-As you plan your new intranet project, think about how youΓÇÖll govern the site architecture and the content. Your intranet governance plan should be created in the context of the overall governance plan for Microsoft 365. As a key business solution in your digital workplace, your intranet will have its own unique governance requirements and expectations, especially because of its organization-wide focus and impact.

-Planning intranet governance should happen during the [exploration phase](./intelligent-internet-overview.md#1explore-whats-possible) - to ensure that all stakeholders have shared vision and goals. Envisioning is only the beginning. Your intranet governance plan will evolve as your organization evolves and as new capabilities are added to SharePoint and Microsoft 365.

-A good governance plan helps define the priorities for the intranet and helps to prevent content sprawl. It also ensures that roles and responsibilities are clearly defined and communicated ΓÇô and ideally, incorporated into job descriptions or performance goals. One aspect that often separates your intranet from other solutions is the number of people who are involved in creating and maintaining content. To ensure ongoing success, it's important to make sure that each of your intranet stakeholders and users understand their roles and responsibilities.

-There's no ΓÇ£one size fits allΓÇ¥ model when it comes to intranet governance. In fact, your intranet governance plan may be different for different types of content. For example, you may want to have more formal policies and stricter governance guidelines for sites that face the entire organization and less strict policies for content that is more targeted, such as content for an individual department or a one-time event (see Figure 1). The best approach is to look at the different elements and think about what is critical or necessary for your organization. Consider your audience and the culture of your organization to guide your decisions and approach, as well as your overall Microsoft 365 governance expectations.

-A clear vision statement provides critical guidance to the inevitable decision tradeoffs you'll need to make for your governance plan. For example, you probably don't want a completely uncontrolled environment with unstructured and ΓÇ£unfindableΓÇ¥ content if your intranet vision is to provide a key source of organizational knowledge and information. In this case, the unstructured environment with no controls is unpredictable and will likely misalign with desired business outcomes. In a different scenario, some users may have a goal to create an experimental place where new site owners can create ΓÇ£practiceΓÇ¥ sites to try out new skills or test alternative approaches to solve specific business problems. For this use case, an overly restrictive governance plan may not make a lot of sense. You may determine that you donΓÇÖt want to support an unlimited number of ΓÇ£practiceΓÇ¥ sites, so you may want a governance policy that says that all ΓÇ£testΓÇ¥ sites are deleted after a specific period of time. But, for these practice or test sites, the unstructured environment is fine. You can only know what is level of governance is ideal because you have a clear vision. The vision provides a framework for both the context and your investment in governance. Once you're clear about your intranet vision, your governance team can use that vision to guide the governance decisions.

-For example, consider the topic of site ownership. A policy might state, ΓÇ£All SharePoint sites will have a primary and secondary contact responsible for the site and its content.ΓÇ¥ A related guideline might state, ΓÇ£The site contact is listed in a web part in the lower left-hand corner of the site home page.ΓÇ¥ The guideline might become a policy for major functional sites but remain a guideline or recommendation for topic-specific microsites. Another example of a policy is whether people outside the organization can have access to the intranet as a whole or only to individual sites. The policy might have a default value of no external access but there could be a process that allows for exceptions to allow specific partner users to have access to some intranet sites.

-Each organization will have its own set of policies and guidelines. General topics should include content oversight, site design, branding and user experience, site management, and security.

-A key intranet governance decision involves determining who can create a new intranet site. Your modern [intranet architecture will be ΓÇ£flatΓÇ¥](./information-architecture-modern-experience.md#guiding-principle-the-world-is-flat) which means that your intranet will contain many sites. Do you want to provide a self-service model for new intranet sites or do you want to manage site creation through a form submission and workflow? There's no right answer to this question ΓÇô but no matter which approach you choose, you need to think about governance. There are two popular solutions to governing new site creation:

-You can easily [hide the option to create a new site](./manage-site-creation.md) in the <a href="https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=2185219" target="_blank">SharePoint admin center</a>. If you do so, you'll want to create a process for users to request a new intranet site. Having a request process makes it easy to review and track site requests and ensures that your environment remains ΓÇ£tidy,ΓÇ¥ but if your review and approval process takes too long, it could be frustrating for your users. Your provisioning process can leverage a site design to ensure consistency or you can manually create sites to follow your design patterns. A key part of your provisioning process will be to ensure that new site owners have the appropriate guidance and training that they need to be successful when you fulfill their site requests.

-If you enable self-service site provisioning, you'll want to consider providing site designs that embed your best practices so that new site owners start with a ΓÇ£templateΓÇ¥ that aligns to your governance guidelines. You'll also want to track new sites in the Admin Center so that you can follow up with new site owners to provide the information that they need to be successful after the site has been created.

-In addition to providing a process to provision new sites, you will also want to think about a process to provision new [hubs](./planning-hub-sites.md) and associated hubs. Hubs must be provisioned by the Global Administrator or SharePoint Administrator so you will need to think about how you will plan and govern the creation of new hubs.

-When an intranet site is no longer needed, there may be cases where your records management process prohibits deletion of the site and/or content. Another key governance decision is planning how you will delete or decommission intranet sites in the context of both legal holds and records management requirements. Learn more about [Microsoft Purview compliance documentation](/microsoft-365/compliance), including [records management](/microsoft-365/compliance/records-management) and [eDiscovery (Premium)](/microsoft-365/compliance/overview-ediscovery-20).

-Well-planned [information architecture](./information-architecture-modern-experience.md) is a prerequisite for a successful and well-performing intranet. It is difficult to separate planning your intranet information architecture from planning your intranet governance. These two planning tasks go together and you will likely find that you are thinking about the two aspects of your intranet iteratively and simultaneously.

-Brand standards help to define the look and feel of your intranet. These standards are reflected in site and page designs. Your brand standards can include standards for the use of imagery, including requirements to use only brand-compliant images or icons from an [organization assets library](./organization-assets-library.md) on intranet pages, as well as requirements to leverage only brand-compliant [custom themes](/sharepoint/dev/declarative-customization/site-theming/sharepoint-site-theming-overview) for sites. Your standards might prescribe a specific theme for different types of sites or sites with different access levels. Your standards might also include content authoring standards such as tone of voice, spelling conventions, [accessibility standards](https://www.microsoft.com/accessibility/office?activetab=pivot_1:primaryr2), and other guidelines that support your organizational brand. Learn more about [branding in SharePoint](./branding-sharepoint-online-sites-modern-experience.md).

-Content management is one of the most important parts of your intranet governance plan. Many intranet users complain about intranet search ΓÇô that they canΓÇÖt find what they are looking for. Most often, the problem is not with search; the problem is that there is no content management in the governance plan!

-Your governance plan should not only include what *should* be posted on the intranet ΓÇô but it should also include guidelines for content that *should not* be posted on the intranet. You may be able to enforce some policies using [automated information protection](/microsoft-365/compliance/protect-information) capabilities, but you will want to provide training and guidance for site owners and content authors to ensure that they understand their responsibilities when it comes to security and information management for both sites and content.

-Roles and responsibilities describe how each employee as an individual or in a role (such as Site Owner) is responsible for ensuring success of the intranet. Documenting roles and responsibilities is a critical aspect of your intranet governance plan. To ensure that intranet responsibilities are treated seriously, it is helpful to partner with your human resources organization to ensure that intranet responsibilities are part of job descriptions or performance goals.

-It ΓÇ£takes a villageΓÇ¥ to successfully support an intranet in any organization. You will need a team - and the team may include specialized roles that you leverage on an occasional basis, such as developers to create a custom web part, permanent roles such as site owners for whom intranet site management is a small part of their job, and other permanent roles for people whose entire job responsibilities involve intranet management. Some organizations find it helpful to organize their intranet resources in a center of excellence, which may include full time members of the IT staff supplemented with virtual members who work in different business groups around the organization. Others extend their centralized staff to include ΓÇ£[intranet champions](https://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-365/success/champions),ΓÇ¥ who extend the support team into various departments and geographic locations by volunteering to help ensure intranet success.

-No matter who is in your ΓÇ£village,ΓÇ¥ it is critically important that everyone understands their role and for which aspects of the intranet they are responsible. Figure 2 shows an example of a role and responsibilities description for an intranet Site Owner.

-Your intranet governance plan should incorporate a mechanism to collect feedback from intranet users. This includes a vehicle to collect feedback ΓÇô for example, a Microsoft Form linked from the footer of your home site ΓÇô but also mechanisms to gather and process the feedback and take actions based on the feedback. It is a good idea to acknowledge all feedback, even if you donΓÇÖt plan to take an immediate action.

-Your intranet will not be successful if you donΓÇÖt incorporate a way to provide training and support for all users, but most especially, Site Owners. The best way to reinforce your governance policies and guidelines is to build them in to your training. In other words, donΓÇÖt provide training that only shows ΓÇ£how toΓÇ¥ ΓÇô make sure that your training also includes your policies and guidelines ΓÇô the ΓÇ£how shouldΓÇ¥ aspect of your governance plan.

-It is helpful to provide a dedicated site where Site Owners and other intranet users can find training and governance information. You can create your own ΓÇ£user resource centerΓÇ¥ as described earlier or leverage a third-party or Microsoft-provided training environment. To ensure that your training content is always current, you can link to content at MicrosoftΓÇÖs training platforms such as [Microsoft Office Help and Training](https://support.office.com) and [Microsoft Learn](/). You can also embed the support.office.com training into your own environment by deploying [Microsoft 365 Learning Pathways](/office365/customlearning/) in your tenant and adapting the content to include your governance policies and guidelines.

-Look for metrics that are more than just page views. Just because a page is viewed does not mean it is adding value to users. Instead, look at metrics that measure business value. For example, are you seeing fewer support tickets related to expense processing because your intranet was updated to include better and more up-to-date content about expense reports? Are you seeing fewer help desk calls regarding how to upload documents because you have updated your training content and made it more accessible? Are HR representatives spending more time on unique issues because the HR content is organized more effectively?

-### Additional intranet governance resources:

-When planning to create, or update, your organization's intranet, there will be several people involved. The best intranet teams aren't very large but contain the right partners and stakeholder who can make decisions that serve the entire organization.

-Learn more about basic site [building blocks.](https://download.microsoft.com/download/f/7/0/f70e5c6d-5618-457f-b642-3a4173daff21/Building blocks%20-%20sites%20and%20pages.pdf)

-*You'll know you're done when* ΓÇö Business owners and users confirm they can find and have access to the content that makes their jobs more productive.

-*You'll know you're done when* ΓÇö You've determined the end-to-end look of the intranet from the home page to hubs to individual sites.

-*You'll know you're done when* ΓÇö When governance stakeholders, business owners, and content creators can work effortlessly in SharePoint without slowing the rhythm of business.

-*You'll know you're done when* ΓÇö A curated set of content has been migrated to SharePoint.

-*You'll know you're done when* ΓÇö Questions about SharePoint intranet usage on organization social media channels and through the help desk have decreased to a modest level.

-Look for opportunities to eliminate prior versions of documents that you no longer need. If you migrate files ending .v1, .v2, and so on, you'll create confusion for your users who won't be able to rely on search to consistently find the latest version of documents.

-*You'll know you're done when* ΓÇö You've got the minimum amount of content necessary to create and launch an effective SharePoint site.

-SharePoint [permissions](./modern-experience-sharing-permissions.md) are managed through a set of roles within a site ΓÇö owners, members, and visitors. Depending on the type of site, there may be additional permission and sharing options available like using Microsoft 365 groups.

-*Start by* ΓÇö Determining who needs access, who shouldn't have access, and how you'll grant access requests.

-*You'll know you're done when* - All site owners and users have access to the content they need, while securing confidential content when appropriate.

-The [main intranet portal for your organization](home-site-plan.md) is a big part of your new SharePoint intranet. You can create this page at any time during your intranet development project. You can still point to your legacy intranet sites with an intelligent portal home page. If you have an existing communication site that you want to use as your main portal page, you can [move it to the root site](modern-root-site.md#replace-your-root-site).

-The [mega menu](https://support.office.com/article/d6768545-2391-4c66-9a8c-a85eb76b4cf5), [news web part](https://support.office.com/article/C2DCEE50-F5D7-434B-8CB9-A7FEEFD9F165), and [Viva Engage feeds](/viva/engage/viva-engage-landing-page) can all be used to make your main portal page an engaging and productive destination for your users. For an end-to-end look at creating this page, read [Guided walkthrough: Creating an Enterprise Landing site for your organization](https://support.office.com/article/9c1842c3-543e-4891-85d3-0eaf680e242d).

-*You'll know you're done when* ΓÇö You've created a launch plan using the [Portal launch scheduler](/microsoft-365/enterprise/portallaunchscheduler) for redirecting from your current portal page to the new page and have shared this plan with all stakeholders and users.

-*You'll know you're done when* ΓÇö Business and site owners have dedicated areas in SharePoint that can be owned and maintained with little oversight.

-*You'll know you're done when* ΓÇö You can confirm users have access to the right information at the right time by using [site usage and analytics](https://support.office.com/article/view-usage-data-for-your-sharepoint-site-2fa8ddc2-c4b3-4268-8d26-a772dc55779e), and asking users for feedback.

-*You'll know you're done when* ΓÇö You're regularly promoting news and events that start conversations and engage and connect wide audiences.

-Intranets are a constant work in progress and are never really considered done. Make sure you have a plan to keep your content relevant, otherwise your intranet will start losing value on the day that you launch. Celebrate your initial launch, plan to monitor and maintain your intranet and its content over time as the organization changes and business goals evolve.

-| Communication primarily through email | Communication primarily through [SharePoint sites](https://support.office.com/article/What-is-a-SharePoint-communication-site-94A33429-E580-45C3-A090-5512A8070732) and [community portals](https://support.office.com/article/video-what-is-viva-engage-47526868-b136-40cc-a80d-c870eadd9ba5)|

-There are two ways [live events in Viva Engage can be produced](/viva/engage/manage-viva-engage-groups/viva-engage-live-events#types-of-live-events). The requirements depend on which video production methods you intend to use in your organization. Learn more about which method of live event you should use. For live events that only require visual and audio support, consider [hosting a live event using Viva Engage in Teams](https://support.microsoft.com/office/schedule-and-produce-a-live-event-in-new-yammer-using-teams-d891bff6-eda2-493f-8b0d-d87932e7937d).

-As a Global Administrator or SharePoint Administrator in Microsoft 365, you can provide custom list templates for users in your organization. When users create new lists, they can select from these templates alongside the built-in templates from Microsoft. This enables your organization to create repeatable list solutions (in SharePoint, Teams, and within the Lists app itself).

-When users in your organization create a list (in SharePoint, Teams, or the Lists app), they'll see the template on the "From your organization" tab.

-By default, the custom list template will be available to everyone in your organization. If you want, you can limit access to specific users or a security group. The following example shows how to grant an individual user view rights to a template.

-## Get template(s)

-Offline experiences in Microsoft Lists and OneDrive on the web are set up to automatically sign in users with their Microsoft Entra account credentials. If you enable this setting, people who used offline experiences in Microsoft Lists and OneDrive on the web previously and who are signed in on an Microsoft Entra-joined PC will no longer be able to set up offline experiences without entering their account credentials.

-[Configure a Content Search Web Part in SharePoint](https://support.office.com/article/0dc16de1-dbe4-462b-babb-bf8338c36c9a) (CSWP) offers a lot of flexibility for configuring the query it contains. However, if you configure the Web Part to use a very complex query, or if you have many CSWPs on a page, the page can take longer time to load. To make the page load faster, you can configure the CSWP to cache search results for users who belong to the same AD security groups. Because it's faster to look up search results in the cache than in the search index, the page loads faster.

-When you have configured a CSWP to use caching, it will first look in the cache for existing search results that match the query and the AD security group. If it doesn't find any search results in the cache, it will look in the search index.

-We recommend that you use caching only in CSWPs that are on pages that have more than 10 page loads per 15 minutes, for example on popular home pages or on category pages that are starting points for navigating to more detailed catalog pages.

- **CSWP 3** shows one set of results to people who work in the HR department, and another set of results to people who work in the Sales department. In most cases, you can make the page load faster by using caching in this Web Part. However, if you have many small departments with only a few employees in each department, the number of search results that'll be stored in the cache could overload the cache and actually increase the page load time.

- **CSWP 4** shows which documents the logged-in user has worked on recently. You should not use caching in this Web Part. Because the query is tailored to each user, all individual search results will be stored in the cache. This will overload the cache and might increase the page load time.

-3. Search finds results in the search index, and removes any search results that the users in the assigned AD security group are not allowed to see.

-4. Search finds results in the search index, and removes any results that the users in the assigned AD security group are not allowed to see.

-5. The search result is sent from the search index to the cache where it is stored (Result 1).

-9. The search result is served from the cache to the CSWP where the users sees the result.

-## Troubleshooting: newly added content does not show up in CSWP results

-If you search for newly added content before the content has been crawled and included in the search index, the cache will contain an **empty search result** for the query until the cache expires, and the content will not show up in the CSWP results.

-If newly added content does not show up in the CSWP:

-1. Make sure that the content has been crawled and added to the search index. Search for the content in a search box, or in a CSWP that does not use caching, until you can find the content.

-3. If you still don't see any results, check that you're a member of the AD security group that has been assigned to the CSWP. If you're not a member of the AD security group, you will not see any search results.