According to Techterms, an intranet is a “private network that can only be accessed by authorized users.” In reality, it’s a lot more interesting than that. An intranet is an intelligent resource of organizational bliss that can improve internal communication, collaboration, knowledge sharing, and more.
One way to imagine an intranet is as a password-protected VIP club. Within this private club are virtual file cabinets full of information and areas for private, secure communication that only the club members have access to. With all information and members in one password-protected space, users can send out important messages and updates more simply and securely.
How Does an Intranet Compare to an Intelligent Intranet?
Intranets are designed to be the central location that an organization’s employees can access company updates, announcements, and resources — improving not only company culture but also internal communications and collaborations.
For example, the LiveTile’s Wizdom Intelligent intranet takes all of the ease, privacy, and connection of an intranet, and includes a wide range of leading productivity tools that employees can use in a cohesive, digital workspace.
Through our partnership with LiveTiles, your IT team can deliver a powerful digital workplace that surfaces the relevant tools, communications, and knowledge, wherever and whenever your employees are working. There are several benefits to implementing and using an intranet within your organization. Here are our top reasons:
10 Reasons To Implement An Intelligent Intranet
1. Security
Sensitive, private information can be saved in one specific location, with access given only to authorized personnel. In addition, groups, users, or teams are able to manage their workspaces with predefined security settings.
2. Reduced Meeting Times
Access to employee directories within the intranet gives employees a chance to locate the correct person to answer questions and chat about business-related matters from their desks in real-time. This lessens the time spent in meetings and prevents sidetracked conversations from taking over.
3. Improved Individual Productivity with Bots
LiveTiles Bots help to connect people to specific information, lists, or data that they need, allowing them to receive, create, and organize their work. The automation of otherwise mundane tasks helps to free up employee time to focus on more productive assignments. Bots can be customized based on each unique business and changed as a business evolves.
4. Quick, Efficient Access to Information
Access to information becomes more convenient, leading to enhanced productivity and less wasted time. Communication sites, like the Wizdom Noticeboard, provide a place to share anything from reports to news or anything else that may need to be communicated.
5. Boosts Team Collaboration
Individual teams can use tools and features in Office 365 to collaborate more efficiently on projects or tasks specific to their department or function. With more remote workers, it is imperative that you provide tools and capabilities that promote easy to use collaboration solutions making it simple to collaborate, hit deadlines, and increase productivity.
6. Customizability
The features of Modern SharePoint combined with the enhanced capabilities of LiveTiles allow you to deliver solutions using mostly out of the box tools. However, in order to deliver highly engaging solutions, organizations need to customize their intranets to add corporate branding, extended features, or integrations. The customization allows businesses to develop actual solutions to cover any need necessary, something that would be impossible with the use of a ready-made site. In addition, site designs can be applied at any time — at or after site creation.
7. Less Strain On Development Resources
The usability of Office 365 and a LiveTiles Wizdom Intelligent intranet means that a developer is no longer necessary to create what content editors are now capable of. The tools in both platforms allow business owners to configure solutions that meet their requirements. For times that development resources are needed, LiveTiles’ built-in intuitive interface allows you to design as quickly and efficiently with over 70 preconfigured tiles and a drag-and-drop interface.
8. Cross-Department Collaboration
More brainpower results in better ideas, especially when various departments are able to collaborate using an integrated approach. LiveTiles is easily integrated with CRM, ERP, BI, ITSM, and other software, making cross-department collaboration easier than ever.
9. Saves Time
The primary goal of a corporate intranet is to improve internal communications, ensure you have a hub for information and collaboration, and bring efficiency to internal processes. The implementation of a properly designed and governed intranet will drive time and cost efficiencies by improving how users find, act, and communicate internally. LiveTiles’ intelligence provides real actionable insights that allow for content evolution based on direct user feedback, analytics, and insights. Users are no longer spending hours trying to find a specific policy, fill out a vacation request form, or simply find the right person in the organization to solve an issue.
10. Greater Cost Control
The choice of different intranet deployment and payment models allows organizations to make financial decisions that are right for them. When site creation and design are being driven by organizations themselves, sites can be maintained with less effort. Additionally, there is no need to employ extra IT resources or experience developmental delays, saving both time and money.
Based on these ten reasons, a LiveTiles Wizdom Intelligent intranet can propel your organization towards greater success. The time and money saved, and improved collaboration across departments and increased team communication are equally priceless.
Interested in learning more about LiveTiles Wizdom Intelligent intranet? Reach out to our team to get your company on board.
An intranet is a great way to improve communication, collaboration, and knowledge sharing within your organization.
A modern SharePoint intranet takes it a step further. By leveraging SharePoint and incorporating efficient Office 365 applications – including OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, Power BI, Yammer, Flow and PowerApps – you can dramatically improve internal communications and increase employee efficiency.
Before your team can fully realize the benefits of a modern SharePoint intranet though, you need to build it properly. We put together some tips to help you get started.
1. Identify The Purpose For Building A SharePoint Intranet
Before you start building your SharePoint intranet, it’s important to identify the key business use cases for which it will be used. Ask these questions as you start the project:
- What are some of the outcomes your organization aims to achieve once the intranet is in use?
- Which kind of intranet is best for your use cases — a hub site? Communicate site? Or team site?
- Which departments will be using it? HR? Finance? Internal Comms/PR? Everyone?
- What information and applications do users access on a regular basis? Calendars? Tasks? Reporting?
It’s imperative that the use of the SharePoint intranet is aligned with the needs of the business. IT can no longer stand-alone. An intranet should be driven by the user community with input from all key departments (Marketing, HR, Legal, Finance, C-Level, and Communications).
A solid commitment to business and IT alignment, where you include all your IT and business stakeholders, is critical for success and user adoption.
Before building your intranet, set meetings for planning and discussions to pinpoint the purpose then to align all parties involved in the process. By understanding your stakeholders’ specific requirements and clearly communicating why an intranet will benefit them, you will be on the right path to better collaboration and buy-in.
2. Focus On Functionality And Usability
One of the strengths of a SharePoint intranet is how visually pleasing you can make the site. It can look like an actual website that people want to visit every day!
However, a ‘Build it and they will come’ perspective doesn’t work with this type of solution.
While you’re in the planning stage of your project, consider the various use cases of your employees who will be using the SharePoint intranet. What content and applications will they access? How can the intranet be personalized to each employee?
That’s why it’s critical to speak with stakeholders and employees who will be using the tool daily. Think about the type of content you will be presenting and make sure you have the stakeholders in place to ensure your content will remain fresh with constant ongoing updates.
How will the pages be structured? How will users navigate? How can we make it easier to find information?
Gathering answers and mapping your project plan to these use cases should be your top priorities. Focus more on the functionality at the beginning of the intranet build project and incorporate visual branding elements later.
Intranets vary by customer, but consider if/how you may want to use some of these components:
- News
- Quick links
- Social Features
- People Search
- Social Features
- Calendars and Events
- Company Classifieds
- Employee Directory / Organization Chart
- Business Process Automation (Expenses, Vacations/ time off, Onboarding, etc.)
3. Nail Your Information Architecture
It’s not the most exciting aspect of building a SharePoint intranet, but ensuring you have a well-defined information architecture (IA) and site structure is crucial to success.
When applied intelligently, the right IA combined with structured metadata helps your employees find documents faster using SharePoint’s powerful search engine. However, if it’s overly complicated to add metadata, or your chosen terms are too vague, then employees will give up on their search and will revert to their old habits of using the wrong tools to find information or to collaborate.
Want More?
Our team mapped four more best practices for you to follow and implement when building a SharePoint intranet. Get access to them here in this free guide.
Bottom Line On Building An Intranet
With a solid plan in place, building your modern SharePoint intranet can be an easy and seamless process, and you’re on the road to improved communications, collaboration, and operations.
Download the full, free guide of best practices for building a modern SharePoint intranet for your organization.
And let us know if you have any questions or need any help.