Every Monday morning, someone in your organisation sits down and writes a project update email. They open their inbox, dig through last week's messages, check the task list, summarise what happened, what's next, and what's stuck. They hit send. Their manager reads half of it and replies asking a question that was answered in paragraph three.

I see this in nearly every business I work with. It's a process that feels productive but creates no lasting value. The email gets read once, buried under new messages, and next Monday it starts again from scratch.
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The fix: stop sending project updates and start publishing them. SharePoint Pages — included in every Microsoft 365 subscription — let you build a live project page. One URL with your project summary, meeting recordings, Planner board, key documents, and progress charts. All updating in real time, accessible to anyone with permission.
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The project status email has been the default reporting method in most businesses for two decades. And for two decades, it's had the same problems.

According to the McKinsey Global Institute, knowledge workers spend an estimated 28% of their working week managing email. A meaningful chunk of that is writing, reading, and chasing project updates that could exist in a better format.

The core issue is that email is a point-in-time snapshot. The moment you hit send, the information starts going stale. If a task gets completed on Tuesday, the Monday email is already wrong. If your manager wants an update on Wednesday, they have to ask you — or wait until next Monday.

Status emails also create an invisible bottleneck. The person writing the update becomes the single point of contact for project knowledge. When they're off sick, on leave, or just in a meeting, nobody else can answer the question "where are we with Project X?"

See our other blog post on Microsoft Teams structure for additional context on reducing email dependency

​Want a complete framework for deciding where information should live? The Chaos Cure walks you through the "What Goes Where" method for notes, files, tasks, and communication across your Microsoft 365 setup: See More Here (Exclusive to our email list)

SharePoint Pages work like internal web pages. You build them with sections and web parts — text blocks, embedded videos, document previews, Planner boards, Microsoft Forms, and more.

The concept is simple: instead of sending information to people, you publish it somewhere they can find it. "Stop pushing updates. Start making them available."
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Every Microsoft 365 team already has a SharePoint site behind it. Which means every team already has access to Pages — most just don't know it's there.

Step 1: Navigate to Your Team's SharePoint Site

From Microsoft Teams, click the three dots next to your team name and select "Open in SharePoint." Or navigate directly to your SharePoint site from the app launcher (the waffle menu in the top-left corner of any Microsoft 365 app).

Your team's SharePoint site was created automatically when the team was set up. It has the same permissions — everyone in the Teams group can view and edit content on the SharePoint site.


Step 2: Create a New Page

Click "New" then "Page." You'll see a selection of templates — department updates, project trackers, how-to guides, and more. For a project dashboard, start with a blank page or the closest template.

Give your page a clear title: "Project X — Dashboard" or whatever naming convention your team uses.


Step 3: Add Your Project Summary Section

The first section should be a text web part with a brief overview: what the project is, who's involved, what the deadline is, and the current status in plain English. Keep this to 3-4 sentences. This is what your manager will read first.

Think of it as the "at a glance" section — if someone reads nothing else, this tells them where things stand.


Step 4: Embed Your Planner Board

Add a new section and insert the Planner web part. Select the Planner plan associated with your project. You can choose to display it as a board view (columns showing tasks by status) or a chart view (showing completion percentages and overdue items).

The Planner board is live and interactive on the page. Tasks completed in Planner update on the page automatically. Your manager can see progress without asking you.


Step 5: Add Meeting Recordings and Key Documents

Insert a document library web part filtered to show only the files relevant to this project — status reports, briefs, presentations, or working documents. You can also embed individual files that render directly on the page.

For meeting recordings, add a Stream or video web part. If your project meetings are recorded in Teams, those recordings live in SharePoint already — you can link directly to them.


Step 6: Add a Microsoft Form for Quick Feedback (Optional)

If you need stakeholder input — risk flags, blockers, or general feedback — embed a Microsoft Form directly on the page. Responses collect in real time without anyone needing to leave the page.


Step 7: Pin the Page in Your Teams Channel
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Copy the page URL and add it as a tab in the relevant Teams channel. Go to the channel, click the "+" icon to add a tab, select "Website" or "SharePoint," and paste the URL. Now your project page is one click away from where your team already works.
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One of my Accelerator programme clients built their first project page in about 20 minutes. They described it as feeling like making a simple website — which is exactly what it is. If you can make a PowerPoint presentation, you can make a SharePoint page. The building blocks are sections and web parts instead of slides and content boxes, but the principle is identical.

The first one takes longest because you're learning the interface. After that, most people can set up a new project page in 10-15 minutes.
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"If it's worth reporting on, it's worth building a page for. The page takes 20 minutes once. The status email takes 30 minutes every week."

If you have Microsoft 365 Copilot, you can accelerate this further. After a project meeting, ask Copilot to summarise the transcript. Then ask it to create a SharePoint page from that summary. You'll get a draft page with the meeting highlights, decisions made, and next steps — ready to publish with minor edits.
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You can also record yourself walking through a process, get the AI transcript, and ask Copilot to turn it into a standard operating procedure as a SharePoint page. Video walkthrough plus step-by-step instructions, all in one place, created in about 15 minutes.

1. Building a page and not telling anyone it exists. Pin it in the Teams channel, send the link once, and reference it whenever someone asks for an update. The page only works if people know where it is.

2. Making the page too complicated. Start with four sections: project summary, Planner board, key documents, and recent meeting recording. You can always add more later.

3. Forgetting to update the summary text. The Planner board updates automatically, but the written summary at the top needs a manual refresh. Build it into your weekly routine — 5 minutes, not 30.

4. Using Pages for throwaway content. Quick meeting notes belong in OneNote or Loop. SharePoint pages are for content that needs to live for weeks or months and be consumed by people outside the day-to-day project team.
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Can anyone in my Microsoft 365 team create a SharePoint page?

Yes. By default, everyone in a Microsoft Teams group has permission to create and edit SharePoint pages on the associated SharePoint site. You do not need admin access or IT involvement to create a project page.


How is a SharePoint page different from a Word document?

A SharePoint page is an internal web page that can embed live, interactive content — Planner boards, video players, document previews, and forms. A Word document is a static file. If you need a live dashboard that updates automatically, use a page. If you need a formal written document, use Word.


Can I embed a Planner board on a SharePoint page?

Yes. Use the Planner web part when editing a SharePoint page. Select the plan you want to display and choose between board view and chart view. The board is interactive and updates in real time as tasks are completed or moved.


Do I need SharePoint Online to use Pages?

SharePoint Pages are included with SharePoint Online, which comes with Microsoft 365 Business Basic and above. If your organisation uses Microsoft Teams, you almost certainly have SharePoint Online and therefore have access to Pages.


Can I use Copilot to create a SharePoint page from a meeting transcript?

Yes. If you have Microsoft 365 Copilot, you can ask it to summarise a meeting transcript and generate a SharePoint page layout. The output will need minor editing, but it gives you a solid starting point — particularly useful for project kickoff pages or post-meeting summaries.
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If you want to set this up yourself: The Chaos Cure contains the full "What Goes Where" method — including how to structure project information across Teams, SharePoint, and Planner so nothing falls through the cracks.

👉 Get the Chaos Cure


If your projects are complex enough that you'd rather have someone set this up properly: I run a short discovery call to see if we'd be a good fit to work together. Most of the businesses I help have been wasting 3-5 hours per week just from information being in the wrong place.
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👉 Book a discovery call
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About the author: Gavin Jones is the founder of MeeTime Ltd., a Microsoft 365 consultancy helping SMEs save time and work smarter using the tools they already pay for. With 50+ assessments completed, Gavin focuses on practical, real-world improvements — not theoretical training. Subscribe to the MeeTime YouTube channel for weekly Microsoft 365 tips.