The Corporate Intranet is the key source of information for any organization. All major announcements, news, updates, and stories are communicated through the Corporate Intranet. Organizations have now become smarter and created digital Intranets, which provides an easy way to share information using graphics and multimedia, gather feedback from information consumers, and have a place for them to share information. In this chapter, we explore designing digital Intranets using the webparts available in SharePoint Communication sites.
The Background of Intranets
The Corporate Intranet is the daily organizational newspaper
Traditionally, Intranet were maintained as a hub of information and knowledge to be made available to all employees. However, the shift has been made from traditional Intranets to digital Intranets, which are stronger versions of the Intranet. Digital Intranets are not only hubs for organizational information and knowledge, but they are also a platform to collaborate, connect, and share business related information. This shift has made been possible using modern technology.
The SharePoint platform is the most widely used for creating digital Intranets in order to create end user collaborative experience for end users. According to a Gartner report published in 2014, more than 50% of Intranets in this world are built in SharePoint. But there are other alternatives as well. Some organizations are using Drupal CMS, modern web technologies such as JavaScript, .NET, and others. Apart from digital Intranets, you also have social internets and technology such as Yammer, Jive, and SAP JAM are being used for companies using social Intranets. Facebook at work is another example of a social Intranet.
The difference between a digital and a social Intranet is not very complex. Social Intranets are identified by use of enterprise social networks such as Yammer, Jive, Chatter, and Tibbr, which are used for Intranet purposes. Digital Intranets are much stronger and you have access to rich graphical features to make Intranet pages visually appealing. Users can collaborate using information available on the digital Intranet and share additional content.
Benefits of Using an Intranet
Employee communication—With an Intranet in place, it has become easy for organizations to communicate with their employees. This can be a strategic move, customer appreciation, new customer wins, leadership views and opinions, company profit and loss, organizational objectives, or links to other organizational platforms. The Intranet is also used to share knowledge so that it can create awareness and keep employees well informed. Apart from being a strategic form of communication, Intranets are used to communicate campaigns, series of weekly or biweekly communications such as about technology, and employee empowerment communications, such as awareness on pollution, eco-friendly plastic, and global warming issues. Some organizations run polls and competitions using their Intranets.
Communication in time—Intranets deliver communication to employees at their convenience, which means whenever employees are in pursuit of the information, they can access it. Intranets do not send employee mass communications, as is done through email. Access to information available on the Intranet is solely in the hands of employees at their convenience. Information available on the Intranet does not distract employees when they are busy with work by sending notifications or triggering updates.
Improves employee productivity—Intranets provide access to application links that are vital for employees to perform their roles and responsibilities in the organization. The Intranet has vital business information that’s required by employees in their day-to-day work. For example, say you are working on a customer RFP and you need the number of SAP-based certified professionals and the quality standards achieved by your organization. This information is available on the Intranet whenever you need it. Logging in to the Intranet is simple as it usually synchronized with the corporate active directory and integrated with a sign-in mechanism. This means one single click and a one-time investment to enter the user name and password. Any employee can access the information. Any employee who is part of the organization can access the Intranet without any special access request.
Web publishing—Intranets are web-based platforms that can be accessed using URLs. With a web publishing mechanism, managing cumbersome corporate knowledge has become less complex and access to it has become very easy. Using web technologies and hypermedia, employees can access organizational information such as HR policies and training videos. They can process documents and download attachments, and this become possible using technologies such as Acrobat, Flash, and inline video players.
Business operations and management—Intranets are used for developing and deploying business applications. Information such as the know-how of an application, upcoming changes, and downtime information is made available on the Intranet.
Saves on costs—An Intranet is a cost-saving solution and to demonstrate let's look at a couple of examples. Say your organization must train its employees in ethics and compliance and the training video is around 1GB in size. Imagine without an Intranet, every employee would be forced to download this video, consuming lots of Intranet bandwidth and local machine size. With an Intranet in place, such training videos, independent of size, can be made available. Another example is circulating employee code of conduct documents, which often undergo changes. Imagine without an Intranet in place, that the organization would be required to send each version of that document through email and employees again would be forced to download it multiple times. With an Intranet in place, you make this document available online and amend it whenever you need to.
Create a common culture among employees—Information available on the Intranet is unique. All employees who are part of the organization can access the same information. Even temporary workers, subcontractors, and interns can access the Intranet so that they can become part of the same employee culture. The Intranet is an umbrella that holds employees with company information.
Augments collaboration—Information and knowledge available on the Intranet is used by employees in day-to-day work and this information is shared between employees. With integration in place, news or articles on the Intranet can be shared with other platforms. For example, news articles from SharePoint can be shared with Yammer and employees can discuss and exchange ideas and generate collaboration.
Employee engagement—Modern Intranets provide two-way communication by means of surveys, polls, and voting features. With such features in place, employees can react to the information shared on the Intranet. Some companies also provide discussion forum features in order for employees to discuss and provide feedback on the information made available on the Intranet.
Built for a unique audience—In an organization, you have employees with experience from different backgrounds, such as Finance, Legal, Information Technology, Administration, and Human Resources. Information on the Intranet is made available in such a way that it is comprehensible to all employees with different backgrounds, experiences, and ranks.
Quick updates—Information and knowledge made available on the Intranet has to undergo version changes due to business changes. After such business change, information and knowledge is updated and the most recent version is made available for end users. Modern Intranets also provide access to archive versions as well. Some communication on the Intranet is really fast. When there is heavy rainfall or snowfall and roads are blocked, the trains or metro are not functioning due to strikes and other major reasons, the Intranet helps you quickly publish such communication about these situations.
Create Visually Captivating Digital Intranets
A framework for a digital Intranet using Communication sites
Communication and accessibility—Communication with your employees is the key in digital Intranets, as communication is not one way but is two-way. It is social and open communication where multiple people can participate. Accessibility is also important as information must be available on the Intranet clearly and users should not get lost. To achieve this, you can create a Communication site with home pages that include news and information across the organization, overall navigation systems to different Team sites, and URLs to applications.
Content and upload files—A place where different departments can make their services available to the rest of the organization. For example, departments such as Human Resources, Information Technology, Legal, and Mobility can use the Communication site to make business content available to employees. The Human Resources department can provide access to employee policies and benefits, code of conduct, business ethics, and compliance through a Communication site. The Information Technology department can display content linked to software and hardware policies, information security, and bandwidth. The Legal department can display intellectual property and Mobility can display information and rules related to business travel using a Communication site. Attachments linked to these sites should be downloaded or uploaded.
Collaborate, connect, and share—This is the social aspect of a digital Intranet. Communication sites linked with Teams or Yammer provide collaborative experiences in that employees can openly share content and build connections with other users. With the Yammer webpart, integrating Yammer with a SharePoint communication is very simple.
Employee culture—The Intranet helps to build a culture of unity, as the information or news published and communicated on the Intranet is considered an official channel. Communication sites help unify information from all departments to create a unique umbrella of information and help build an employee culture.
Mobility—With digital Intranets in place with the help of the Communication site, they can be accessed using various mobile devices. With such features, real-time communication can be made available to users.
Extranets—Digital Intranets have gone one step ahead with Communication sites, as they can be open for your external clients, suppliers, and partners with restricted access. Sharing and communicating with external parties has become simple with Communication sites.
Integration—Having multiple systems and departments makes information scattered and siloed. It is necessary to consolidate them. By making Communication sites into Hub sites, you can make navigation simple.
Search—You can find content from Communication sites and use the integrated search feature to yield results from Yammer and user profiles.
Create End User Experiences with Communication Sites
One of the major objectives is to create an awesome end user experience when using a digital Intranet. The word “awesome” in this context can be described as finding information over an Intranet very easily, communicating with end users simply, and reusing information available on Intranet to a business end. Let's look at some of the elements of SharePoint Communication sites that will create an awesome user experience.
Use Webparts
- Topic
Hero—To bring focus and visual interest to your page
News—To publish eye-catching news, announcements, and updates
Events—To publish upcoming events
Highlighted content—To distinguish specific content from other content with filters
- Showcase
Hero—To bring focus and visual interest to your page
Image Gallery—To insert images or collections of images into the page
- Blank
Bing maps—To add maps to maps in pages
Connectors—To receive alerts and messages based on conditions you set
Divider—To break lines between webparts
Document Library—To manage files, i.e., to upload, download, and modify on-site
Embed—To embed content from other sites
File Viewer—To insert files such as Excel, PowerPoint, and PDFs into your pages
Group Calendar—To insert an Office 365 group calendar
Kindle Instant Preview—To share preview of a Kindle book
Link—To add links to external and internal pages
Microsoft Forms—To create to surveys, quizzes, and polls
Office 365 Video—To display video in your Communication sites
People—To add select people for contact purposes
Planner—To add team actions to your page
PowerApps—To add your customized apps built in the PowerApps service
Power BI—To embed reports created in Power BI
Quick Chart—To add simple charts to your page
Quick Links—To pin items to your page for easy access
Site Activity—To display recent activity on your Communication site
Site—To showcase sites on a page; it will automatically show sites associated with a Hub site
Spacer—To control vertical space on your page
Stream—To display videos from the Microsoft stream
Text—To add paragraph, tables, styles, bullets, indentations, highlights, and hyperlinks
Twitter—To display tweets linked to your organization and its interests
Weather—To display the current weather on your page
Yammer—To create collaborative experiences for your end users
Integrate Mobile Functionality
Facilitating Intranet access through the mobile app is itself a digital transformation of the traditional Intranet, as they were originally only internal websites. Organizations are reluctant to develop a mobile option for Internet considering it is just an internal site for hosting content. But with SharePoint Online, Intranets are transformed into digital ones and you can access them through your mobile app. Engage your users through mobile devices. With SharePoint Communication sites, it is quite simple to consume and create content from mobile devices. Through mobile apps, viewing pages, creating articles, navigating, searching, and engaging in Yammer conversations are all very simple. You can download the SharePoint mobile app for Android, Windows, and iPhone.
Collaborate
Using Yammer webpart, you can add feeds from specific Yammer groups. Digital Intranets are designed in such a way that their viewers should not only read information but should be able to react, share it further, and comment on it. Brainstorming new topics in order to create content for the Intranet can be possible through Yammer engagement.
Customize
There are several things you can do to customize your SharePoint Online sites. You can change the logo, customize the theme to match the organizational brand, add useful links, edit pages, and add webparts. There is plenty of room for customization.
To create an awesome experience, organizations have implemented some innovative ideas using the webparts available inside Communication sites. Some organizations displayed football or ruby world cup score cards on their Intranets to bring maximum people to the Intranet. Internal competitions were rolled out and daily polls were hosted on the Intranet. In short, innovative techniques facilitate the use of SharePoint to create awesome experiences.
Using the Intranet, organizations have rolled out smart engines, called an integrated search engine, which gives you search results across all platforms. This was achieved by providing a user interface (UI) of a search engine on the Intranet home page. Organizations—in order to gain maximum viewers—are thinking of adding features such as shopping sites, Uber access sites, and embedded feeds linked to the company from external social media channels such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
Seven Steps to Building an Intranet Using SharePoint Communication Sites
In this section, we will learn about seven practical steps that you can consider when building an Intranet for your organization. An Intranet is the place where employees look for latest communication, events, updates, and announcements in order to remain updated and be efficient in their day-to-day work. Employees also look for business information, onboarding templates, and useful links to the business application. Considering this, the following steps can be used when building Intranet sites using SharePoint.
Strategy
A working skeleton of a corporate Intranet
This skeleton can be designed using SharePoint communications and its webparts, such as the Document Library, Events, Hero and others. Most people do not see it until they create it, but with SharePoint Communication sites, you can see the structure somewhat before it is developed. What I mean is when I think of an Intranet, I think of a Hub site. Similarly, when I think of local sites, I think of different Communication sites mapped to a unique Hub site, and when I think of useful links, I think of webparts. SharePoint Hub sites and Communication sites are explained in Chapter 2.
Use Webparts
Hero—To bring focus and visual interest to your page
News —To publish eye-catching news, announcements, and updates
Events—To publish upcoming events
Highlighted Content—To distinguish specific content from other content with filters
Image Gallery—To insert images or collections of images on a page
Yammer—To create a collaborative experience for your end users
Document Library—To manage files, i.e. to upload, download, and modify them on-site
Embed—To embed content from other sites
File Viewer—To insert files such as Excel, PowerPoints, and PDFs into your pages
People—To add select people for contact purposes
Site Activity—To display recent activity on your Communication site
Text—To add paragraph, tables, styles, bullets, indentations, highlights, and hyperlinks
Configure Page Layouts
Top Story—Latest articles can be displayed on the left of your site page
List View—Display articles in a single column below one another
Side-by-Side—Display articles in a single column next to another
Configure Top Navigation
There could be many possibilities for the top navigation. Choose the best ones depending on your needs. Probable suggestions are Configure SBU Pages, Employee Directory, Useful Links, Policies and Procedures, and Templates. Country sites could also be your choice.
Use Pictures
As you have heard, “A picture is worth a thousand words”. Use pictures whenever you want to communicate or publish information so that users get the message. Normally, Generation Y users are not used to reading large amounts of text, and providing pictures with some text is a nice way to convey your message.
Use Launchpad
Once your Intranet is ready, make it visible to the organization. Send mailers, display posters in the cafeteria or pantry where you have lots of employees, and make it the default page in your browser. The more you make it visible, the more viewers you are likely to receive.
Get User Feedback
Once the site is ready, your job is not over yet. You need to take continuous feedback from end users to make the Intranet look its best per user expectations. Most organizations, once they have the site ready, think the work is done and they do not pay attention to it. If your Intranet is created as per people’s expectations, things will change and you will gain maximum participation. Engage users as part of the transform journey of the Intranet through their continuous feedback. Assign ownership for each page, define roles for content authors and editors, and make the picture library available as per the organization’s copyright’s policies. If you have these channels for feedback, you are heading in the right direction to have an evolving digital Intranet.
Creating your Intranet with SharePoint Communication sites can be as difficult or as easy as you make it. But when you strategize, plan, and consider user feedback, you will definitely have the Intranet that your employees want. If you have what employees want in place, you have the best-in-class.
Summary
In this chapter, you learned how to can create Intranets using SharePoint communications and explored the list of webparts that SharePoint Online allows to design Intranets. We also saw that there is extra coding required to develop Intranet sites and everything you need is available by default in the form of webparts. If we use these webparts efficiently, we can create useful Intranets.