Do you know that 80 percent of employees claim that their company has an Intranet?
Yes, according to a recent study by Igloo, many medium, and large-sized organizations are now using the Intranet for their workplace.
And for this, you can thank the amazing features that an Intranet provides to a company such as quick, and easy information sharing, amazing collaboration tools, operational systems, and so much more. But what exactly is an Intranet? We are sure you’ve heard of it, and if you haven’t, we’re here to help.
An Intranet is basically a computer network that shares information services, and systems but is confined to a specific organization. Think of it as a private extension of the internet confined to a single organization.
This implies that with the help of an Intranet, people outside the organization cannot access the data, and information that is shared within an organization.
Undoubtedly, Intranets have changed the way companies, and institutions operate worldwide. In this post, let us discuss about the best Intranet softwares that you can use for your business, and how you can set up a simple Intranet for your company.
This article will help you to pin down the best Intranet softwares for your business or institution, and will also help you understand the whole process of installation. So, let’s dive in!
What is an Intranet?
Before discussing about the best Intranet softwares, and how to set up your own simple Intranet, let us briefly discuss about an Intranet.
Many find it difficult to understand the difference between the internet and the Intranet. The difference between the two is that the internet can be used by just about anyone, anytime, and anywhere. However, Intranet is a private network only accessible to employees of an organization.
Like we mentioned earlier, an Intranet is basically a computer network that shares information services, and systems but is confined to a specific organization. You can also understand an Intranet to be a private extension of the internet that is confined to one single organization.
But why do you need an Intranet for your workplace?
This is because of the fact that it acts as an effective platform that facilitates internal communication within your organization, simplifies information, and knowledge sharing, increases employee engagement, helps in time, and record management, and so much more.
Thus, making Intranet an incredibly valuable tool in today’s digital workplace.
Every organization needs a robust platform for proper functioning, and management of various tasks such as that of analysis of data, information, and reports, and for connecting, communicating, and sharing.
It is not uncommon for all these tasks to increase the work burden, and complications, but with an Intranet software you solve all these workplace headaches.
Providing an effective platform to organize, share, and update, organizational knowledge, Intranets make it easier to collaborate, thereby getting rid of disorderedly document management, and even enable employees to work remotely.
Moreover, Intranets make your workplace interactive by allowing employees to work, share, and collaborate with all the different employees of an organization, present in the different locations. Above all, they also make locating the right content simple, with creative, and permission-based filing systems.
Other important features are forums, and groups, automated multi-stage workflows, self-service reporting tools, integrated reporting, and dashboards of project sites, workflows to track processes, checklists, and document versioning, and so much more.
To know more about why you need an Intranet for your workplace or organization, feel free to check out – Top 10 Undeniable Benefits of Intranet for the Workplace.
Best Intranet Softwares
GreenOrbit
The first one on our list is Greenorbit. Greenorbit is an amazing Intranet solution that helps you deliver an exceptional digital workplace experience. With its help, you can easily manage content, and applications, share content, and more, as well as facilitate teamwork, and effective collaborations across the organization.
With Greenorbit, you get a CMS that helps you create, and publish content. You can make use of a variety of built-in templates for your Intranet pages. It provides you with almost every feature that you expect from a content management system, and as per your intranet design.
To help you collaborate efficiently in your private space, Greenorbit also provides a safe, and private discussion area. You can also create private groups to share important information, and facilitate communication at your workplace.
Moreover, with a real-time Activity Feed, you can increase employee engagement, and like, comment, and share useful content with others, and get the conversation flowing. It’s like your organization’s very own private social media.
Other useful features are Online Forms, and Workshops, Quick Polls, Intranet Analytics, Active Directory Integration, Enterprise Social Network, Document Management Facility, and Resource Booking, and Staff Profiles. Check out all of its features here.
Communifire
Communifire is truly your next-generation Intranet.
In their own words, it is “the unifying force that brings your people, content, and conversations together in one place—in a meaningful, targeted, and personalized platform that improves engagement, and employee experience.”
To improve, and catalyze internal communication, Communifire offers great features like alerts, chats, and notifications, enterprise social networking, allows you to publish important news, and announcements, and the ability to share feedbacks, and ideas.
By acting as a centralized knowledge management system, it unifies your employees, and accelerates the growth of your organization.
It also provides handy tools for Remote Work, Blog, and Feed Management, Calendar, and Content Management, Discussions, and Forums, Knowledge Base Management, Policy Management, Task Management, Discussion Boards, and more.
To facilitate team communication, you get your own activity or News Feed, Surveys, and Feedback, Task Management, Third-Party Integration, Discussion Threads, File Sharing, Mobile Access, Real-time Chat, and more. You can check out its website to know more about its features in detail.
Beezy
Another great Intranet software on our list is Beezy. Beezy offers a modern, and intelligent workplace through communication, collaboration, and makes other processes easy, and efficient.
Moreover, its company-wide newsfeed, and information sharing facilities further helps employees to connect, and interact with each other, enhance teamwork, which boosts productivity.
Beezy’s award-winning UX is easy to use, and requires little to no training. Thus, all the employees within your organization can use it easily, and without any complications. Also, it perfectly integrates with Office 365, thus providing an immersive, and intelligent workplace solution.
You can also use Beezy’s Mobile Apps for Android, iOS, and Windows – to stay connected with your organization on the go.
Other important features are an easy-to-use user interface, amazing data security, great socialization features, and a global presence to provide widespread support. All these features of Beezy translate to improved employee engagement, greater productivity, and time-saving, and satisfaction.
How To Set Up Intranet?
To set up an Intranet for your organization or your workplace, you can use any of the softwares that we just discussed about, may be by taking some professional help, if required.
However, there is an interesting alternative, that you can use to set up an Intranet for your organization. That is, if you want to set up an Intranet for your organization without any need or knowledge of web design, or development, or just about anything in specific, then you can go in for Google Sites.
Google Sites, is a simple, and well-structured wiki-, and web page-creation solution, which can help you to create simple Intranets.
With Google Sites, you can build a website or an Intranet which you can use for a variety of organizational purposes like bringing together training materials, and other important organizational data, to provide videos, and other content like PDF resources, and so much more.
To begin with, you need to access Google Sites, which you can do so by clicking here. Upon clicking on this link, the site will ask you to log in with your Gmail account, and if you are already logged in, the page will look something like this.
If you have already created websites using Google Sites, then you will be able to see all of your Google Sites that you have access to. Or, click on “Start a New Site” option, which will open up a new page for you, where you can create your site.
The page will prompt you to add a Page Title on your website. Every feature of Google Sites is drag, and drop, thus, you can easily edit, organize, and change the content without any specialized knowledge. On the right, you will also see all the different layouts, and themes that you can choose from.
You can also change the background image by choosing from a wide array of images that Google has. If you want, you can embed a carousel of some images, that you can either select from Google drive or even upload new images.
Any image that you add to your site can also be linked to some other website. Just select the image, click on the little attachment pin icon, enter the destination website link, and you are good to go.
You can also add a team calendar; so that whenever an employee uses your site, you would have a little calendar for them to see.
You can also give headings, and subheadings to this candle, and even grab it, and just move/pull it up or down or across, and thus you can actually move it, and place it on any position of your choice.
The insert menu on the right will give you a variety of elements that you can add to your Intranet. For example, add Collapsible Text, Table of Contents, Buttons, and Dividers, Placeholders, Youtube Videos, Maps, important organizational Documents, and even Presentations with the help of slides.
The pages option will help you add pages to your Intranet site. Just click on the plus button, give a name to your page, and then click on done. And, if at any stage you want to preview it, you can just hit preview, and it will show you what the output looks like, as a result of all the elements that you have selected.
If you have earlier used a drag-and-drop website builder such as Wix, then it will be easy for you to understand all these features. The goal here is to create an Intranet, and the elements that you add to it will vary from organization to organization, and as per varying needs, and purpose.
Moreover, you can also embed a shared team drive, which can then be collectively used by the employees of your organization.
Just go to that insert option (we talked about earlier) on the right, and click on the drive option. Choose your desired drive from the shared drives options, and the selected drive will be embedded.
You can then give a heading to this drive, and also re-organize it, and its location easily by dragging, and dropping. You can thereafter also create pages like the feedback page, pages related to specific departments, and so on.
To facilitate communication, you can provide your employees the option to share ideas by actually embedding a particular form. Just go to the insert option, select form, create a form, and then click on insert. In this way, you can get the responses, and ideas from your employees in an easy way.
Thus, you have created a Google Site, containing important information about your organization. You can add various pages related to various departments or purposes. You can also add team calendars, and members so that everyone is on the same page.
You can add new images related to the recent developments in your organization, as well as share important organizational documents, and presentations.
You can also facilitate communication by providing forms, and even provide important resources, and learning material through sharing content, and pdfs, and by embedding videos.
And all that for free, and in an easy, quick, and efficient way. However, if your organization’s size is large, it is recommended that you use a professional software specifically dedicated to an Intranet. Google Sites however, will help you create simple Intranet alternatives that are good for small businesses, and companies.
Refer to the following video to know about all the steps in great detail!
Conclusion: Best Intranet Softwares and How To Set Up Intranet
In this post, we discussed about Intranet, its benefits, the best Intranet softwares for your company, and we also discussed about how to set up a simple operational Intranet for your organization, at zero cost.
In today’s digital workplaces, with every passing day, each, and every process is becoming increasingly digital. And, to take your workplace to the next level, an Intranet is a must.
We hope that this article was helpful. Now, what do you think about Intranets? Do you think it is worth investing in? We’d love to hear from you, so don’t forget to leave us a comment down below.
