Intranets have evolved over the years; however, we’ve discovered that many organizations are stuck with a legacy intranet experience that does not serve the needs of an organization. Poorly designed pages, information that is out of date and a lack of organization results in frustrated users and low confidence when it comes to employees being able to find information. Your intranet experience may no longer “spark joy” and we can help!
Experts in Intranets
We have successfully built hundreds of intranet pages to assist organizations in making critical business content available to users. These pages are designed to quickly connect users with reliable and trusted content. A quality intranet has the potential to reduce the amount of time-consuming interactions that bring business to a screeching halt.
- Could you e-mail me the new hire checklist?
- Do you have the latest version of the org chart?
- Can you send me our company logo?
An intranet can serve as the enterprise repository for all this content. Best-in-class organizations have well-organized intranets that take information architecture and usability into account. We have a team that is well-versed in building out information architecture and can help to ensure that content is accessible and where users expect it to be.
Single Source of Truth
In our nearly 2 decades of experience in building intranets, Kiefer has helped organization focus in on the concept of “Single Source of Truth” (SSoT). SSoT is the idea that organizations should work diligently to ensure that only 1 version of a document exists within the organization. How do you achieve this? Well, there are a few things that we recommend –
Use SharePoint / Send Links
- If you’ve ever collaborated with colleagues using e-mail it’s likely that you’ve attached a document and had several contributors making changes to their version of the document. Eventually, someone ends up with all of the edited versions and must a final version with the collected feedback. Unfortunately, these “minor” versions resurface when someone requests access to the document. Now, we have inaccurate or incomplete information circulating.
- We recommend storing a document in SharePoint. Collaboration and co-authoring can take place simultaneously, eliminating the need to send attachments and risk compromising the SSoT.
News and Relevant Information
COVID-19 has had long-lasting impacts on business. One of the things we hear a lot is that organizations are trying their best to stay connected with employees working remotely. Intranets can connect users with critical content (documents) and important company news. We are a smaller organization, but we use the news features of our SharePoint Online intranet to communicate with employees. We even utilize features that enable bi-directional communication with our team. Microsoft has made it incredibly easy to share news, links and other relevant and information on your organization’s intranet page.
No Code / Easy to Update
One barrier that has kept many organizations from modernizing their intranet is that there may be a technical gap. A SharePoint Online intranet is easy to update, does not require code to add new webparts, and can be easily customized to meet the needs of your organization. Microsoft has introduced new tools like “look books” to accelerate the development of a SharePoint site and allows organizations to start with a customizable template rather than a blank page.
Getting Started
Let’s talk! Show us your intranet and tell us what you like about it and what you don’t like about it. Work with our consultants that understand information architecture, usability, and visual design. We can help you improve the intranet experience and make you proud of the experience you are providing to your users.