Valo has been discontinued. ThinkShare now offer LiveTiles as an advanced modern solution to Valo.
Valo recently launched Valo 4.0, for an updated and improved intranet experience for all.
In this release, Valo really focused on key areas such as improving the way our people engage with content and simplifying the user experience across the platform. From a simplified installation experience to a brand new look, this release brings tangible benefits to users and businesses alike.
In this article, we will explore a key number of feature updates that should improve intranet usability throughout your organisation.
Short–On–Time Summary
Updates to Valo mean you can now install or update a Valo Intranet faster than ever, share content directly from your Intranet to Teams chats and channels, ensure everyone within your organisation sees valuable updates with content acknowledgement, that your intranet homepage only shows news your employees haven’t seen yet and so much more. All are explored in more detail below.
A streamlined installation/upgrade process
Starting from Valo Intranet 4.0, partners can benefit from a UI-based solution that guides the user running the installation through the overall installation and update process. PowerShell can still be used but we strongly recommend partners to install Intranet using Valo Installer.
Share content with Teams
This latest release means you can now share any intranet update, be that news, job openings, events, and more directly from your intranet to your Teams channels or chats. Any Intranet News or Staffbase News (If applicable) can be sent to Teams channels.
Content acknowledgement
This feature can be set up to make specific news or pages “must-read” to all users within your tenant or by using SharePoint targeting to select a specific audience.
Once enabled, users must click a button on the page or news article to say that they have seen and acknowledged the content. This is a fantastic feature if policies are being updated, events are being hosted or even just to notify users that this piece of content is valuable to them.
News webpart can show users news they haven’t seen
Instead of being shown news articles by date, users can now see only articles they may have missed, making the user experience more dynamic, more engaging, and more personalised to the individual.
New layout for specific web parts and new link behaviours
Valo 4.0 offers an updated layout, designed to give “clunky” webparts “a more modern and fresher” look. With updates to link behaviour for Valo webparts that allow users to preview the latest piece of news without having to visit or view the whole page.
Control Documents (Policy and Procedures Hub)
This version of Valo goes beyond previous versions and the latest SharePoint update to allow content editors and administrators to structure documents by using their metadata e.g., Document Owner, Review Data or Expiry Date etc.
It also empowers admins to create Policy or Procedure pages that can be used to hold documents that may need to be reviewed and updated at regular intervals.
Custom User Profile Property Synchronisation
This update provides various synchronisation between Azure AAD profiles and SharePoint profiles, addressing the prevalent issue of SharePoint profiles not being updated and an increase in mismatching data.
Previously this would have been a slow manual task but this feature triggers a one-way operation that synchronises user profile properties from Azure Active Directory to SharePoint user profiles regularly.
Valo introduced easier ways to extend their universal webpart using templates.
To lower the complexity of building intranets and increase the usability of reusability, we have introduced a set of new web components (Valo Cards) that can be treated as a building block of the custom handlebar templates.
To develop a deeper understanding of how Valo 4.0 could transform employee engagement and experience within your organisation, book a call with one of our certified consultants.
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