Fresh is an attractive SharePoint intranet in–a–box product, which will appeal to medium to large organisations looking to maximise their Microsoft investment.
Requires SharePoint
Africa, Europe, USA
5,000 to 10,000
Download the ClearBox report to learn more about Fresh and discover how we carried out our assessment.
Fresh is a SharePoint intranet in–a–box product from Advania. Launched in 2015, it is one of the more mature SharePoint-based products in our report. It makes the most of what Microsoft provides, while adding value and functionality to the experience for employees and administrators alike.
Fresh comes with a set of capabilities that make branding and design easier to manage across complex organisations, putting simple controls into the hands of administrators and communicators. Communications teams benefit from intuitive content creation and publishing scheduling tools, while owners of reference content will appreciate the ability to keep track of when content needs review. Community and engagement needs are well supported with processes for new community set-up and kudos recognition for colleagues.
The vendor’s approach to the product has always been to work in harmony with Microsoft services and to not conflict with the underlying SharePoint platform. This delivers benefits in a stable platform but does mean that some gaps are harder to fill. There is no Fresh mobile app, for example, so organisations wanting to deliver a mobile experience will need to rely on the responsive web experience, Teams app and Viva Connections. Analytics are present but fairly basic, so organisations needing detailed insights here will want to look at specialist tools such as Google Analytics, which can be integrated easily.
Overall, Fresh is an appealing product, particularly for organisations that are Microsoft-centric and want to make use of the 365 platform and its varied capabilities. The price is also reasonably attractive for medium to large organisations.
| Scenario | Score | Key Benefits | Improvements and Considerations |
|---|---|---|---|
| User Experience and Visual Appeal | 4 | Builds on the core SharePoint experience to improve branding and visual appeal. | Works within the constraints of the underlying Microsoft platform. |
| Publishing & Communications Management | 4 | Useful additional web parts and screens to help present and manage the flow of news. | Some audience targeting aspects rely on Microsoft Entra configuration. |
| Community & Engagement | 3.5 | Does well to bring together community content from Viva Engage with the intranet and add employee engagement. | Underlying community features are provided by Viva Engage. Surveys supported via Forms. |
| Integrations & Services (Including M365) | 3+ | Good integrations with Microsoft 365 services including Teams, Planner and Viva Connections. | Limited integration with third-party enterprise services. |
| Information Finding & Search | 4+ | Improves filtering options for Microsoft search results. AI simplifies access to knowledge, and people finding is particularly strong. | Presentation of results could be more visually diverse for different content types. |
| Administrator Experience | 4 | Core SharePoint and Fresh features benefit from an easy-to-use interface. | Some underlying features still need SharePoint admin skills. |
| Analytics | 3+ | Good basic analytics for usage, content and search. | Organisations needing deeper insights will need a dedicated tool. |
| Mobile & Frontline Support | 2.5+ | Leverages core Microsoft platforms and apps. | Little flexibility of access options for frontline workers. |
Fresh adds valuable functionality and an improved experience to employees and administrators alike. It is particularly strong in news and content management and provides good support for communities as well. Fresh has made good use of AI capabilities to add value to specific use cases such as editorial support and answering questions on controlled topics. Fresh will appeal to medium to large organisations that have a significant investment in Microsoft 365 and want to further gain advantage from the platform.
