Case Study · AstraZeneca · 2024–2025
US Medical Affairs Oncology Hub — redesigning an intranet from the inside out
A SharePoint-based portal redesigned to centralize field resources, team structures, and compliance materials for AstraZeneca's oncology medical science liaisons across six franchise areas.
01 — Overview
The problem
- Resources scattered across disconnected SharePoint libraries
- Field team info buried in spreadsheets and email chains
- New MSLs spent hours locating basic onboarding documents
- No consistent IA across six franchise areas
Our solution
- Unified hub with persistent sidebar quick-access across all pages
- Franchise-organized Field Central with accordion navigation
- Regional tab filtering and interactive territory maps per franchise
- HQ portal with auto-surfaced documents and team directories
My responsibilities
- Complete project; audited existing site architecture and interviewed stakeholders
- Led card-sorting sessions to build IA consensus across franchise leads
- Designed all page layouts within SharePoint's web part constraints
- Delivered content strategy and visual design system
Constraints
- No custom CSS — all design via SharePoint web parts only
- Brand compliance — strict AZ guidelines on color and typography
- Multi-stakeholder — six franchise leads with competing priorities
- Limited user access — field MSLs harder to schedule than HQ staff
02 — Design System
Adapting AZ brand guidelines to SharePoint
AstraZeneca has strict brand guidelines. I adapted them into a SharePoint-compatible design system — translating hex values into web part themes and establishing a visual language that felt both on-brand and functionally clear.
AZ Magenta
#7b0d3e · Primary
Blush Surface
#fce8f0 · Backgrounds
Midtone Rose
#c4587e · Accents, CTAs
Neutral Surface
#F9FAFB · Cards, UI bg
US Medical Affairs Oncology Hub
Field Central
Click on a franchise to view its regional teams, team leads, and to access field maps.
Updated Aug. 2, 2024 · Northeast Region
03 — Screen Walkthrough
The Hub — three sections, one cohesive system
The redesigned hub spans a personalized Homepage, a franchise-organized Field Central, and a Headquarters portal. Hover over any tall screen to scroll through its full length.
↓ hover to scroll
A — Personalized Greeting
Context-aware welcome banner
The homepage greets users by name via SharePoint profile data, reducing the generic intranet feel and immediately orienting users to what's new.
B — Persistent Resource Sidebar
Always-visible quick-access panel
Key links — Compliance, People Strategy, Brand Resources — are fixed in a sidebar so they're never more than one click away from any page.
C — Three-card Navigation
Onboarding · Field Central · HQ
Visual anchor tiles route users to the three core sections, reducing reliance on the top nav and surfacing sections with previously low discoverability.
D — Mission Statement
Organizational grounding
USMA's mission is displayed prominently — a stakeholder request to connect daily MSL tasks to patient outcomes.
↓ hover to scroll
↓ hover to scroll
E — Accordion Architecture
Progressive disclosure by franchise
Each franchise collapses into an accordion. Users only expand what's relevant, reducing scroll fatigue on a content-dense page.
F — Quick Access Rail
Field-specific shortcuts
The sidebar surfaces Field Impact Dashboard, Medical Strategy Plans, Insight Reports, and MSL Goals — items that previously required navigating three levels deep.
↓ hover to scroll
G — Regional Tab Navigation
Northeast · Southeast · Central · West
Each franchise page uses a pill-tab pattern to filter MSL directories by region, replacing a flat list that required ctrl+F to find a specific name.
H — Interactive Territory Map
Photo-annotated national map
Territory ownership is visualized geographically with headshots pinned to each region, making it fast to identify who covers a given state without cross-referencing a spreadsheet.
I — Franchise Leadership Cards
Headshot + role + region
Leadership is surfaced at the top of each franchise page, giving new MSLs immediate visibility into chain of command and regional contacts.
J — Media Embeds
MSL Council Tea Time podcast
Video content is embedded inline via SharePoint's media web part, reducing friction to engagement and giving the council's work a professional presentation layer.
04 — Headquarters Portal
A people-first landing for core team resources
↓ hover to scroll
K — Core Team Photo Cards
People-first HQ landing
The HQ page opens with full-team photography. Two image tiles link to the Core Medical Teams directory and Center for Innovation, making people discoverable rather than buried in org charts.
L — Most Recent Documents
Auto-surfaced document feed
A dynamic "Most recent documents" row surfaces the latest files from across the HQ SharePoint library, reducing reliance on email and keeping the page self-updating.
05 — Outcomes
413%
Increase in daily site traffic
6
Franchise areas restructured into navigable, filterable sections with consistent information architecture
↓ 60%
Estimated reduction in onboarding resource-hunting time based on stakeholder feedback and task-time walkthroughs
06 — Reflection
What worked
- Card-sorting sessions built stakeholder consensus before any layouts were touched, saving significant revision cycles
- Persistent sidebar pattern dramatically reduced click depth to critical resources
- Accordion IA scaled cleanly across all six franchise areas without custom code
What I'd do differently
- Push for a lightweight design token system even within SharePoint's constraints
- Establish a content governance process at handoff to prevent IA drift over time