Microsoft have now made their newest form of SharePoint intranet site – home sites, generally available across Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365).

SharePoint intranet sites are an integral part of building a modern workplace. Intranets allows employees to harness collective knowledge through the sharing of knowledge and by connecting people across different teams and silos.

There are two types of intranet sites in SharePoint, which are communication and teams’ sites. A team site connects members of a team or department to the information, content and apps that they work with every day. A communication site is where employees can share and consume news, reports and other information in a visually engaging format.

Image source: Microsoft tech community blog

Home sites are a new type of SharePoint intranet site, which under the hood are actually communication sites with additional “superpowers” Microsoft have added. A home site acts as a landing page for all the users in your intranet.

There are a few important distinctions between SharePoint home sites and regular communication sites. Firstly, home sites are automatically set up as an official organisation news site where relevant news, updates and content can be shared with users depending on their role in the organisation. On home sites you can highlight your organisational news with a tag to distinguish it from the personalised content you target to employees.

You can also make the news and information you share more engaging by easily embedding video content through Microsoft Stream.

Image source: Microsoft tech community blog

Moreover, in a normal SharePoint communication site your search bar will default to allowing users to only search within that site. However, SharePoint home sites will default to allowing users to search across the entire Microsoft 365 tenant, displaying results from any sites and directories the user has access to.

Your home site also connects with your SharePoint start page, which is the page that you get directed to when you click the SharePoint icon from you Office 365 homepage. When you add a home site it automatically adds the branding and navigation menu to the start page. You can also link to the start page from your home site so users can switch between the organisational page and their own personalised start page.

In addition, if you use the SharePoint app on android or iOS, you will be able to see a home button on the home site. You can also choose to add a company logo to your Microsoft 365 nav bar and link that logo to your home site.

Image source: Microsoft tech community blog

SharePoint home sites are a great way to bring your employees together across different teams, departments and silos with single source of truth where you can share knowledge and authoritative news. If you want to know more about how SharePoint can be configured in your organisation to enhance your collaboration and knowledge sharing, speak to one of our Office 365 consultants.