intranet solution evaluation workbook - sp marketplace › uploads › 2 › 2 › ... ›...

1 Sponsored by SP Marketplace. Learn more at http://www.spmarketplace.com

I

INTRANET SOLUTION

EVALUATION WORKBOOK Make an informed decision for your organization

http://www.spmarketplace.com/


This workbook, along with other resources like whitepapers and videos, is designed to not only educate you on what you want

and need from an Intranet but also provides a printable checklist that can be used to compare different Intranet solutions,

including building your own with the basic SharePoint Site templates (Team or Communication sites). After doing over 1000

Intranet implementations worldwide, we at SP Marketplace have seen what works and what does not work. We hope to

convey to you this experience as part of this Evaluation Workbook.

Evaluating Intranet approaches can be daunting. With Modern SharePoint you could attempt to build it if you have the

experience, skills and ability to support it on an ever-changing SharePoint platform. Alternatively, there are many out-of-the-

box solutions and packages for your organization. Whether it is a new Intranet your organization is looking to deploy or just

replacing an existing one, the objective is often the same: to provide an organizational hub for employees to more effectively

communicate and collaborate and make it easy to do business internally.

An Intranet is no longer just a home page, but a part of a larger Digital Workplace

One of the key things to consider is what role an Intranet plays in your overall Digital Workplace strategy, with Office 365 at

the core. You need to realize a successful Intranet design is not an isolated function in your organization but needs to be a

natural part of your Office 365 deployment. It needs to deliver a common user experience with services like Microsoft Groups,

Teams, OneDrive etc. A modern Intranet is not just a reference page with tons of hyperlinks, it is an operational portal

structure that provides a consistent common way for employees to get news, information, resources, services and collaborate

across groups and departments. It provides your base infrastructure for how you are going to do business inside your

organization.

Beyond technology, it is a chance to step back and define an Internal Business Infrastructure

Many organizations have grown organically department by department and function by function with each group doing things

their own way related to how they communicate news, events, organize documents, and provide services. Looking across the

organization as an employee who needs to get the latest information, resources, services and processes, it can look chaotic.

Employees spend time searching for resources, missed news and announcements in email, and playing telephone or email tag

with questions and requests for services.

What if you could define and establish a common approach to doing business internally that bridges siloed departments with

an Intranet Portal Structure? Using this structure you can provide portals to departments and groups that have pre-defined

ways to communicate news, organize documents and files, provide services (with self-service), and enable collaboration.

Additionally, the portals could roll-up to an Intranet Home page for news, announcements and events and provide a Central

Employee Self-Service Portal for resources (docs, files), service requests and processes rolled up (search, etc) across

departments. This kind of Intranet Portal Structure provides huge opportunity for ROI.

Approach Considerations – buy, outsourced bespoke build, or internal build

As with any business application or system, you have to make a business decision on the approach you wish to take in

deploying an Intranet. While you may think that you have unique requirements, odds are that may not be totally accurate.

Like your accounting system, there are best practices learned over many years of experience that can be applied to an Intranet

deployment. Does it make business sense to build an accounting system today? Probably not. The same may apply to your



Intranet. While your portal structure tied to your organization structure may be different, best practices around document

organization, news roll-up procedures and other key functions are the same. We have seen over and over again technical or

marketing staff in organizations try and build their Intranet internally, only to have them approach us after several months

after a failed project, because the effort was bigger than they thought.

Learn more about building an Intranet using Modern SharePoint site templates here.

If you are considering building your Intranet yourself consider the following:

1. Have you ever designed and built an Intranet before?

2. Do you have an understanding of the best practices to apply?

3. Can you design the required security and governance plan?

4. Do you understand both SharePoint and Office 365 services sufficiently?

5. Are you ready to support your Intranet going forward when SharePoint Online changes (it does every month)? If

outsourcing, will the consulting firm support it going forward?

6. Can you design it so that administration and content management can be done by power users in Departments and

Groups.

If all the answers are yes, then you are well equipped to build your own. If not, you may want to look at some of the out-of-

the-box Intranet solutions available. This evaluation workbook is designed to help you do that.


http://www.spmarketplace.com/buildorbuy.html


High Level Requirements - Key questions to consider

Understanding your high-level objectives and requirements are key to a successful Intranet. Defining its role and aligning with

your IT Strategy and internal organization goals is important. Second, are basic items like governance, security, what

resources are needed to administer it etc.

Core high level questions are:

1. Does the Intranet solution fit in with your overall Digital Workplace Strategy?

2. If your Digital Workplace platform is Office 365, is it a seamless natural part of the platform

3. Is the solution intuitive and easy to use by your employees? Easy to administer by business power users for their

department or group?

4. Does it include full content management including security, audience targeting and display management?

5. Does it go beyond a basic home page to include portals for your organization structure (departments, groups)?

6. Does the portal structure design map to available portal choices like SharePoint sites, Office 365 groups or teams?

The key to a successful Intranet that will work with your organization both now and in the future is determined by how you set

it up, deploy it, and the approach you choose – Buy or Build. With the introduction of new cloud platforms like Microsoft's

Office 365, organizations have a wealth of powerful, versatile options.

This checklist was developed by Office 365 and SharePoint experts who have deployed more than 1000 Intranets across all

industries around the world. Because an Intranet affects your entire organization, the decisions you make today will greatly

impact effectiveness tomorrow.

Before you begin with the checklist, here are some basic questions to ask yourself:

1. What does our organization want to accomplish with an Intranet?

☐ Improve communication by provide a central place for organizational announcements, news, and events

☐ Increase collaboration and facilitate sharing of ideas, tips, and competitive information

☐ Establish a consistent approach across siloed departments for communication (news, events), resource organization

(docs, files), services, and processes

☐ Provide intuitive self-service features for employees to locate resources, answer questions, processes and access

services

☐ Create an organizational hub that will drive productivity, collaboration and self-service

2. How will the Intranet fit in with your Digital Workplace platform?

☐ Will the Intranet be standalone OR be part of a larger Digital Workplace platform like Office 365

☐ Will the Intranet integrate with email, an office suite, document management, and online meetings?

☐ Will the user have one common user interface experience across the Intranet and office services/tools?

☐ In the future, will the Intranet look separate OR be part of an overall Digital Workplace?



☐ Will the Intranet be able to leverage new technologies in the future AND will these new technologies be able to

integrate naturally with the Intranet’s design?

☐ What is our vision for the Intranet in five years? Can the solution we choose grow with our platform and our business

needs?

3. How much control over the Intranet will our organization have?

☐ Are we able to update, modify, and make changes to the Intranet ourselves internally OR will we need to hire an

outside consultant?

☐ If we choose to do it ourselves internally, are we willing to train an Application Administrator to manage the Intranet

portal internally? What level of training is required?

☐ Does the Intranet solution allow Content Managers and end users to work with it without requiring heavy formal

training?

☐ If you choose to hire an outside consultant, will the bespoke built solution be supported against changes made by

Microsoft going forward?

To learn more about choosing an Intranet solution, read our whitepaper

Deploying an Intranet on Office 365


http://www.spmarketplace.com/sp-marketplace-white-papers.html


Using the Comparison Worksheet

The worksheet is broken up into the following sections:

Core Platform

This section goes into the type of platform on which your Intranet solution is or will be deployed. When comparing different

Intranet solutions, look at the Intranet features and whether they conform to Microsoft guidelines. This section also will go

into how the Intranet will be impacted by future updates.

Intranet Structure

This section goes into what comes with the Intranet you choose, out of the box, and how the Intranet’s structure is set up to

meet the needs of your organization. Is it just a home page or does it include portals for different levels (departments, groups,

divisions) of your organization?

To learn more you can see an on demand webinar here.

Intranet Home Portal:

Intranet Look & Feel

This section will ask about how the Intranet solution your organization chooses fits in with Office 365 and Microsoft branding

guidelines. It also will ask about the level of difficulty involved with changing the branding and customizing it to your

organization’s needs.

Content Management

This section goes into the types of content that will be displayed on the Intranet and how the content is updated and added.

It covers content governance (approvals), audience targeting, priority and scheduling. Additionally, choices in this section will

ask about automating content and the roles of content managers with updating the content.

Flexibility and Customization


http://www.spmarketplace.com/webinars-on-office-365.html


This section goes into the flexibility of changes to the Intranet and the role that an administrator has with the Intranet and the

level of training required. This section also will touch on updating and modifying the look of the Intranet, such as lists, libraries,

fields, forms, report views, etc.

Employee Self-Service Portal:

One big mistake we see Intranet designers make is to try and put everything on the top home site. This eventually is

overwhelming to the user and they stop using it. We have found it is better to put information and navigation in the Intranet

and create a sub-site called Employee Self-Service or Employee Central for activities like finding documents (policies, etc.),

getting Service (like requests to HR, IT etc.) and locating employee facing business processes. In essence, an Employee Central

is a consolidation of employee facing functions across departments.

Department Portal

For departments we find that there are two kinds, service-oriented departments like IT, HR, Facilities, etc, that exist to provide

internal services to help make the organization operate. It is important for these departments to provide a service center for

their customers, and to make sure the right security is in place to separate the docs and data that should only be seen by that

department’s staff, from those to be consumed by employees. For service departments, we recommend providing an

employee portal and a staff portal via the same SharePoint site.

There are other departments or groups that do not, like project teams, product groups and others, that need to collaborate,

share documents, activities etc. These are more oriented to your typical team site which are peer to peer with less concern

about securing department only resources.

Office 365 and SharePoint Enhanced Functionality

For your Intranet to be effective it needs to bring in data from other sources, notify users of activities, and allow end users to

adjust or create new business processes, such as approvals. This section will go into how your Intranet solution will integrate

with other software programs and applications. This section also will ask about how your Intranet solution will incorporate

with Office 365 and augment the platform’s tools and utilities.

Deployment and Service Options

This section goes into the tools that come with the Intranet solution you choose. It asks about implementations and

customizations to the Intranet solution, as well as the training and follow up after purchasing an Intranet Solution.

Price and Total Cost of Ownership

This section goes into the costs associated with your Intranet solution and if it is in line with what you are receiving in return.

Are you paying for a beautiful home page with custom graphics but getting little functionality? What is the five year cost and

the impact of required ongoing consulting?

Intranet Solution Feature Comparison



FEATURE SP Intranet

SharePoint Base Site

Competitor2 Notes

Core Platform Comm or Team Built on Office 365 or SharePoint On-Premise Leverage powerful platform or standalone ✓ ✓ No additional hardware or software required Do you have to buy anything else to run it? ✓ ✓ Runs "native" as part of the Office 365 Digital Workplace Runs on standard SharePoint rather than hiding it ✓ ✓ Support both Classic and Modern SharePoint UIs Built on Team, Communication and hub sites ✓

Can be part of a SharePoint Hub Site Structure ✓ ✓

Can leverage all Office 365 features Access features like Groups, Teams, OneDrive, Skype, Yammer, MS Flow, Power Apps and Power BI ✓

SharePoint department and group portals integrate with Office 365 Teams, Groups ✓ ✓

Uses SharePoint and Office 365 data integration features Connect external data sources using SharePoint, MS flow and Connectors ✓

Can leverage Office 365 future updates and features As a native Office 365 solution will it benefit from new ones ✓ Single sign-on for email, Office products, meetings, messaging, etc. ✓ ✓ Will not crash or be negatively impacted when Microsoft makes Office 365 changes ✓ Can access portals and applications from the Office 365 app launcher Core part of Office 365 navigation design ✓

Uses standard Office 365 and SharePoint permissions ✓ ✓

Follows "No Code" solution design Does it require programmers or consultants to change it ✓ ✓

100% customizable without coding Can it change with your business? By Power Users? ✓ ✓ Home page layout flexibility Can you pick your layout and change it? ✓ ✓ Role based menu structure and forms Can users be presented with different navigation by role ✓ Syncs with Microsoft Outlook (tasks, calendars, contacts, file explorer) Is it fully integrated with your office automation? ✓



Standard Pre-defined User security groups as part of design ✓

Pre-built business processes for notifications approvals and more 100% customizable ✓

Full integration across site portals ✓

Consistent site design and structure across departments ✓

Modular design allows phased deployment ✓

Intranet Portal Structure Is it just a home page or a structure on which to build Intranet Home Portal For organization, divisions, regions ✓ Comm Site

Employee Self-Service Portal ✓

Department Portal – Service Dept ✓

Group Portal – Peer to Peer Groups ✓ Team Site

Intranet Home Portal Comm SIte Uses standard Office 365 branding Does it fit in with the rest of Office 365? ✓ ✓ Follows Microsoft Guidelines and Rules – Classic UI (no changes to Master Pages) If not, you risk breaking it when Microsoft changes ✓ ✓

Responsive design for tablets and smart phones ✓

Modern only

Change colors, logo, layout, and background ✓ ✓ Choose from several out-of-the-box home page layouts ✓

Modify layout using standard SharePoint page edit – both Classic and Modern UI Can you change the layout yourself? ✓ ✓ Supports a common user experience across Office 365 Is it intuitive for your user? ✓ ✓ Many additional Webparts to enhance content display ✓

Enhanced Navigation with cascading menus and audience specific display ✓

Content Management

Pick and choose content and location to populate site ✓ ✓ Configurable Content Zones Home page zoned areas for content placement ✓ Configurable Organization Links Using promoted links list with meta data ✓

Personalized to the user Links (MyLinks) ✓



Quick Links - in Navigation Filtered based on audience-based content links ✓ Easy to use Content Manager dashboard Add/ manage/ approve content without knowing SharePoint ✓ Full Content Governance (News, Events, etc) Content approval, and scheduling ✓

Display/Target content based on group or location or department Show specific content to groups ✓

Selective News pushed up to Intranet from operation Departments only select relevant items for entire organization ✓

Not selective or governed

with Modern

Selective announcements from department portals Push to Intranet for approval, scheduling ✓ Selective events from department portals Push to Intranet for approval, scheduling on common event calendar ✓ Content catalog for organization-wide content links Links you want to give everyone ✓ MyContent - Personalized content for individual users Allow employees to pick their own content links ✓ Available Content – out-of-the-box

Organization Announcements ✓

Organization Events ✓ ✓

Organization News ✓ ✓

Picture Links (Hero web part) ✓ ✓

Company Forum and Discussions ✓

Company FAQ ✓

Company Alerts ✓

Message from the CEO ✓

Employee Birthdays ✓

Employee Recognition ✓

Industry News Feeds ✓

Social Network Updates - Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook ✓

Local Weather Feed ✓



Stock Ticker ✓

Tip of the Day ✓

Surveys and Polls Feature ✓

Maps ✓

World Time Clock ✓

Office 365 information display web parts – Power BI, Planner, oneDrive, People ✓ some

Flexibility and Customization Can it meet your specific needs and grow with you 100% customizable without code by business power users ✓ ✓

Change site page layouts ✓ ✓

Add or change content parts ✓ limited

Add your own images and logos ✓ ✓

Change navigation and menus ✓ ✓

Add new portal sites anywhere in the structure ✓ limited

Link your existing portal sites into the structure ✓

Inherit look and feel for new and in-house created sites ✓

Add or change data lists, such as new calendars, contacts, tasks etc. ✓ ✓

Add or change document libraries ✓ ✓

Add new data fields and columns ✓ ✓

Change or design forms as needed without code or SP Designer ✓

Add new report views as needed ✓

Change notification email alerts without workflow changes ✓

Change process workflows to meet your needs ✓

Employee Self-Service Portal ✓

Employee Directory Search, connect with Skype, create from AD, add none AD employees (non office workers) ✓

Central Point for Docs, Policies, Forms etc Search, Browse, consolidated across depts. ✓

Central Service Requests Request service from any departments ✓

Central Point to access Bus. Processes Common employee facing processes ✓

Create your own with form builder ✓



Common Manager Approvals ✓

Purchase Requests ✓

Time Off Requests ✓

Time Sheets ✓

Time Off Calendar ✓

Expenses ✓

Rooms and Reservations ✓

Policies and Procedures Library ✓

Forms Library ✓

Create new icon links to existing systems (ERP, Payroll) ✓

Department Portals – Template Designed for Service providing departments ✓ Team Site

Staff Portal for Dept staff to collaborate and organize docs,

proceses, activities etc. ✓

Employee Portal Service Portal for Employees- MyHR, MyIT etc. ✓

Auto re-direct for employees to service portal ✓

Staff Document Libraries ✓ ✓

Task Tracking ✓

Staff Calendar ✓ ✓

Department Meetings Calendar ✓

Department Announcements ✓

Individual Staff Workspace ✓

Integrates with Office 365 Groups, Teams ✓

Links in Group OneDrive, Planner, Notes ✓

Pre-built Dashboard in Power BI ✓

Add Pre-Built apps on SharePoint IT Help Desk, HRIS, Facilities Mgt, Projects ✓

Customize by adding new lists, libraries pages. ✓ ✓

Pre Defined Permission Groups and Security ✓

Office 365 and SharePoint Enhanced Functionality and Tools Over a dozen add-on web parts to enhance Intranet Pages ✓



Smart tools for Forms, Notifications, processes add over 50 new functions to SharePoint ✓

Included tool to capture data from web forms into SharePoint ✓

Available tool to migrate data from legacy systems into SharePoint ✓

Included tool to integrate data from back office or external systems into portals ✓

Available tool to manage SharePoint data (import, migrate, update, clean, backup) ✓

Create your own email notifications, reminders, follow-up ✓

Create your own business process workflows ✓

Allow users to submit Excel form data (expense forms, timesheets) ✓

Create Word or Excel documents from list data (quotes, proposals) ✓

Enhanced SharePoint forms utility to provide rich designed, rules driven forms ✓

Lists connected with Power BI for pre-built vibrant dynamic dashboards ✓

Monitoring tools detect events to drive "Active Content" for Intranet portal ✓

Deployment and Service Options What tools are included to go beyond standard O365 Out-of-the-box with do it yourself customizations Can you do it yourself if you know SharePoint? ✓ Control your own destiny - Mentored DIY Vendor implements, mentors and trains in-house personnel ✓ Full-service implementation and customizations available Vendor implements, customizes, and trains users ✓ Business process design services Transform existing processes to new cloud processes ✓ Full training available Product, O365, SharePoint training ✓ Ongoing managed service options Ongoing monthly ✓ Guaranteed ongoing SharePoint Online support for changes ✓

Price and Total Cost of Ownership Pricing model requires per user subscription Pay every time you add a user?

High subscription renewal rate every year

Price

5 year Total Cost of Ownership


intranet solution evaluation workbook - sp marketplace › uploads › 2 › 2 › ... ›...

Documents