Bonzai Intranet News, Insights & Best Practices

A common complexity for Office 365 users is the myriad of tools offered with no clear direction on how to use which tool when. For example, the recent release of Microsoft Teams in Office 365 has many users confused on how this tool fits into the growing ecosystem and whether existing tools like Skype or Yammer should be dropped in favor of Teams. Many also wonder whether multiple, or all, tools should be used in parallel.

At Bonzai Intranet we work with companies of all shapes and sizes, across disparate countries and various industries. Time and time again we're asked, "How do we engage users on our Intranet?". Over the past five years, we've deciphered patterns in the types of content that really resonate with people. Today I will share the top 3 not so obvious content pieces that engage all types of intranet users.

Over the past 4 years, the solution delivery team at Bonzai has implemented more SharePoint and Office 365 intranets than they can collectively count on their fingers and toes. There have been many late nights, a few tears shed but most importantly many learnings on how to implement sustainable intranets that last. This is often a difficult endeavor when resources are constrained, timelines cannot be met and budgets wane. 

If you're in the process of moving to a new intranet, you're likely aware that a content audit is necessary to ensure that nothing is left behind during the content migration phase. Complete content audits are a time-consuming and often resource-heavy process making them a dreaded task for many organizations we work with. To make it easier for you, we have put together five of our favorite best practices so your content audit is a smooth sailing process! We’ve also created a free template that provides everything you need to get started.

With the recent release of the New SharePoint Communication Sites for SharePoint Online, we’ve had many in the community ask what more is to come on SharePoint’s roadmap. With over 20 new updates currently in development for SharePoint On-premise and SharePoint Online, we thought we’d share nine that we believe will make the most impact for you and your organization.

If you haven’t already heard, Bonzai 1.6 is here! Over the past year we've listened to customers from all over the world and are proud to release over 70 functionality and feature improvements that close the gap between SharePoint Intranets and true digital workplaces that drive productivity. Below is a brief list that summarizes the advancements followed by an in-depth description of the features that have heralded the most excitement from our global community. 

The new SharePoint communication sites are now available for first release customers in Office 365. If you don’t have access to them yet, not to fret, there is a way for you to enable them. You can check if this new feature is available to you by navigating to SharePoint and creating a new site. If you do not see the "communication site" option, follow the steps on here to enable the feature. It will take roughly 30-minutes of your time. If you are more of a visual learner, feel free to register for a live demo of this new feature in the link below.

There has been much debate since the launch of SharePoint 2016 as to whether or not SharePoint Out-of-the box (OOTB) is now an intranet. With improved responsiveness, features, publishing experiences and layout advancements announced at the 2017 SharePoint Virtual Summit, many have asked me if SharePoint Intranet In-a-box products still have a place in the market. Without a doubt, I argue that they do.

Are you heading to SPS Vancouver this weekend? If so, join us this Saturday, April 8th to learn SharePoint tips and best practices from the experts themselves. We have three presentations lined up for you presented by SharePoint MVPs, Expedia's Manager of SharePoint and Webtools, and our very own Nintex Evangelist. 

Working with Fortune 500 companies it has become apparent that having a single Intranet homepage to present the same content to each user regardless of their location, job role or interests is simply ineffective. At Bonzai, we wanted to address this problem by trying to ensure that we could provide the right content, to the right users at the right time for SharePoint and Office 365 Intranets.