What makes a good company intranet

[Littlepeahead]

We've decided to re-launch our company intranet as it's never kept up to date so no one uses it. We're talking to staff about what they would like it to feature but I thought I'd throw this one open to any of you who use an intranet at work or work in IT to see what you think works really well and perhaps what doesn't.

We'll have staff profiles, new starters, daily updtes about events going on, the staff canteen menu and a useful documents folder for things like sickness and holiday forms. But if you can make any further suggestions then please post them up.

For info, we are a huge cricket ground, so not one big office block where everyone sits in cubicles in one building. Geographiclly we are spread over a large site and this in itself can hamper our internal communications. And the age range of our staff is 17 to 76!

Thanks :)

[454697819]

space to put adverts to shift unwanted items,

[BigBaddad]

Workers Wives.

[Tara]

space to put adverts to shift unwanted items,
we have this on our pinboard and it works well.

Company policies
Feedback
vacancy list

[The Guru]

Company telephone directory/useful numbers

[SoulKiss]

We've decided to re-launch our company intranet as it's never kept up to date so no one uses it. We're talking to staff about what they would like it to feature but I thought I'd throw this one open to any of you who use an intranet at work or work in IT to see what you think works really well and perhaps what doesn't.

We'll have staff profiles, new starters, daily updtes about events going on, the staff canteen menu and a useful documents folder for things like sickness and holiday forms. But if you can make any further suggestions then please post them up.

For info, we are a huge cricket ground, so not one big office block where everyone sits in cubicles in one building. Geographiclly we are spread over a large site and this in itself can hamper our internal communications. And the age range of our staff is 17 to 76!

Thanks :)

Make it easy to update and use.

Make it possible to just email stuff to the site, whether that be little twitter-like comments or status mesages or important information.

If you can make the interface the same as what people already use and are familiar with then you are a lot of the way to winning the battle.

[Viney]

A good easy menu system to find stuff. The L&G one is awkward to find tihings like forms, details about people in departments, who to see about what, etc. It can also be vauge in areas. Thiers is used to advertise what the company is doing in the work place, and putting articles etc. Which i can find on their website. The intranet should be about the people, the internal runnings of the company, stuff going on and as i say a nice simple area for useful items that you may need to do you job on a daily basis. The org charts on their intranet took me ages to find. Oh and a search that actually works.

[timwilky]

Firstly take overall control out of the communications department. Empower individual departments to manage/update their own areas.

There should be no broken links, information should be accurate and upto date. Archive off obsolete information etc.

Make it the single source for your policy documents, news, indexes, links to internal wikis etc.

[davepreston]

a who to go to section
eg who's your fire marshall, first aiders, report faults too

joke of the day

[warrenhewitt10]

ours has those dilbert things, simple but gives you a smile in the morning when you turn the computer on

[krhall]

Integrate it with some presence and availability features, such as Micorsoft OCS and Sharepoint integration.

That way you can use it as an internal MSN type setup, keep pointless email traffic down too!

Don't shout at me Soulkiss, I know it is Microsoft.

[Littlepeahead]

Thanks for all those, keep them coming.

[flymo]

dont ask them what the Intranet (do you mean portal?) should contain, ask them what tasks they carry out each day, what ar they looking for and what do they do often. e.g. booking meeting rooms, filling forms, hire cars, travel, expenses etc.

Then, where its appropriate find ways to simplify and speed up those tasks.

Above all, keep it simple and give people a sense of ownership.


edit....just noticed the point about storing document files etc. Try and remove the need for the form in the first place. e.g. why not enter a holiday form request right there on a page, click 'submit' and bobs your uncle

[Skip]

Ours has a lot of the content above but is only flat HTML files and the search is currently broken - consequently it rarely gets used - and its my job to look after it :oops: Plus I always struggle for content from people.

Something like Sharepoint and putting the onus on others is probably a good idea

[SoulKiss]

Integrate it with some presence and availability features, such as Micorsoft OCS and Sharepoint integration.

That way you can use it as an internal MSN type setup, keep pointless email traffic down too!

Don't shout at me Soulkiss, I know it is Microsoft.

Ours has a lot of the content above but is only flat HTML files and the search is currently broken - consequently it rarely gets used - and its my job to look after it :oops: Plus I always struggle for content from people.

Something like Sharepoint and putting the onus on others is probably a good idea

*weeps*

Currently having to fight against MS CRM products, all because Microsoft couldn't implement Standards in a Standard fashion...

Still at least someone before me had the good sense to write some code to "backup" a huge chunk of the CRM info into a mySQL database on another server that is kept in sync...

[Biker Biggles]

I assume most of the workforce are not IT people?
In which case KISS.

[Kalessin]

The problem we found when we needed to encourage people to use the intranet was that people always claim to be "too busy" to look at it. So we made its use compulsory, by putting essential facilities online.

For example, you mentioned a link to useful documents like sickness and holiday forms. We no longer have physical forms for these, staff have to use the intranet to fill in a form online. This not only cuts down on paper, but draws people in. While they're looking for what they need, they'll discover other resources and facilities that they didn't know were there (e.g. an online suggestion box or a classified section as suggested previously). Holiday authorisation is also confirmed online and our holiday planner, instead of being a physical wall chart, is automatically updated by the system when holidays are approved.

[squirrel_hunter]

dont ask them what the Intranet (do you mean portal?) should contain, ask them what tasks they carry out each day, what ar they looking for and what do they do often. e.g. booking meeting rooms, filling forms, hire cars, travel, expenses etc.

Then, where its appropriate find ways to simplify and speed up those tasks.

Above all, keep it simple and give people a sense of ownership.


It is such a shame so many companies do not understand this.

All I would add is Sharepoint looks interesting but I've only just started interacting with it. Oh and a phone directory is useful, but only if it has a mug shot attached. My last place it was codenamed dateline...