Development of Company Intranet
Background:
The company had spent years utilizing a series of Google sites to collect documentation and share with a team of around 500 employees. They had several groups, departments, and committees, each creating content within their own individual mini sites. The materials collected, required various levels of access to view, based on team member department and position. Leadership was looking for a better way to bring all materials into one place, specifically to streamline internal communication and create an inclusive environment for team members to share customer success stories. My team was asked to develop a plan and pitch a solution to our C-Suite, focusing on several key drivers including several core project requirements.
Project Requirements
- Connect with third party SSO
- Ability for groups/departments to share specific news and updates
- Integration with multiple public Google calendars
- Create a repository of documentation for past success stories
- Allow team lead SMEs access for adding and uploading materials
- Ability to track engagement after launch
Process:
After successfully pitching the project to the leadership team, we got to work, spinning up a subdomain for the new intranet. We compiled data from a team member feedback survey to determine everything from a name to useful tools and layout preferences. With that information, we built out the infrastructure and prepared training for team leads within different groups. After the infrastructure was in place and the training was completed, we were able to hand off access to team leads to beta test and start transferring content from their legacy sites. Once that was complete, we were able to launch and keep track of engagement utilizing Google Analytics.
Challenges:
WordPress combined with page builders like Elementor is an ideal choice for flexibility in website development. That said, with so many features, to those without a background in website development it can seem overwhelming. While our team leads on this project had plenty of buy-in, some didn’t have the time to learn everything the platform has to offer. This led to under-utilization in some areas, where our team had been asked to step in and make updates. In addition, due to a few restrictions, we weren’t able to automatically migrate data from the legacy Google sites. Some departments had a significant amount of material the needed to be transferred. Rather than hold back the entire project, our solution was to launch the intranet, keeping original content live with backlinks until those teams were able to copy content to their new pages.
Results:
In the end, we were able to deliver on all project requirements and our company saw a healthy level of growth in adoption and usage over the first few years of use. The majority of team leads were able to take the new capability and run with it, creating improved UX within their individual areas of the site.
Interested in a collaboration?
Reach out and let me know! I’m always happy to look at a project and see how I can help!