How ATB Financial Turned its Intranet Into A Business-Critical Knowledge Hub (and kept it that way)

ATB Financial has been part of Alberta’s story since 1938, founded specifically to help the province weather economic hardship. Nearly a century later, it’s grown into the largest financial institution headquartered in Western Canada, with $110 billion in assets under management, close to 850,000 clients, and more than 5,000 team members delivering services across personal banking, business banking, wealth management, and capital markets. ATB Financial has consistently been recognized as a top employer by Great Place to Work Canada, and holds certifications across inclusion, mental wellness, hybrid work, and Indigenous relations. They take culture seriously, which makes their intranet story a natural one.

The Challenge

In early 2020, ATB Financial’s internal communications infrastructure was spread across SharePoint and Google Sites — a setup that, even under normal circumstances, was showing its age. Then the pandemic hit, and overnight, a workforce that had operated largely in branches and offices suddenly became distributed and remote. The tools they relied on were no longer sufficient for their new circumstances. People needed a single, reliable source of truth.

ATB Financial needed a platform that could serve both corporate and frontline employees, work across a complex, multi-location organization, and get adopted, not just deployed.

The Requirements

ATB Financial had recently migrated away from Microsoft and needed a SharePoint alternative with deep Google integration. Beyond platform compatibility, their criteria came down to a few clear priorities: something more intuitive than SharePoint for both communications and knowledge management, a cost-effect solution that wouldn’t require heavy IT overhead to maintain, and a vendor invested in their success, not just their contract.

Their communications team was a driving force behind the evaluation. High-caliber and already operating at a strong level (they would go on to win IABC Team of the Year the same year ATB Connect launched), they needed a platform that could match their ambitions, not constrain them. That meant:

• Strong support for frontline and branch-based workers, not just desk employees
• A single, enterprise-wide destination for organizational knowledge and team-specific content
• The ability to house structured content like onboarding, HR, and product information, alongside real-time communications
• A platform their communications team could own, manage, and evolve over time without heavy IT dependency
• Analytics to understand how the platform was actually being used

Happeo’s Solution

ATB Financial launched ATB Connect — their branded Happeo intranet — in March 2020, right as the world went virtual. ATB Financial uses Pages to house enterprise-wide, specific knowledge, like HR resources and product information. Channels serve a different purpose entirely, functioning as the primary communication channel for branch locations and frontline workers who need fast, daily access to business-critical updates. The two capabilities working together meant ATB Connect could serve the entire organization, not just the head office.

ATB Financial's Happeo Environment: ATB Connect

ATB Connect's homepage brings together quick links and featured company news so that employees can jump straight into the action.

Employees can also personalize their feeds to that they see the news that's most relevant to them, based on their role, location, or even interests.

Use Cases

ATB Connect is used across two distinct but complementary modes. Pages carry the long-form, structured content that employees return to repeatedly. This usually encompasses the knowledge that underpins how the organization operates day to day. Channels carry the communication layer, everything from time-sensitive updates to daily branch announcements. This is a distinction that matters: a teller in a branch location has different needs than someone on the wealth management team, and ATB Connect accommodates both without forcing either into a format that doesn’t work for them.

Measurement sits at the heart of how the team manages the platform. The ATB Connect team closely monitors user behavior and leverages the data to form a feedback loop. Usage patterns inform decisions, so when something isn’t working, the data surfaces and the team can take action. As a result, ATB’s daily and weekly usage rates are best-in-class among Happeo customers of its size.

“We have an incredible team at ATB - including leadership - who deeply value knowledge management and maintain a laser focus on our teammate experience. The result we have seen with Happeo is that around 60% of the team visits daily, and nearly 90% visit every week! We're in close partnership with Happeo, and we continue to advance our platform in innovative ways. I'm excited for the value we'll continue to bring our teammates in the days ahead!”

That outcome stems from ATB Connect’s comprehensive and deliberate change management program, in which employees were trained to treat the platform as their first stop for questions rather than as a static knowledge repository. Leadership visibility throughout the platform reinforced this: when senior colleagues are present and active on the intranet, it signals to the wider organization that this is where things happen.

Features That Changed the Game

• Happeo Pages: the backbone of ATB Financial’s structured knowledge, from HR content to product information to onboarding
• Happeo Channels: the daily communication tool for branch and frontline workers
• Happeo Search AI: adopted in 2026 to strengthen utilization and reduce time spent tracking down information
• Mobile App: a custom-branded ATB Connect app, improving access and reinforcing brand identity for employees on the go
• Analytics: the usage data that keeps the team responsive and the platform healthy

What stands out about ATB Financial's approach is that they didn’t treat the launch as the finish line. The platform leaders behind ATB Connect have continued to invest in the platform since 2020, and that investment continues today. In 2025 alone, the team conducted a full platform audit, resulting in over 16,000 edits. They also upskilled 10 additional team members in content creation workflows, deliberately breaking down information silos across the business. And the custom-branded mobile app improves both access and brand consistency. These updates reflect an organization that understands any platform is only as good as its ongoing commitment.

What’s Next

ATB Connect is still evolving. In 2027, the team is aiming to expand its use of AI across the platform, building on the Search AI adoption that began in 2026. Their focus is on time-saving opportunities for both content creators and end users: less time spent searching, less time spent duplicating effort, and more time focused on the actual work. And as Happeo does for every customer, we will be there to support them through their ongoing transformation.

About Happeo

Happeo is a modern intranet that gives companies one official place for company information. When knowledge is scattered across drives, email, and chat, people spend more time searching and asking around than actually getting work done. The same questions get asked repeatedly, new hires take too long to get up to speed, and no one can point to a single source of truth.

Happeo fixes that, turning information chaos into knowledge clarity. Pages give teams a structured home for policies, processes, and resources. Search surfaces answers across company knowledge and connected tools. Channels keep important updates out of the inbox so nothing gets buried or missed. And with AI-powered insights into missing, outdated, and incorrect content, Happeo helps teams keep information accurate and trusted over time, not just at launch.

The result is a place for company knowledge that employees actually use, so less time is spent searching, and more time is spent getting work done.

Ready to make the most out of your company knowledge? Book a consultation with us today.