Manufacturing
Intranet as a SharePoint Replacement
Challenge
A plastics manufacturer with two sites in two countries used SharePoint as its intranet. Maintenance was cumbersome, the interface uninviting for staff, and site-specific content such as public holidays or devices could only be mapped with difficulty.
Solution
We developed a self-hosted intranet on Next.js 15: dashboard, news feed, file storage, event calendar with public holidays for both countries, team page, administration and role-based login. Microsoft 365 stays connected via the Graph API, and a device module synchronises with Active Directory via PowerShell.
Result
The company has an intranet that fits its structure and can be maintained internally. Deployment to the Windows Server runs automatically via GitHub Actions. The project evolved into our product Atrium.
Starting point
SharePoint can do a lot, but an intranet that employees actually like to open needs more than a document library with a news page. At the customer, two sites in two countries added complexity: different public holidays, separate teams and a device inventory that had so far been maintained in lists. The requirement: a portal that reflects this reality, runs on the company’s own network and can be maintained without specialists.
Modules
The portal bundles seven areas: a dashboard as the landing page, a news feed for company announcements, file storage, an event calendar that automatically accounts for the public holidays of both countries, a team page with contacts, an administration area for editors and permissions, and a device module. Login is role-based, so editors, IT and staff each see and edit exactly what belongs to their role.
Integration with Microsoft 365 and Active Directory
A SharePoint replacement must not ignore the existing Microsoft world. Via the Microsoft Graph API, the portal accesses user and calendar data from Microsoft 365. The device module manages computers, laptops and mobile phones at both sites with full-text search, filters, statistics and Excel export. A PowerShell sync reconciles device and user data with Active Directory so that nothing has to be maintained twice.
Technology and deployment
The application is built on Next.js 15 and runs self-hosted on a Windows Server in the company network. For deployment we set up a self-hosted GitHub Actions runner: every approved change is built and rolled out automatically. The internal IT team does not need to know any build steps to ship updates.
From project to product
What began as a customer project we have developed into a product: Atrium is the self-hosted intranet for businesses that want more than SharePoint and prefer to keep their data in-house.