8 Components of SharePoint Information Architecture

What is Information Architecture (IA)? 

IA is the practice of organizing, structuring, and labelling content in an effective and sustainable way. It ensures that information is easy to find, manage, and use. In the context of SharePoint, IA involves defining site structures, navigation, content types, metadata, and governance policies. As a business decision maker, investing in robust information architecture can be transformative. The greatest benefit is the enhanced efficiency and productivity it brings to our organization. The goal is to reduce time spent searching while minimizing duplication. 

Establishing good information architecture early on is crucial. It lays the foundation for growth and scalability. We hope you can avoid the pitfalls of a cluttered and chaotic environment that can hinder productivity. Make your SharePoint intuitive and manageable, and one that can adapt seamlessly to evolving business needs.  

While designing, or redesigning, your own IA, consider establishing, optimizing, and utilizing the following eight key SharePoint components:  

• Root Site 
• Hub sites 
• Home sites 
• SharePoint start page 
• Organization Assets 
• Application Catalog 
• Learning Hub and Viva Learning 
• SharePoint Premium: Content Center 

We will spend the rest of this article explaining each component, including screenshots, links, plus tips and tricks along the way. 

Root Site 

The root site in SharePoint Online is a special site that is provisioned automatically when you set up your Microsoft 365 subscription. This site serves as the top-level site for your organization's SharePoint environment. The URL of the root site typically follows the format https://yourorganization.sharepoint.com, where "yourorganization" is the name of your organization – i.e., for Contoso, its https://contoso.sharepoint.com.   

This site is THE base element in information architecture in the cloud. If your environment was set up before April of 2019, then your root site is a Classic Teams Site. To best utilize the Root as your Intranet, we need to replace the Classic Teams Site with a modern communication Site. So, the Root Site has a special functionality which is available to SharePoint admins, and it is called replace site.

💡 Learn how to modernize your root site and then review the Home site information below.  

Hub sites 

A second key element is Hub Sites – the connective tissue between sites. Hub sites help organize sites based on any classification like departments/business units, Locations, Projects, etc. As part of Modern Architecture, it is not recommended to use Sub Sites, so if we have all independent site collections, Hub is the component which will establish relationships between sites. Below are some key benefits of using hub sites: 

• Shared navigation and brand 
• Roll-up of content and scoped, connected search 
• A home (page) destination for the hub 

 

A SharePoint hub site is a central hub that connects and organizes related sites based on organizational attributes such as project, department, division, or region. Associating a site with a hub site makes it easier to discover related content, news, and site activity across all associated sites.

💡 Learn more about SharePoint hub sites, and guidance for planning your hub sites.  

Home site 

The third key element of information architecture is Home Site. A SharePoint home site provides a customized landing experience that reflects the organization’s brand, voice, and priorities. A SharePoint home site also serves as the gateway to other portals in your organization’s intranet. Additionally, it provides 2 Major Capabilities – 

• Global Navigation – The Navigation you have on your App Bar. So independent of where you are on SharePoint you always have access to Global Navigation. 
• Viva Connections – Using Viva Connections you can design your Dashboard, and which can be directly rendered on teams, even we have capability to render your Intranet on Teams using Viva Connections. 

A sample SharePoint home site highlighting various key web parts to showcase how you can design your home site.

💡 Learn more about planning, building, and launching a SharePoint home site for your organization. 

SharePoint start page 

This is a page which is built on top of user context and is personalized based on user activity. Users can see the sites they are following, sites they frequently visit, and the latest news published on the site’s user has access to and featured links. This is a key element as it breaks the boundary of working on a specific device.

Additionally, the SharePoint start page provides a start’ing point for people to create their own sites and pages. 

 

The new SharePoint start experience is designed to motivate content creators to utilize the platform.

Organization Assets 

The next key element in IA is Organization Assets, if your company is looking to save and manage files for the entire organization to use, you have the capability to define one or more libraries as an Organization Assets Library. Examples Images and Office Templates. 

When a user designs a Modern SharePoint Page by edit it and adding web parts, especially the ones which use file picker, when you have Organization Assets Library configured, users see an additional vertical called “Your Organization” which can store images and logos which can be used across organization. 

 

Amodern SharePoint page with an Image web part in Edit mode, helping people access and use organization images and graphic assets.

Another capability is Office Templates, which enables users to select the tab for their organization where they see Office templates when they create a new Office document. 

A New Office Document being created usingan org-approved, published template which can be reused across the company to provide consistency and common branding.

💡 Learn more about Organization Assets Library. 

Application Catalog 

It is a special site collection that holds all custom built or third-party applications. The Application Catalog allows Tenant Administrators and Global Administrators to deploy custom code. For the very first time when a tenant is provisioned an Administrator needs to provision the application catalog. There can be 2 types of application catalogs - 

• Tenant App Catalog 
• Site Collection App Catalog 

Based on governance and information architecture it is a good idea to have a defined approach on which applications should be deployed at tenant level, and which one should be deployed at site collection level. If a custom application is meant to be used by multiple sites on the tenant, it is a good idea to deploy it on Tenant App Catalog. 

 

A sample Tenant Application Catalog where we have custom andthird-party components deployed.

💡 Learn more about Managing Apps on Application Catalog 

Additionally, for custom code locally scoped for a specific site collection, it is a good idea to use site collection app catalog. These are not created by default; they can be provisioned by running PowerShell cmdlets for any specific site collection. 

 

 

The Above Architecture Diagram explains how Application Catalogs are provisioned in Microsoft 365. 

💡 Learn more about Provisioning and using site collection application catalog. 

Learning Hub 

Learning hub can be a distinct SharePoint site collection, created as a home for Learning and Trainings in your tenant. As a site collection administrator, one can use this site to host custom training content. 

A sample SharePoint Learning Hub highlighting key elements like Learning Content Document Library, Viva Learning Catalog List with a Hero Webpart.A sample Learning Content Document Library displaying multiple folders which are security trimmed based on Mail-Enabled Security Groups for that specific Department.

Viva Learning can showcase your custom training modules alongside other paid training services you subscribe to, making learning part of daily work as Viva Learning right within Microsoft Teams. This is a great component while thinking about your IA. This can help in having consistent training methodology and better consumption and adoption of training content to increase knowledge and skill building. 

 

A sample Viva Learning home page within Teams showing a blend of training from the SharePoint Learning Hub and LinkedIn Learning.

💡 Learn More about Viva Learning here  

Content Center 

Syntex Content Center is a site template which is another modern template apart from communication sites and modern team sites. This site template has a very specific function and is used to build and manage document processing models, applying models to document libraries to automatically classify files and extract information. This capability is part of SharePoint Premium and provides capability for processing a lot of documents as you consider planning and implementation across all content types and scale use cases. 

 

Sample Content Center – Used to host document processing models.

💡 This comprises of 2 key elements Syntex in general and then specific details to learn about content center. 

Bringing it all together...

Overall, these are the eight key elements which define your core information architecture for SharePoint in Microsoft 365. When we connect them together it would define an organized IA, and an expanded use of your SharePoint investment in Microsoft 365. 

 

Information architecture diagram to show how various SharePoint sites and components can be connected together.

A well-designed Information Architecture is crucial for any organization as it ensures that information is organized, structured, and labeled in an effective and sustainable way. This makes it easy for users to find, manage, and use the information they need, which in turn enhances efficiency and productivity. A well-designed IA involves defining site structures, navigation, content types, metadata, and governance policies. This reduces the time spent searching for information and minimizes duplication, ultimately leading to a more intuitive and manageable environment that can adapt seamlessly to evolving business needs. 

-Prakul