operational guidance. New starters had no single place to go for onboarding materials, and teams operated in silos with limited visibility into each other's work.
The lack of structure extended to Microsoft Teams, where team creation was ungoverned — anyone could create teams and channels without naming conventions, purpose definitions, or lifecycle policies. Guest access had no formal controls, and app management was inconsistent. The result was sprawl: dozens of abandoned teams, duplicate channels, and no clear ownership model.
Leadership recognised that as the organisation grew beyond 200 employees, this lack of governance and centralised information was becoming a material risk to productivity, compliance, and knowledge retention. They needed someone to take ownership of the entire Microsoft 365 digital workplace — not just build it, but define the standards, drive adoption, and maintain it as a living platform.
I began by conducting workshops with department heads and key users across the organisation to understand their information needs, pain points, and daily workflows. This involved mapping the existing content landscape — identifying what lived where, who owned it, and how it was used. I catalogued the most common employee queries and support requests to identify the highest-value content for the knowledge base.
Based on discovery findings, I designed a hub-and-spoke site architecture with a central intranet hub connecting departmental sites, project spaces, and the knowledge management portal. I defined managed metadata term sets for consistent content classification, designed the global and local navigation structures, and created a URL strategy that supported intuitive wayfinding. Search was configured with custom result sources, promoted results, and refiners aligned to the metadata taxonomy.
Starting from a blank tenant with no existing intranet infrastructure, I designed and built custom SharePoint site templates that serve as the foundation for every site in the organisation. Rather than allowing ad-hoc site creation, I created standardised templates for each site type — departmental team sites, project collaboration spaces, knowledge base portals, and communication sites — each pre-configured with the correct content types, metadata columns, navigation structure, branding, and default page layouts.
I built a self-service site provisioning workflow using Power Automate: users submit a request specifying the site type and purpose, it routes through the appropriate approval chain, and upon approval the flow automatically provisions the site from the correct template, applies the naming convention, assigns the right permission groups, registers it in the site directory, and notifies the requester. This ensures every new site is born governed — consistent structure, correct permissions, and proper metadata from day one — without requiring IT to manually build each one.
The organisation's structure required a multi-tenant-aware approach to intranet design. I architected the platform to support isolated site collections with tenant-level governance controls, ensuring that each business unit's content, permissions, and compliance settings could be managed independently while still rolling up to a unified global navigation and search experience.
I configured tenant-level settings including external sharing policies (restricted to approved domains), cross-tenant collaboration controls for guest users, and data residency considerations. For organisations operating across the UK and Ireland, I ensured that SharePoint and Teams policies respected regional compliance requirements. I implemented tenant-wide sensitivity labels through Microsoft Purview to classify and protect content consistently, and configured data loss prevention (DLP) policies to prevent accidental sharing of sensitive information across tenant boundaries.
The governance model I established covers the full tenant lifecycle: how new sites and teams are provisioned, how access is granted and reviewed, how content is classified and retained, and how the platform is monitored for policy violations. This framework is designed to scale as the organisation grows into additional tenants or merges with other M365 environments.
I designed and implemented a tiered privileged access model to ensure that administrative rights across the M365 platform are tightly controlled, auditable, and aligned with the principle of least privilege. Rather than granting permanent admin access, I configured Azure AD Privileged Identity Management (PIM) to provide just-in-time, time-bound elevation for administrative roles — Global Admin, SharePoint Admin, Teams Admin, and Exchange Admin roles are only activated when needed and require justification and approval.
At the SharePoint level, I implemented a structured permissions model using Azure AD security groups mapped to organisational roles. Site collection administrators, site owners, members, and visitors are managed through nested groups rather than direct user assignments, making access reviews and bulk changes manageable at scale. Conditional access policies enforce multi-factor authentication for privileged operations and restrict admin portal access to compliant, managed devices via Intune.
I established a quarterly access review process using Azure AD Access Reviews, requiring site owners and group owners to verify that membership is still appropriate. Orphaned permissions and stale guest accounts are automatically flagged for remediation. This approach gives leadership confidence that privileged access is controlled, time-limited, and fully auditable.
With templates, governance, and the access model defined, I built the SharePoint sites and pages, configuring web parts, page layouts, and branding to create a cohesive look and feel. Document libraries were structured with content types and metadata columns. Teams environments were configured with policies enforced through the Teams admin centre and Azure AD. I set up Intune device compliance policies to ensure governance extended to endpoints accessing the platform.
I authored 75+ knowledge articles covering M365 tools, internal processes, troubleshooting guides, and best practices. Each article was tagged with metadata for discoverability and organised into a logical category structure. I implemented a feedback mechanism so users could rate articles and suggest improvements, creating a continuous improvement loop for content quality.
I delivered hands-on workshops and onboarding sessions to 100+ end users covering M365 tools, the new intranet, navigation, search, and Teams best practices. I created quick-reference guides, video walkthroughs, and a dedicated "Getting Started" site for new joiners. Adoption was tracked through SharePoint analytics and Teams usage reports, with targeted follow-up for low-engagement departments.
The platform follows a hub-and-spoke architecture built entirely on SharePoint Online and the wider Microsoft 365 ecosystem, designed with multi-tenant scalability in mind. The central hub site serves as the organisation's front door — housing company news, announcements, the knowledge base, and global navigation to departmental sites. Each department has its own connected site provisioned from standardised templates, ensuring consistency while allowing local customisation within governed boundaries.
The security layer is built on a tiered privileged access model. Azure AD Privileged Identity Management (PIM) controls admin elevation with just-in-time, time-bound access. Conditional access policies enforce MFA and device compliance for privileged operations. Permissions flow through nested Azure AD security groups rather than direct assignments, making the model scalable and auditable. Microsoft Purview sensitivity labels and DLP policies protect content across the tenant.
Microsoft Teams is integrated as the real-time collaboration layer, with team structures aligned to the SharePoint site architecture. Governance is enforced through Azure AD security groups, conditional access policies, and Teams creation policies configured in the admin centre. Intune provides endpoint compliance, ensuring devices accessing the platform meet security baselines.
Power Automate workflows handle both content lifecycle automation (review reminders, stale content alerts) and operational governance (site provisioning from templates, access request routing, guest access approvals). Power BI dashboards provide governance and adoption metrics to leadership, including privileged access activity and tenant health indicators.
Starting with stakeholder workshops proved invaluable — understanding how each department actually worked (rather than how we assumed they worked) led to an information architecture that people naturally adopted. The knowledge base became a self-reinforcing success: as articles resolved common queries, more users trusted the platform, which drove further adoption. Tracking usage analytics from day one allowed me to identify low-engagement areas early and intervene with targeted training before habits solidified around the old ways of working.
In hindsight, I would implement a formal content champion programme from the start — appointing advocates in each department to own their local content and promote the platform within their teams. While the centralised approach worked well for the initial build, sustaining content freshness at scale requires distributed ownership. I would also invest earlier in automated governance reporting, so leadership could see adoption trends and compliance metrics without manual report generation.
This project transformed how YellowCom operates as a digital workplace. For the first time, the organisation has a single, governed platform where employees can find company information, operational documentation, and team resources without navigating a maze of disconnected systems. The 30% reduction in repeat support queries alone freed up significant IT capacity that could be redirected to higher-value work.
The governance frameworks ensure the platform remains sustainable as the organisation grows. Site provisioning standards prevent sprawl, content lifecycle policies keep information current, and the permissions model protects sensitive data while enabling collaboration. These aren't just policies on paper — they're enforced through the platform's configuration and automated workflows.
The knowledge base has become a genuine business asset. With 75+ articles covering everything from M365 tooling to internal processes, it serves as institutional memory that doesn't walk out the door when employees move on. New starters are productive faster, experienced staff spend less time answering repeat questions, and the entire organisation benefits from consistent, documented ways of working.
Most critically, this project demonstrated the value of having a single point of ownership for the digital workplace. Rather than piecemeal solutions from multiple vendors or consultants, the organisation now has a coherent, integrated platform with a clear roadmap for future enhancements including Viva Connections and Copilot adoption.
I design, build, and govern SharePoint-based digital workplaces from scratch. Let's discuss how I can transform your organisation's collaboration and knowledge management.
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