SharePoint Intranet Examples: 8 Page Layouts for a Small Business

The best SharePoint intranet examples for a small business are a handful of focused pages rather than a portal: a home page with news and quick links, an HR and benefits hub, a policies library, an operations and how-to center, a new-hire onboarding page, a knowledge and search page, department sites and an IT help page. Each example below is described by its layout and purpose, with the closest Microsoft template, who owns it and who can see it. None of them needs custom code.

If your SharePoint sites are not set up yet, start with how to set up SharePoint for a small business, and for who can see what, read SharePoint permissions best practices. Our SharePoint intranet consulting plans and builds pages like these with your team.

What does a small business intranet look like in SharePoint?

A shape that suits most small businesses: a communication site serves as the home page and the hub, and department and project sites are associated with that hub, so they share navigation, branding and search. Three levels of navigation tie it together: global navigation across the whole intranet, which appears in the SharePoint app bar once you have a home site; hub navigation shared by the associated sites; and each site's own local navigation.

The same home site can appear inside Microsoft Teams through the SharePoint app in Teams, which Microsoft used to call Viva Connections. It shows the intranet's news, a dashboard of cards for common tasks and a curated list of resources, on desktop and mobile.

What should a SharePoint intranet home page include?

A home page earns daily visits only if it answers this week's questions. From top to bottom, a layout that suits most small businesses:

• A banner of three to five tiles for this week's main announcement, a deadline such as open enrollment, and the most-used tool.
• News rolled up from the department sites with the News web part, so a department publishes once and the story shows on the home page too.
• A block of quick links to payroll, expenses, benefits, the phone list and the help desk.
• Upcoming events such as closures, training and company events.
• Announcements for short urgent notices at the top of the page. This web part works only on a home site.

Microsoft's Organization home template starts you with news, resources and personalized content. Keep the page short: anything people need weekly rather than daily belongs one click away, in navigation.

What does an HR intranet page look like in SharePoint?

Microsoft's Human resources template is built for benefits, career, compensation and policy information. For a small business, lay it out as benefits by plan, how to request leave, pay dates and the holiday calendar, the forms people need, and a contact card for whoever handles HR. Keep confidential HR material, such as personnel files, investigations and salary data, on a separate private site with external sharing turned off. An HR hub everyone can read is no place for anything only HR should open.

How should a policies library and an operations center be laid out?

A policies library works best as one document library with a few columns instead of folders: category, policy owner, effective date and next review date. A view filtered to current versions becomes the page staff use, and the review-date column tells each owner when a policy is due. Keep versioning on, so the history is kept without old copies cluttering the view.

An operations center is where procedures live: one page per process, with numbered steps, photos or screenshots, the checklist or form it needs and the name of the person to ask. A list of suppliers, equipment or service contacts fits on the same site. The team that does the work edits it, and everyone else reads.

What goes on an onboarding page and a knowledge page?

Microsoft offers two onboarding templates: New employee onboarding, a communication site that guides new hires through the process, and Employee onboarding team, a team site for the people running it. A small business page needs three sections, first day, first week and first month, plus a checklist the manager and the new hire both see, the people to meet and links to training.

A knowledge page answers the questions staff ask most, one short answer per page or list item, each with an owner and a review date. Search covers the rest, and search and Microsoft 365 Copilot only return what each person has permission to open. That is a reason to keep the knowledge page open to everyone and keep sensitive material on restricted sites, rather than hiding pages from the navigation.

How should intranet permissions and navigation work?

• Communication sites use three SharePoint groups. A few owners, a small number of members who write content, and a large visitors group of readers. Microsoft suggests security groups for that visitors group, which is the easiest way to add many people at once.
• Department team sites use their Microsoft 365 group. Group members become site members, and read-only people go in the site's Visitors group.
• Audience targeting is not security. Targeting decides what someone sees first in navigation and web parts; it does not stop them opening a page. Protect sensitive content with permissions on a separate site.
• Keep global navigation short. Point it at major category pages, and test the labels with staff before launch.

Who owns and maintains the intranet?

Microsoft's intranet planning guidance splits the work four ways, and a small business can give each part to a named person: an intranet owner who sets direction and governance, IT administrators who handle the platform, site creation and training, business or site owners who decide each site's content and permissions, and content authors who write and update pages. Give every page and policy a named owner and a review date, and replace owners when people leave, or pages go stale.

A light rhythm keeps it current: news every week, a monthly check for broken links and pages past their review date, and a quarterly look at site usage to retire pages nobody opens.

How do you build and launch a SharePoint intranet?

1. Collect the questions. List the 20 questions staff ask most and where each answer lives today.
2. Pick the first release. Three to five pages from the examples above, usually the home page, HR, policies and onboarding.
3. Create the home site and hub. A communication site from the Organization home template, registered as the hub, with department sites associated to it.
4. Apply templates and set permissions. Use Microsoft's templates as a starting point, and set the groups before any content goes in.
5. Move or rewrite content. Retire duplicates and outdated files instead of copying them across.
6. Test with real tasks. A new employee finds a policy, a manager publishes news, and someone without permission cannot open a restricted page.
7. Launch where people already work. Announce it, and add the SharePoint app to Teams so the intranet is one click away.
8. Review after 30 days. Fix what people could not find, then add the next pages.

How do you validate that the intranet works?

Run the launch tasks with three or four staff who did not build the site, and time them. Search for the ten most common questions and check that the right page comes first. Sign in with test accounts at each permission level to confirm restricted pages stay restricted. After launch, use site usage data to see which pages are read, and collect feedback through a simple form on the home page.

How does NetSys help with a SharePoint intranet?

We start with the questions your employees ask and the people who own the answers, then scope the structure, navigation, pages, document libraries, permissions and publishing responsibilities. Before launch we test representative tasks with the people who will use the site, including a check that someone without permission cannot reach restricted content. Owners are trained before handover, and moving existing files is scoped as a separate workstream when it is needed.

Book a call with an engineer and bring three examples of information your staff struggle to find.

Frequently asked questions

What does a SharePoint intranet template or checklist cover?

The pages in the first release, the template each one starts from, the owner and audience of each page, the permission groups, the navigation labels, the content to move or retire, the launch tasks to test and the review schedule. A checklist that names an owner for every line is a launch plan; one without owners is a wish list.

Who maintains a SharePoint intranet?

An intranet owner sets direction, site owners decide the content and access for each site, authors keep pages current, and IT administers the platform. In a small business one person may hold two of those roles, but every page still needs a named owner and a review date.

How do we validate the intranet before launch?

Have staff who did not build it complete real tasks, check search results for the most common questions, and test restricted pages with accounts at each permission level. After launch, review usage and feedback at 30 days.

Does SharePoint come with intranet templates?

Yes. Microsoft includes communication site templates such as Organization home, Human resources, Department, New employee onboarding, Leadership connection, Learning central and Crisis management, and team site templates such as IT help desk, Project management and Employee onboarding team. Site owners apply them from the site's settings, and an organization can add templates of its own.

Is the SharePoint app in Teams the same as Viva Connections?

Yes. Microsoft renamed Viva Connections the SharePoint app in Teams. It is built on the SharePoint home site and shows the intranet's news, a dashboard and resources inside Teams, on desktop and mobile.

Should a small business build its intranet in Teams or SharePoint?

Both, in different roles. Teams is where conversations happen, and a team's files already live on a SharePoint site behind it. The intranet itself, the pages people read, belongs on SharePoint communication sites and is surfaced in Teams through the SharePoint app.

Sources and further reading

• Microsoft Support: apply and customize SharePoint site templates: the communication and team site templates, checked October 2026.
• Microsoft Learn: information architecture in modern SharePoint: global, hub and local navigation, roll-up web parts and audience targeting.
• Microsoft Learn: get started creating your intranet: the intranet owner, IT, site owner and author roles.
• Microsoft Learn: overview of the SharePoint app in Teams: news, dashboard, resources and announcements.
• Microsoft Learn: sharing and permissions in modern SharePoint: groups for team and communication sites.