Your corporate intranet...please help! (1 Viewer)

[ryan_x]

I am currently working on a presentation for school on intranets...i am trying to find out what are the recent issues and trends that are occuring when it comes to a organizations corporate intranet...what are they currently being used for...what are the future plans for them...any input would be of great help...thanks

 

[Don Black]

As far as what's concerned? Technology or applications?

 

[ryan_x]

mostly application side i.e. what kind of information can you view...job postings...benefits...etc...but if your company is doing something innovative on the technical side that would also

 

[Don Black]

Well, my company can't justify the expense of one right now. But you've nailed all of the basics. You've got benefits information, newsletters, sales and marketing material, security (webcams), collaboration stuff (white boards, etc.), and concierge stuff too depending upon the size of the company. You might be better of buying some of the COTS stuff rather than building your own. It will of course depend upon your situation. Good luck!

 

[Dean DeMass]

The #1 thing we have on our Intranet, is the ability for any employee to open up a help desk ticket without having to actually call the help desk. This takes a lot of heat off of the people answering th phones at our help desk.

-Dean-

 

[Scott Merryfield]

We have automated our purchase request process, as well as expense reports, through a secured portion of the company intranet (i.e. webserver). Any forms an employee may need -- time off request, 401K form, insurance forms, etc. are also available.

 

[Kirk Gunn]

Check out http://www.microsoft.com/net/
for some basics on Intranet/Internet Infrastructure. Note - I am not saying .NET is the best way to go. This link will just give you some background info on upcoming developments.

 

[TomF]

Hi Ryan,

I just revamped the HR portion of my former company's intranet. The primary goal is self-service. Most of the information employees need to know regarding their employment is there, including benefits, pay ranges, incentive plans, policies/procedures, job openings, training opportunities, forms, etc. The trend is towards allowing online transactions. Many of the forms can be completed and submitted online (through Web-enabled Lotus Notes forms). When the HRIS system is upgraded in the spring, that will open the door for more improvements. For example, when employees changes address, they would be able to enter the change on our Intranet and the change would go directly to our HRIS system.

When designing the new HR site, usability was my biggest issue. I wanted to make it as easy/intuitive as possible for employees to find the info they need without having to make a call to HR. I conducted a usability test with employees that was VERY helpful towards making it a better site.

For Intranets in general (at least for our company), the goal is to provide employees with as much information as possible to help them make better business decisions. For that to happen, traditional cultures of keeping all the information among the top level need to relax.

Hope that helps.

Tom

 

[TomF]

One more thing--the company also recently bought a third party content management system. They are a big expense and take a long time to implement. But from what I have been hearing, they are becoming more popular. For the Intranet, it will allow departments to add and update information through a simple user interface without having to learn HTML and other Web development tools. Templates for the "look" and navigation of the site are then maintained by a central group. So it's easier to keep information up-to-date, and you can maintain a more consistent, usable interface. This hopefully resolves a couple common problems with Intranets: content does not get updated (making it less than useful), and every department develops their own interface--usually poorly (so that employees have to learn a new one for every section that they go to for information).

 

[ryan_x]

thanks guys!

 

[Chris]

Same here. We put all of our policy manuals, updates, service request forms, etc. all on the intranet so that end users can fill all of that out when they need things done/need information. It makes things pretty handy

 

[Andrew W]

The #1 thing we have on our Intranet, is the ability for any employee to open up a help desk ticket without having to actually call the help desk. This takes a lot of heat off of the people answering th phones at our help desk.

This is an excellent tool for IT. It allows them to totally isolate themselves from the customers and removes any personal responsibility. Now that our IT dept. uses this, it takes hours to report a critical server or network outage and have any resolution.

 

[Kenneth]

We do virtually everything on the intranet (it is fun to watch all hell break loose when a major virus shuts everything down). We have all the policy information on the intranet. Netmeeting is used for colaboration and real time document sharing. WMM is used for most meetings now to post logistics and document attachments. Paychecks are all online now and my employer stopped sending out paper checks about a year ago. IT has an extensive online presense for ordering, product info, software downloads, and ticket generation.

Kenneth

 

[Tom Lowden]

One thing we use it for is to post the leave schedule for office personnel. That way, there is an instant reference when scheduling appointments/department coverage.

 

[Curtis Koenig]

Here at Microsoft we do everything on our Intranet. Every team has an Intranet site with public (in company) available information. I even get my pay stub on the Intranet. We use as little paper as possible.