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Corporate Intranet  ·  SharePoint

Corporate Intranet with
News, Events & HR

WFHC — Corporate

Zero
Downtime during migration from legacy portal
Full-featured
News and events system with rich media
Approval-based
Publishing workflow for all content types
3 modules
Legacy systems merged into one unified portal
Intranet SharePoint Online SPFx Power Automate Content Types Document Library Microsoft Teams

A Legacy Portal Past Its Useful Life with No Path to Modern Communication

WFHC's corporate intranet was running on an ageing portal that had been in place for years without significant updates. The interface was outdated, the publishing tools were difficult for non-technical staff to use, and there was no mobile experience for employees working remotely or on-site at different locations.

Company news was published without any approval process — anyone with edit permissions could post to the intranet homepage, which had led to several instances of premature or incorrect announcements going live. There was no event calendar visible to all staff, and the HR document store was a separate system entirely, requiring employees to navigate to a different URL to find policies, forms, and handbooks.

Leadership wanted a unified corporate intranet that would consolidate news, events, staff directory, quick links, and HR documentation into a single destination — built on SharePoint Online with proper approval workflows for content publishing and a migration plan that would not disrupt daily operations during the cutover.

Legacy portal outdated — no mobile experience, difficult publishing tools, ageing infrastructure

No approval workflow for news — premature announcements published without editorial review

HR documentation in a separate system — employees needed two different URLs to access intranet content

No events calendar — company milestones, team events, and announcements had no shared visibility

How We Migrated with Zero Downtime

1
New portal built in parallel
The full SharePoint Online intranet was built and tested in a staging environment while the legacy portal remained live and operational for all staff.
2
Content migration and audit
Existing news articles, HR documents, and policy files were migrated to the new SharePoint structure. Outdated content was archived rather than migrated.
3
Staff training and UAT
Department content editors were trained on the new publishing workflow and approval process. User acceptance testing was completed with key stakeholders.
4
Cutover in a single scheduled window
The DNS redirect from the legacy portal URL to the new SharePoint intranet was made in a single scheduled maintenance window. No disruption to working hours.

Unified Corporate Intranet Replacing 3 Legacy Systems

Akshara Technologies designed and built WFHC's complete corporate intranet on SharePoint Online, consolidating their legacy intranet, standalone HR document store, and event calendar tool into a single, unified digital workplace portal. Custom SharePoint content types were defined for news articles, events, policies, and HR forms — ensuring consistent metadata and enabling filtered views across the site.

An approval-based publishing workflow was built using Power Automate for all content types. When a content editor publishes a news article or HR policy update, the flow routes the submission to the designated approver for that content category. Approvers receive a Teams notification with a preview of the content and can approve or request changes directly from the notification — with the content going live automatically on approval.

The portal includes a company news section with rich media support, an events calendar with category filtering, a staff directory linked to Azure AD, a quick links launcher configurable by admins, and an HR document library with version-controlled policy documents organised by content type. The migration from the legacy portal was executed with zero employee-facing downtime.

What Was Delivered

Full-featured company news system with rich media, category tags, and author attribution
Approval-based publishing workflow for all content types — news, policies, events, and HR documents
Corporate events calendar with category filtering visible to all staff across the organisation
Staff directory linked to Azure AD with search, department filtering, and Teams contact links
HR document library with version control, content type metadata, and policy lifecycle management
Quick links launcher configurable by admins — no code changes required to add or remove links
Zero downtime migration from the legacy portal — complete content audit, migration, and cutover

Three Systems Unified, Zero Disruption

Zero
Downtime during migration — employees experienced no disruption to intranet access
3
Legacy systems replaced — intranet, HR document store, and event calendar unified into one
100%
Content approval coverage — every news item and policy update now goes through editorial review
1 portal
Single destination for news, events, HR documents, staff directory, and quick links

The WFHC Corporate Intranet in Action

Tools & Technologies Used

Platform
SharePoint Online
Modern SharePoint Online as the unified portal platform for all intranet content and documents
Framework
SPFx
Custom web parts for news, events calendar, quick links, and staff directory components
Automation
Power Automate
Approval workflow for all content publishing — news, events, HR policies, and document updates
Schema
Content Types
Custom SharePoint content types for news articles, events, HR policies, and forms with enforced metadata
Documents
Document Library
Version-controlled HR document library with content type metadata and lifecycle management
Messaging
Microsoft Teams
Approval notifications and content review requests delivered directly in Teams channels

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Time to Replace Your
Legacy Intranet?

From legacy portal migration to full-featured corporate intranet builds — we deliver SharePoint Online intranets with proper approval workflows, HR integration, and zero downtime cutover.