Internal communication is a key part of organizational performance. In a workplace where digital tools such as SharePoint play a central role in centralizing documents, managing the intranet, and connecting employees, internal communication managers seek to better understand the effectiveness of their actions. But how can all this data be turned into useful ideas? This is where Power BI comes into play, offering visual and interactive dashboards to analyze internal communication on SharePoint.
This article explores how to leverage the integration between Power BI and SharePoint to track your KPIs, improve your strategies, and why a specialized tool like Communication Insights can go even further in cross-channel analysis.
Why analyze your internal communication data on SharePoint?
Many organizations use SharePoint as an intranet or digital workplace. It is often the gateway for:
- Accessing strategic documents,
- Sharing internal messages,
- Publishing corporate news,
- Providing HR and IT resources.
However, without proper analysis, it is difficult to answer essential questions:
- Are my messages reaching the right people?
- Which departments or countries are the most engaged?
- Which pages are active, and which ones remain overlooked?
In addition, analyzing internal communication through SharePoint allows you to measure the impact of your efforts, identify weak spots, and adjust your strategies as a result.
The limits of native SharePoint data
SharePoint already provides usage reports such as:
- Number of page views,
- User activity,
- Document consultation.
But this raw data is often scattered and hard to interpret for a communication professional who is not a data analyst. Moreover, it does not always allow you to compare data with organizational criteria (country, department, role). As a result, you only get a partial view of internal communication performance, which limits data-driven decision-making.
This is exactly where the integration of Power BI with SharePoint becomes so valuable.
Power BI and SharePoint: a powerful duo for internal communication
Power BI, Microsoft’s data visualization tool, allows you to connect your data sources, including SharePoint, to create dynamic dashboards.
Key benefits for internal communication
- Centralized data: consolidate all SharePoint site data (pages, documents, users) into Power BI.
- Visual dashboards: transform raw numbers into clear and actionable charts.
- Filtered analysis: segment results by country, department, or job role to see where your communication is most effective.
- Real-time tracking: monitor the progress of your internal campaigns.
- Easy reporting: share Power BI reports with managers and executives to showcase the value of your communication.
For example, you can analyze which departments are reading HR announcements, compare readership rates between countries, or identify the most viewed documents on SharePoint.
Examples of KPIs to track with Power BI and SharePoint
Now, to steer your internal communication strategy, here are some relevant KPIs to track in Power BI:
- News consultation rate (number of views / number of targeted employees).
- Campaign participation rate (clicks on content, document downloads).
- Inactive or underperforming pages, highlighting areas to improve.
- Engagement rate by user profile (e.g., comparing adoption between IT and HR teams).
- Time-based trends: when is the best time to publish content on SharePoint?
These KPIs help you understand whether your messages truly resonate with employees and have a measurable impact.
The limitations of Power BI alone for internal communicators
While Power BI is powerful, it has several limitations for communication managers:
- The configuration can be complex for non-technical users.
- Data must be cleaned and prepared before being used.
- Power BI mainly covers SharePoint, without easily integrating other channels like Viva Engage (formerly Yammer) or internal newsletters.
- With Power Bi there are things that you can’t do such as analyzing the user journey or generate a heatmap of where users click on the home page.
In short, Power BI is an excellent visualization engine, but it remains a generic tool that requires time, skills, and often analysts’ support to extract its full potential.
Communication Insights: the ready-to-use alternative for internal communicators
This is where Communication Insights by Tryane makes a real difference. Unlike Power BI, which requires heavy configuration, Communication Insights is designed specifically for internal communication teams.
With Communication Insights, you can:
- Connect all your channels: SharePoint, Viva Engage, newsletters, digital workplace, and more.
- Measure overall campaign performance with consolidated KPIs.
- Analyze engagement by audience (country, department, job role).
- Identify the most impactful content for your employees.
- Automate reporting with monthly or yearly PowerPoint summaries ready to present to executives.
- Optimize timing with “best time to post”, which recommends the most effective publishing times.
Additionally, the tool highlights inactive SharePoint pages, identifies top Viva Engage contributors, and helps you understand the employee journey across your intranet.
In short, Communication Insights goes further than Power BI by providing a 360° cross-channel view of internal communication, without requiring advanced technical skills.
Conclusion
The combination of Power BI and SharePoint is an excellent way to transform raw data into insightful dashboards and measure the impact of internal communication. But for communicators seeking a ready-to-use, cross-channel solution designed specifically for their needs, Communication Insights by Tryane is the ideal partner.
Moreover it centralizes all communication channels, automates reporting, and delivers clear insights into employee engagement empowering you to make smarter decisions and maximize the impact of your internal communication strategy.
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