Sound familiar?
- Policies are scattered across shared drives and email attachments
- Holiday requests and expense claims are on paper or in inboxes
- Frontline staff never see company news
- SharePoint was set up once and nobody can find anything
- New starters do not know where anything is
Key facts
- Single sign-on with Microsoft Entra ID or Google Workspace
- Policies and documents with version history and read receipts
- Digital forms and approval workflows for holidays, expenses and requests
- Staff directory synced from Microsoft 365 through Microsoft Graph
- Content managed by your own team, no developer needed for updates
- Works on desktop and phone, including for staff without a desk
What a good intranet does
An intranet is a private website for your staff. At its best it is the front door to working life: the place people go to read company news, find the latest policy, book holiday, submit an expense, look up a colleague, and jump into the other systems they use. At its worst it is a dusty site nobody visits. The difference is almost always relevance: does it save people time every day?
dijitul developments builds intranets around the tasks staff do most, not around an org chart of pages. We start by asking what people currently email, print or ask HR about, and make those things quick.
Personalisation helps. A warehouse operative and a finance manager need different home pages: rotas, safety notices and a shift swap form for one; month-end tasks, approvals waiting and a link to the accounting system for the other. Content is targeted by role, department and site, so the home page shows each person what is relevant and hides what is not. Fewer, more relevant items mean people keep coming back.
Bespoke intranet or SharePoint?
Many businesses already pay for Microsoft 365, which includes SharePoint, and it is a capable platform for documents and team sites. It can be the right choice. A bespoke intranet tends to win when:
- You need real workflows (multi-step approvals, calculations, integrations with HR or payroll) rather than document storage.
- Frontline or shift workers need a simple mobile experience without full Microsoft 365 licences.
- You want something that looks and behaves like your brand, with a home page shaped around each role.
- A previous SharePoint rollout became hard to navigate and staff stopped using it.
It is rarely either-or. Our intranets often sit alongside Microsoft 365, signing in with the same accounts and showing documents stored in SharePoint through Microsoft Graph. See Microsoft 365 integration.
Forms and workflows that replace paper
Most of an intranet's value is in the workflows. Common ones we build include holiday and absence requests with team calendars and remaining allowance, expense claims with receipt photos and approval limits, purchase requisitions, IT and facilities requests, training records, accident and near-miss reports, and new starter and leaver checklists that notify IT, HR and line managers.
Each workflow routes to the right person based on department, site or amount, sends reminders, and keeps a full audit trail. Outputs can feed other systems: approved expenses to Xero, absence to payroll, starters to Microsoft 365 account creation. Where workflows span several systems, see workflow automation.
Policies, compliance and read receipts
For regulated businesses, proving that staff have read a policy matters. The policy library stores each document with version history, assigns it to the roles that must read it, and records an acknowledgement with the date and version. When a policy changes, affected staff are asked to read it again. Managers get a report of who is outstanding.
Content permissions mean HR documents are only visible to HR, and site-specific information only to that site. Content owners get reminders when a page has not been reviewed for a set period, which stops the intranet filling up with out-of-date information.
Search, AI and the staff directory
Search is what makes an intranet usable. We index pages, policies and documents so staff find answers quickly. Many clients now add an AI assistant that answers questions from your own handbook and policies, quoting the source document, so staff can ask how much notice they need to give for holiday and get the policy's answer. That is built using retrieval from your own content, covered on RAG knowledge base development.
The staff directory syncs from Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace so it is always current, with photos, roles, departments and an org chart.
Getting started
We begin with a free chat about what staff need most, then scope the content types, workflows and integrations and give a fixed-price quote. Your team manages the content afterwards. It is one of the bespoke software systems we build, and often grows to include staff target management or dashboards. Get in touch to start.
What we deliver
- A branded intranet with SSO login and role-based content
- News, announcements and noticeboards by site or department
- Policy library with acknowledgement tracking
- Forms and approval workflows routed to the right manager
- Staff directory, org chart and onboarding checklists
- Links into your other systems from one home page
How it works and what it costs
Every project gets a fixed-price quote after a free initial chat and a short scoping stage. You own the code and the data.
Free chat
Tell us the problem in plain English: what you do now, what goes wrong and what "better" looks like. No charge, no obligation.
Scoping
We map the processes, systems and data involved, agree what is in and out, and write it down so there are no surprises.
Fixed-price quote
You get a fixed price for the agreed scope, or a phased plan for bigger builds, so you can start small and prove it works.
Build and test
We build in short stages you can see and try, test against real data, then go live carefully with a rollback plan.
Hand over and look after
You own the code and the data. We can host it, support it and keep improving it, or hand it to your own team.
Frequently asked questions
Can staff log in with their Microsoft 365 accounts?
Yes. dijitul builds intranets with single sign-on through Microsoft Entra ID or Google Workspace, so staff use their existing accounts and lose access automatically when they leave. Roles in the intranet can follow Microsoft 365 groups.
Should we use SharePoint instead?
Possibly. SharePoint suits document-heavy team sites. dijitul recommends a bespoke intranet when you need real workflows, a simple mobile experience for frontline staff, or a branded home page per role. Many clients use both, with the intranet showing SharePoint documents.
Can we track who has read a policy?
Yes. Policies are assigned to roles, and each acknowledgement is recorded with the date and version. When a policy changes, staff are asked to read it again, and managers can see who is outstanding.
Can staff without a company email use it?
Yes. dijitul can give frontline or shift staff their own intranet logins, with optional two-factor authentication, so they get news, rotas and forms on their phone without needing a full Microsoft 365 licence.
Can it answer staff questions with AI?
Yes. We can add an AI assistant that answers from your own handbook and policies, quoting the source document. It only uses content the person is allowed to see, and HR stays responsible for the policies themselves.
Related
Tell us what you need to build
Free chat, clear scope, fixed-price quote. You own everything we build.