SharePoint vs Sprocket 365: What's Missing Out of the Box

Microsoft SharePoint is one of the most powerful platforms for building digital workplaces. It provides a solid foundation: pages, document libraries, news, search, and a growing set of web parts — and for many organisations, that foundation is enough to get started. But as soon as you move beyond basic content publishing and start building something more ambitious, the gaps become apparent quickly.

Sprocket 365 was built specifically to fill those gaps. After delivering hundreds of intranet and knowledge base projects across industries and organisation sizes, the team at Sope kept encountering the same requests from clients: requirements that SharePoint almost covered, but not quite. Rather than building bespoke solutions for each client, those recurring requirements were bundled into a single, affordable product that any SharePoint tenant can install and use.

This article explores two of the most common scenarios where SharePoint out of the box falls short, and how Sprocket 365 addresses each one.

Scenario 1: Building a knowledge base

SharePoint can store documents. It can publish pages. It can be searched. But a proper knowledge base — the kind organisations use for policy libraries, onboarding portals, health and safety hubs, or structured team wikis — requires much more than any of those things individually. Out of the box, SharePoint is not a knowledge base. Here is why, and how Sprocket closes the gap.

There is no wiki navigation

A knowledge base lives or dies by its navigation. Users need to browse a hierarchy of topics, drill down from broad categories to specific articles, and always know where they are. SharePoint's left-hand navigation exists, but it is flat, manually maintained, and not designed to represent a content hierarchy. As content grows, it becomes unmanageable.

Sprocket's Knowledge Hub solves this with a purpose-built wiki-style left navigation. Pages are organised into a hierarchical tree that editors manage with drag-and-drop, and readers get a clean, expandable navigation panel that updates automatically as pages are added, moved, or archived.

Documents are not pages

Many organisations store policies and procedures as Word files in document libraries. But a Word document sitting in a library cannot be read in the browser as a proper page, cannot be searched at the paragraph level, and provides none of the engagement or compliance features a knowledge base needs.

Sprocket's Document Converter turns Word documents into SharePoint pages with a single action, preserving formatting and structure. Once converted, they live as proper wiki pages — searchable, readable in-browser, and able to take advantage of every page feature. They can also be exported back to PDF when a downloadable version is needed.

No compliance or read tracking

For policies, safety procedures, and compliance documents, simply publishing content is not enough. Organisations need to know who has read what, and when — and SharePoint has no built-in capability for this.

Sprocket's Read Lists let administrators define which pages must be read by specific users or groups. Users see a checklist of required pages and acknowledge each one, while administrators get a full audit view of completion rates and can send automated reminders. This turns a knowledge base into a compliance tool, with no custom development.

Search does not understand structure

SharePoint's search is powerful across the whole tenant — but when you are inside a knowledge base, you usually want results scoped to that knowledge area, not the entire organisation. Knowledge Hub includes contextual search that returns results scoped to the current area, with filtering by section and page type.

Pages do not connect to each other, and have no structured experience

A hallmark of a good knowledge base is that related content surfaces naturally, and every article feels consistent. SharePoint pages have no built-in mechanism for either. Sprocket's Related Pages surfaces connected articles, and Knowledge Hub wraps every page in a consistent experience — reading time, related pages, previous/next navigation for sequenced content, and the full wiki tree alongside the content.

Scenario 2: Building a modern intranet

A modern intranet needs to surface the right news to the right people, help employees find colleagues, provide quick access to tools, support team pages that stay current without manual effort, and deliver a consistent branded experience. SharePoint can tick some of these boxes, but building a truly polished intranet without compromise is where it starts to struggle.

Navigation and branding

SharePoint's global navigation is functional but rigid, and a distinctive branded experience usually means accepting the defaults or investing in custom development. Sprocket's Header replaces the native navigation with a fully configurable branded header — multi-level menus, custom logo placement, and design options that let the intranet feel like an extension of your organisation's identity.

People and org charts

SharePoint's Org Chart web part only displays a single level of hierarchy at a time and requires clicking through each person individually. Sprocket's People Hub renders the full hierarchy at once, alongside a searchable, filterable list view — so you can answer “show me everyone in IT” in seconds. Because it draws directly from Microsoft 365 profiles, team pages stay up to date automatically.

News, events, and quick access

SharePoint's built-in News is genuinely good, and Sprocket doesn't replace it — it adds value in how you surface and organise it, with multiple configurable news web parts. For events, the What's Up web part aggregates across sites and pulls in profile data like birthdays and work anniversaries. And the App Launcher, Buttons, and My Teams web parts create a genuinely personalised jumping-off point for the working day.

Putting it together

The honest reality of building an intranet entirely in SharePoint out of the box is that you end up making compromises. Requirements get descoped. Pages look generic. Org charts frustrate people. Each compromise is individually small, but together they add up to an intranet employees tolerate rather than rely on. Sprocket provides the 30+ web parts and enhancements that let you build the intranet you actually want — without custom development, and without compromise.

The full comparison

Here is how Sprocket 365 lines up against SharePoint out of the box, grouped by area.

Knowledge base & compliance

Intranet & navigation

People & organisation

News, events & presentation

SharePoint is the right foundation

SharePoint is the right foundation. Sprocket 365 is what turns that foundation into the intranet or knowledge base your organisation actually needs. If you are ready to get started, explore Sprocket Studio or see pricing — both products offer a fully functional 14-day free trial.