1. Top Story

Increase Productivity with an Intranet

If you're looking for inexpensive ways to increase productivity, an intranet may be what your company needs. You can share documents, discussion threads or even create company message boards and classified ads on a company intranet.

Teams that use centralized document storage and message boards can make better decisions and cut out duplicate work because everyone always has the latest document versions and up-to-date discussion threads and news. The social aspects are a little perk that engage employees and increase adoption.

Planning Your Shared Space

Planning is the most important task when you're ready to create your intranet. Map out your workflow and identify points where a shared space can make the process easier or delete a step in your current process.

Next, consider the structure of your company. Every company should come up with a unique list of features and functionality that best fits its needs. Just like any other technology in the office space, a set of guidelines of acceptable uses and behaviors for the intranet is a good idea.

The Budget

Next, consider your budget and staff resources. If you have an in-house IT staff, will they have the time to build and manage the service or is it more cost-effective to outsource it to a third-party vendor? You have many options available to you, so determine how much you can spend before choosing a solution.

The Execution

Once you've identified your needs and budget, determine which of the following options best fit your situation.

Wiki

A wiki is software that allows you to create a website that can be added to and edited by a community.

• Benefit: free
  Some wiki software is open source, so developers can use it and modify it without paying any licensing fees. This is a great option for companies and teams that need an intranet but don't have the funds to outsource its creation or management.
• Drawback: security, do it yourself
  A wiki isn't necessarily secure because anyone within the community has the ability to edit the site. To increase a wiki's effectiveness, a specific posting process should be implemented and a moderator should be put in charge of verifying all content updates.

Hosted Intranet Plan

Many Web hosing companies, including Hostway, offer Microsoft SharePoint. SharePoint is a ready-to-use, customizable intranet software that runs on a secure server specially equipped for the application.

• Benefit: fully managed, secure
  A hosted SharePoint portal is managed by Microsoft-certified professionals. Your portal can be completely customized to fit your needs. It is password protected and encrypted to make sure your sensitive business information doesn't get into the wrong hands.
• Drawback: cost
  There is a monthly fee for this service and generally a setup fee.

In-House Dedicated Server

If your organization is large enough, you can run Microsoft SharePoint on an in-house server.

• Benefit: complete control and access
  If you have the secure facilities to house your own server and staff to configure and manage it, having an in-house solution gives you the most control over your company intranet.
• Drawback: server and data center space, staffing and security costs
  For all but the largest companies, the costs of housing and maintaining servers on site are prohibitive.

Adoption

Your employees will use the intranet if you give them features they need and make sure to communicate those features. You can use some of the same ideas of customer-facing online communities to increase participation in your internal shared space.

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