Important Things to Consider When Building an Intranet

There are many things to consider when creating an intranet. This guide will take you through the perils and pitfalls of intranet creation – and give you a few tips along the way. Intranets are a great way to make a network of computer systems function more effectively - particularly in business.

By having a streamlined intuitive interface in a network, you can greatly increase workforce productivity – the benefits of which are self-explanatory. There are also significant benefits when it comes to time management, ease of internal communications and collaborative capabilities. So, let’s begin.

Intranets are fantastic tools, but before investing in the infrastructure necessary to build one you should consider whether or not you need one.

First things first, do you have a business plan? If not then there’s probably not much point in building an elaborate intranet portal just yet. You need to consider how much your business will be able to make, and whether you will be able to grow enough in order to justify constructing an intranet.

You should consider what you will use the intranet for. It’s a good thing to think about what an intranet will enable you to achieve – not to mention whether or not you’ll be suited to it, there’s no point having the capability to do a lot of things and just not doing them.

In addition to this, you should consider your existing IT systems – you can sometimes make significant savings if you’ve got a lot of hardware already in your possession, as you can incorporate it into a new system.

This is one of the most important things to consider when building an intranet. It’s related to what you want your intranet to achieve for you, but you need to refine your needs and construct a very specific list of requirements.

Do you want to be able to use a calendar? Do you require the ability to track employee’s time, timesheet management, or related expenses? Perhaps you’d like a meeting room or hardware booking capability? You need to make a decision about what you need.

Training resources are particularly well suited for access on an intranet. This is because a lot of people, employees or otherwise, will require training or learning resources and a well put together training document on an intranet will be immensely valuable – and also save a lot of time for other people.

This is a very important consideration. It’s not just about aesthetics. You want to design the user interface to be visually pleasing and not obtrusive to the user – and you definitely don’t want to put them off. It’s a problem faced by many intranets, they are needlessly complicated at times – and this affects usability.

Such an affect then effects productivity which can then become a burden on costs – particularly for businesses with a large amount of employees. Design also implicates the speed of the intranet; you want it to run fast and smooth – so that people can make efficient use of it.

Overall, you should basically work with whoever is building the intranet for you - they will be able to assist with your requirements. But remember, needlessly aesthetic designs may result in a slower functioning system. It’s all about the user, so it does need to look good – but the crucial thing is it needs to be usable.

Creating closed network community features is a great way to get feedback, promote discussion and generate communication between users of an intranet. This could be in the form of questions about various features; it’s much more efficient for a manager of an intranet to address concerns on a forum than it is to deal with questions on a case by case basis.

This also creates a resource for users. If an issue has arisen and been resolved, then there can be significant time saved for the user – as well as the person providing technical support in the first place. It’s a good idea to use community features incorporating chat functionality too. It just makes it a bit easier to keep in touch, share thoughts and collaborate more freely. This is particularly the case when one or more users of the intranet are in different locations.

It’s also beneficial for more casual discussion, though this is not its primary purpose, for staff and others to communicate, plan events and discuss in a closed network environment.

The best way to make sure an intranet starts strong and gets stronger is to encourage user driven content. If users of an intranet each contribute, then there is a much greater likelihood of having a greater or more useful resource overall.

Thinking of sites like YouTube, which is entirely user driven, you can get an idea of the potential collective content contribution will have on an intranet. Each user of an intranet is going to have their own areas of expertise – so they should be encouraged to create pieces of content using this expertise.

It’s all about creating a collective community that keeps on growing, and this is much more effective than having one or more people responsible for generating content. It really needs to be all-inclusive, so that the intranet grows.

It’s also a great idea to invite contributions from others, those who don’t use your intranet, for more diverse content.

Well there are some of the top things that need to be considered when creating an intranet. There will be a lot of technical abilities involved in creating a solid and effective intranet – but with a bit of consideration you will know what you want from your intranet and more easily communicate your needs to whomever is building it.

Intranets might seem unnecessarily complicated, at times distant and difficult to understand – but they shouldn’t be too hard to comprehend. Just remember to think carefully about what you want, and you’re more likely to get it.