Not many people can put “launched an intranet” on their resume.
But we can – we’ve launched almost a hundred of them, and we’ve gotten pretty good at them (if we may say so ourselves).
Chances are, if you're reading this blog, you're coming to intranets for the first time. If you do have experience, it’s usually with one of those older, custom built solutions. That’s why we put together this walkthrough – to help you get your intranet up to scratch and ready for launch.
We’ll be covering:
Below, you’ll find a rough timeline of the road to launch. We’ve broken it down into five-week blocks – this is the minimum amount of time you need to spend before you’re ready.
Now, we know that not everyone will have the time on hand to complete all of these tasks within that time frame, and that’s ok. Each week covers a particular ‘theme’ and for some people, these might take longer than a week – especially if you’re coming from an enterprise. And don’t forget: we’ll always be on hand to fill in the gaps for you.
Welcome, project background and planning. What are your aims and how can Twine help achieve them?
Start by performing a content audit to figure out what content you have and what knowledge content you need. It's easy to underestimate how much knowledge base content you have, so start work on it as soon as possible. Getting subject matter experts to help can speed this process up.
We'll take you through the nuances of Twine and make sure you haven't missed anything. If necessary, we'll begin any custom work required, such as Active Directory and Okta as well as custom domains.
Start uploading all that content you started in Week 2, and start planning your ongoing content strategy and engagement initiative. It’d be worth recording a quick welcome video with a founder or CEO, giving a brief introduction to the intranet. This should live on the dashboard or, if possible, as a popup when users first login.
Final checks before sending invitations to all users (see the ‘Go-live checklist’ at the end of this post).
If you've been on our blog before, you'll know that we talk about one thing above all else: content. Content makes or breaks an intranet. Trust us, we've been building intranets for a few years now – it's the top factor when it comes to engagement.
But it's one of the hardest things to get right. Don't worry – we've picked up a whole bunch of tips and tricks on our journey. Some of these we learned through experience, others from users like you. Here are a few of our ideas:
That should teach you a thing or two about internal content. When you’re ready, start making your way through this checklist:
Launching an intranet is one thing, getting people engaged beyond day one is another.
Your intranet will need constant tuning: from when you're prepping up your invites up until your first anniversary. We mean it. It’s the most common question when we sit down to discuss requirements with businesses, and rightly so; adoption is one of the key measures of success for your intranet.
Here are three areas you'll need to pay attention to:
News is where you tell your story: sharing milestones, making announcements and keeping people in the know. Use notifications to promote your content, sending email and in-app alerts to the entire organisation (or just the inactive groups). But remember: keep your content relevant and engaging. And try not to spam people.
You can judge the success of an intranet by its knowledge base. The more visits it gets, the more people are using it. To keep things going, you'll need to ensure content is always relevant and up-to-date. Use Twine's author reminder tool to stay on top of things. Within each article, add a reminder date and, when the time comes, we'll give the author a nudge.
Don't make people log in every time. With Twine's seamless single sign-on tools, users only need to do it once. That doesn't just apply to your intranet, you can plug in third-party apps too. Put links to external systems in the sidebar, and your users will be logged in with one click.
Before you launch your intranet to the masses, you'll want to double check you've done the following:
Good luck with the launch!
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