The Unified Experience is the Jint sidebar integrated into your SharePoint sites. It brings together in one place the tools your employees use every day (notifications, news, search, applications, AI assistant), as well as the creation, distribution, and monitoring tools intended for contributors and administrators.
This article introduces the new version of the Unified Experience and details each button on the sidebar, in the order in which they appear.
Table of contents
- Sidebar overview
- Notifications
- Discover
- Search
- Applications
- Jint AI
- Creation
- Distribution
- Analytics
- Enable and configure the Unified Experience
Sidebar overview
The sidebar appears on the left side of your SharePoint sites. Its buttons are grouped into three sections, separated by a line:
- Browse: Notifications, Discover, Search, and Applications
- Get assistance: Jint AI
- Contribute and manage: Creation, Distribution, and Analytics
Click an icon to open the corresponding panel. Click the X in the top-right corner of the panel to close it.
Depending on your organization's configuration and your permissions, some buttons may not be displayed.
Notifications
The Notifications panel brings together notifications sent to employees, such as when a news item is highlighted. A red badge on the icon indicates the number of unread notifications. The Mark all as read link lets you archive them with one click.
An alert message may also appear at the top of the panel as a banner, with a link to a page of your choice.
Configuration: notifications are not configured in the Configurator. They are sent directly from the Unified Experience using the Distribution > Send a notification button (see the Distribution section).
Learn more about notifications
Contributors can send targeted notifications to employees, who receive them in the Notifications panel of the Unified Experience on SharePoint and in the Jint mobile app.
👉 For details about the feature, see the article Notifications: Overview and creation.
Discover
The Discover panel displays news, events, and pages to discover on your intranet. It consists of three sections.
Browse
This section provides a list of links for quickly accessing key sites and pages on your intranet.
Events
This section displays upcoming events, along with their date, title, location, and start date and time.
What's happening
This section displays the latest published news, along with its thumbnail, title, and publication date and time.
Configuration: the content of the Discover panel is configured from Jint Portal under SharePoint > Unified Experience, in the News feed, Event, and Navigation tabs. In particular, you can choose the news source, set the sort order, target an audience, add SharePoint events, and define navigation links (SharePoint sites, website URLs, and email addresses).
Search
The Search panel lets you quickly find a page, document, or article on your intranet without leaving the current page. The Advanced search link redirects you to the full search page.
Configuration: from the Search tab under SharePoint > Unified Experience > in Jint Portal, you can define the type of results displayed, extend the search to all site collections, and enter the URL for the advanced search.
Applications
The Applications panel provides access to your organization's applications directly from the sidebar. It contains:
- a search bar for finding an application
- the My favorite applications section
- applications organized by category (for example: Communication, HR)
Configuration: applications and their categories are configured from Jint Portal under the Applications tab.
For more information about configuring Applications, see the article Configure applications and their categories.
Jint AI
The Jint AI button opens Jint's conversational assistant directly in your intranet. The + New button lets you start a new conversation.
Configuration: Jint AI is enabled by an administrator in your organization.
Learn more about Jint AI
Jint AI is an assistant you can write to as you would a colleague. No installation or account creation is required. It lets you:
- Write and rephrase: internal announcements, emails, and reports
- Translate text into the language of your choice
- Summarize and analyze a PDF attached to the conversation (up to 15 pages and 5 files per message)
- Dictate your messages using the microphone
- Search the web, with cited sources
Jint AI is available in two versions. Responses based on documents from your organization's SharePoint are available only with a Standard deployment. In the Freemium version, the assistant has no access to your organization's content.
Your conversations are private and are never used to train AI models.
👉 For details about the feature, see the article Discover Jint AI.
Creation
The Creation panel lets you create SharePoint pages or articles using templates designed in advance. It offers three options:
- A page: create a page from a template
- An article: create an article from a template
- Manage templates: create and delete templates
Configuration: access to Creation is assigned from Jint Portal, under the Roles and permissions tab, using Microsoft 365 groups or security groups. Templates are managed directly from the Unified Experience using the Creation > Manage templates button. This option is reserved for users with Global Administrator or Contribution permissions.
Learn more about Creation
Creation is a space dedicated to employees responsible for internal communications: communications professionals, HR, managers, or any non-expert contributor. From a simplified interface, they can:
- choose a predefined page template and fill in guided fields
- get AI assistance (optional)
- preview and publish directly to the target SharePoint site
- distribute content through Microsoft Teams, email, Viva Engage, or notifications
By default, only Jint administrators have access to Creation. Access can then be granted to other users through the Contribution permission under the Roles and permissions tab in Jint Portal.
Distribution
The Distribution panel lets you distribute content to your employees. It offers four options:
- Send a newsletter (Premium option): create and send newsletters to your employees by email
- Send a notification: send notifications through the Jint mobile app or in SharePoint
- Share to Microsoft Teams: publish directly to your Microsoft Teams channels
- Share to Viva Engage: publish directly to your Viva Engage community
⚠️ The Send a newsletter option requires a subscription to the Jint Newsletter plan.
Analytics
The Analytics panel lets you monitor the usage and performance of your intranet. It provides access to three dashboards:
- Activity & engagement: track engagement and collaboration within your teams
- Web Part usage: better understand and optimize your platform usage
- Mobile: track employee adoption and engagement on your mobile intranet
Configuration: to view the dashboards, users must have access permissions for the Analytics module or Global Administrator permissions in Jint Portal.
Learn more about Metrics
The Metrics feature centralizes usage data for your Jint Digital Workplace:
- Activity and engagement: unique users, daily active users, sites, pages, and most-viewed articles
- Web Part usage: number of Jint components deployed, equipped sites, most-viewed components, and details by component
Data can be filtered by period and site. It is anonymized and retained for a maximum of 2 years.
👉 For details about the feature, see the article Metrics - Feature overview.
Enable and configure the Unified Experience
Prerequisites
To enable the Unified Experience on a site, you must have Global Administrator or Unified Experience Administrator access in Jint Portal.
Enablement
- Go to Jint Portal.
- Go to the SharePoint > Unified Experience > Enablement menu
- Enter the site URL
- Click Enable
Enablement may take a few minutes. The sidebar will then be visible on your site.
Where is each button configured?
| Button | Configuration |
|---|---|
| Notifications | From the Unified Experience, through Distribution > Send a notification |
| Discover | Jint Portal > SharePoint > Unified Experience |
| Search | Jint Portal > SharePoint > Unified Experience |
| Applications | Jint Portal > Applications |
| Jint AI | Jint Portal > AI Studio |
| Creation | Access: Jint Portal > Roles and permissions. Templates: Unified Experience, through Manage templates |
| Distribution | From the Unified Experience |
| Analytics | Access: Jint Portal > Roles and permissions |
Useful resources
- Notifications: Overview and creation
- Jint Portal - Configure applications and their categories
- Discover Jint AI
- Metrics - Feature overview
- Taking SharePoint modern audiences into account in the Unified Experience
Need help?
If you encounter an issue with the Unified Experience, contact our support team through our contact form.
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