Intranets–what’s in it?

  • Article

I keep getting asked this question over and over again. At one point I did a whole bit of research and came up with an idea around how the intranet should be divided. I’ve shared this with customers and they seem to like the ideas. I’d love to see your feedback around what you’ve seen.

In general we can divide the intranet into the following areas:

  • Corporate
  • Employee
  • Community
  • Extending back office apps
  • Self Service

Corporate:

  • News about the organization
  • About the organization
  • Mission, vision, values
  • Org Chart
  • Departments (links to department sites (see communities))

Employee:

  • Role related information
  • Career development
  • Professional development
  • Access to business processes & guidelines
  • Handbook
  • Benefits

Community:

  • Department/Group site
  • Smaller team sites based on hierarchy and projects
  • Collaboration workspaces
  • Wikis & blogs
  • Document libraries and links to useful information
  • Employee facebook
  • Employee marketplace
  • Events
  • Photo libraries
  • Corporate Offers

Extending back office apps:

  • Access to reports from back-end apps based on function
  • Access to applications (Composite apps)
  • Search

Self Service:

  • Search
  • Helpdesk
  • Vacation Request
  • Workplace services

These areas can be intermixed into the site design. For example the employee page may have information for the employee as well as self-service areas