Building “The Source” – How McAlvain Turned SharePoint into a Real Home Base (and Where It’s Going Next)

Written By Nicholas Wilson

Most intranets die the same way:

  • forgotten bookmark,

  • stale news post from 2021,

  • and a thousand “I’ll send it by email instead” decisions.

McAlvain wanted the opposite. They asked Bait Shop to help them build The Source – a modern, mandatory homepage that actually earns the right to be open all day: news, tools, culture, and data in one place, inside their existing Microsoft 365 stack.

Phase 1 is now complete. Here’s what we shipped, and where we’re taking it next.

The Problem: One Company, Too Many Places to Look

McAlvain’s leadership had a clear mission for The Source:

  • A mandatory home page for SOPs, procedural and training content

  • A place to host internal news, events, banners, and an event calendar

  • Best-in-class visual quality and performance

  • Easy access to familiar industry tools and partner content

  • Everywhere access – desktop, tablet, phone

  • Over time, a hub that ties together Vista, payroll, other apps, and field tools

In short: one door in for the whole company, not a maze of SharePoint sites, emails, and attachments.

What We Built in Phase 1

1. A Branded SharePoint Communication Site as the Intranet Home

We designed and implemented The Source as a SharePoint Communication Site and set it as the default homepage for all staff.

The core layout focuses on three things people actually check:

  • Announcements – a newsfeed of internal updates, project highlights, safety messages, and leadership communications.

  • Resources / Quick Links – tiles and lists that jump straight to SOPs, templates, forms, Vista, and other critical tools.

  • Upcoming Events & Holidays – a dynamic calendar view powered by SharePoint lists, so people see what’s coming without digging through emails.

It’s clean, fast, and designed to grow as new sections and cards are added.

2. Culture on Autopilot: Birthday & Work Anniversary Spotlights

McAlvain wanted The Source to feel alive, not like a static policy binder. So we wired in some low-lift, high-visibility culture automation using Power Automate:

  • Birthday Spotlight

    • Data source: a simple SharePoint list or Excel file with employee birthdays.

    • Every week, a Power Automate flow surfaces current birthdays on the homepage.

  • Work Anniversary Spotlight

    • Same pattern as birthdays: a list + an automation.

    • Weekly or monthly highlights of work anniversaries on The Source.

No one has to remember to make a post. The system just does it, reliably.

3. Analytics That Actually Matter

If you don’t measure, you’re guessing. We implemented a basic Power BI dashboard focused on questions leadership actually cares about:

  • Total unique users per week – are people using The Source at all?

  • Page views by section – what content is pulling people in?

  • Time on page – is anyone actually reading, or just bouncing?

The dashboard is embedded in an admin view right inside SharePoint, so comms and leadership can see what’s working and adjust content / layout over time.

How It All Comes Together

After Phase 1, The Source now:

  • Loads as the starting point of the day for everyone at McAlvain

  • Gives one-click access to SOPs, procedures, and training

  • Keeps a living stream of announcements and upcoming events front and center

  • Surfaces birthdays and anniversaries automatically, without HR chasing people

  • Gives the team baseline analytics on usage and engagement

It’s a solid, scalable foundation – a “Factory” build that’s reliable, measurable, and ready for more ambitious experiments.

The Roadmap: Where The Source Is Headed Next

Phase 1 deliberately stayed tight: get the core right, prove adoption, measure behavior. But during discovery, McAlvain surfaced a long list of features they’d love The Source to grow into.

Here’s the short version of what’s on the roadmap.

1. Rich Content & Storytelling

Turning The Source into a true culture and storytelling platform:

  • Project win videos that celebrate big jobs, not just numbers

  • Baby announcements, promotions, new equipment (new cranes, dozers, etc.)

  • Employee focus / spotlight blocks and leadership shout-out videos

  • Highlights for charity events and community involvement, with shout-outs to employees

  • A company history hub linking into their 45-year book, with bite-sized snippets surfaced on the homepage

This turns the homepage from “link farm” into “what’s happening in our world.”

2. Engagement & Community Features

Beyond simple news, McAlvain is exploring features that make people actually want to hang out there:

  • A reading library / book club with links to Amazon/Kindle (“Slack-like book club”)

  • A front-page music player (e.g., Spotify for Work) – complete with ideas like a “Junior of the Month” playlist

  • Light Slack-style social features to match a changing org – more conversation, less email

  • Incentives and gamification for engagement (not just cash): shout-outs, badges, recognitions

  • A local events feed (music, entertainment, community) to keep the home page fresh

None of this is fluff if it’s backed by analytics and tied to culture, retention, and safety.

3. Integrations with Core Systems (Vista, Procore & More)

The Source isn’t meant to replace operational systems – it’s meant to surface what matters from them.

Future “cards” we’re exploring:

  • From Procore:

    • “RFIs Needing Your Response” – show the count of open/overdue RFIs assigned to you, with a direct link into Procore.

  • From Vista (Viewpoint):

    • “Timecards Awaiting Approval” – supervisors see how many timecards are pending and how old the oldest one is, with a link to approve in Vista.

Plus, deeper shortcut and hyperlink integration into:

  • Vista

  • Payroll entry

  • Other internal operational apps and partner content

The idea: The Source becomes the one-glance radar screen; the heavy lifting still happens in the source systems.

4. Smarter Analytics and Content Ops

Phase 1 gave us platform-level metrics. Next, we can go deeper:

  • Item-level analytics on specific posts, videos, and cards

  • Tracking dwell time and click-through rates per piece of content

  • Smarter, de-duplicated feeds from multiple sources so the same news doesn’t appear three times

  • Extending automation beyond spotlights to anniversary notices and other triggered communications across channels

This is where AI and automation start to help decide what to show, not just how to show it.

Why This Matters Beyond McAlvain

If you’re a construction or industrial company on Microsoft 365, you already own 80% of the stack needed for something like The Source:

  • SharePoint for the comms site

  • Power Automate for workflows

  • Power BI for analytics

  • Optional integrations into tools you’re already living in (Vista, Procore, HRIS, etc.)

The hard part isn’t buying more software; it’s designing a system that people actually use:

  • clear homepage layout

  • the right automations (not just “AI for AI’s sake”)

  • opinionated, measurable phases (Factory → Lab)

  • a roadmap that ties back to real outcomes: safety, speed, retention, culture, and financial performance.

That’s the work we’re doing with McAlvain on The Source, and it’s the kind of work Bait Shop likes to do: start small, wire it properly, then get more ambitious once the basics are rock solid.

If you’re staring at a dead intranet, a pile of Microsoft 365 licenses, and a workforce that lives in the field, not in their inbox, The Source is a good blueprint.

Nicholas Wilson
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