Archive for the ‘Customer Stories’ Category
Thursday, August 25th, 2011
Our intranet design contest has come to an end and we are happy to announce that Brent Nelson from the University Student Union at California State University, Northridge has won an ipad2! The USU intranet received an astounding 182 votes, congratulations!
We recently spoke to Brent to learn more about USU’s intranet:
How long have you been on Intranet Connections?
We have been using Intranet Connections since the summer of 2005.
What version are you currently using?
We are currently running version 10.5.130 and will soon be updating to version 11.
How did you decide on the content and layout for your intranet home page?
The content chosen for the home page are usually news articles that deal with the many facets of college life. Student employees make up about 75% of the USU work force, so we try to make the USU Intranet a great resource for the students to use.
Tell us about your intranet theme:
The red color represents the Matador Red – a school color for California State University, Northridge (CSUN)
Why did you choose the name “USU Intranet”?
USU stands for the University Student Union – we are an auxiliary organization of CSUN
How do you encourage your employees to use the intranet?
>> Staff employees use the Intranet on a daily basis to update their In/Out board.
>>Online forms and most of the business forms are accessible only through the intranet.
>>The USU Help Desk which is used for submitting work order requests are accessible only through the intranet.
>>Office supplies (i.e. papers, pens, pencils, etc.) request are accessible only through the intranet.
>>Laptop checkouts are made through a calendar application.
How do you promote collaboration on your intranet?
We have setup department pages for each department to have a space to share information with department members and the entire USU. Some departments have also setup blogs to create a collaborative space to discuss current projects and get feedback. We have also seen an increase use of the chat features.
How do you see your intranet developing over time?
We are constantly changing how we use the USU Intranet and see it as a dynamic resource that changes to meet the needs of our users. We have many plans to expand our intranet with many of the features now available in version 11. We are also working to define and develop content standards to make the site ADA compliant.
We had an outstanding turnout for our first ever intranet design contest! A big Thank You goes out to all of the company’s that submitted their screen snaps, we loved all of your designs and had a tough time selecting only five designs (and one wild card) to place on Facebook. The level of creativity was remarkable, keep up the great work!
We will hold various contests throughout the year, please subscribe to our blog to get the latest Intranet Connections news. You never know, you could be our next contest winner!
At Intranet Connections, we encourage using your intranet for team collaboration and building company culture, please comment below to share how you use your social intranet to support initiatives like these!
Tags: Client Stories, employee engagement, Home Page Design, Intranet Design, Intranet Success
Posted in Customer Stories, Intranet Design, Intranet Software | 1 Comment »
Thursday, June 16th, 2011
Last week, I had the privilege of attending the Inbound Marketing Summit in San Francisco. It was a fabulous conference with enlightening speeches from influential marketing professionals. One of the speakers that hit home for me was Elyse Tager from Constant Contact. Elyse gave an insightful presentation about Engagement Marketing and spoke about customer engagement and the act of giving a great customer experience.
I believe that Elyse said it best, “there is no marketing cure for sucking, the last thing you want to do is ignore the customer experience.” This motto echo’s our customer service goals at Intranet Connections because we strive to continuously deliver positive customer experiences over the phone, with email and through social media.
These are three important things that our team does to nurture, connect and educate our connections:
>> At Intranet Connections, we cultivate relationships with our client’s by encouraging them to “talk to us”. We love that our customers feel that they can get in touch with us directly to receive assistance with tech support, sales, marketing, or if they just want to chat. We always answer the phone, no call routing, just personalized communication between our company and you.
>> Our customers give us permission to engage with them via social media, blogs, and emails, and we thank them for this opportunity.
>> We provide valuable information to our customers and prospects by sharing and commenting on articles by thought leaders in our industry.
Make sure you check out these cool initiatives that our Intranet Connections customers are participating in:
We recently had the opportunity to tour Fathom Online Marketing’s intranet where they are doing some amazing things to promote their corporate culture initiatives. Find out more about their intranet at IBF Live on Tuesday, July 5th
Are you interested in updating the design of your intranet? Take a look at Aggregate Industries Most Beautiful Intranet entry for creative ideas for your intranet.
Would you like to learn more about Intranet Connections? Come see what our customers are saying.
Tags: best practices, Client Stories, Collaboration, Customer Service, Employee Communication, employee engagement, Intranet Design, intranet development, intranet ROI, Intranet Success, Social Software
Posted in Best Practices, Customer Stories, IBF Live, Intranet Design, Intranet Software | 1 Comment »
Thursday, May 19th, 2011
Last July, we posted a blog called Intranet Design 101 which offered four useful tips on how to improve your intranets functionality, design and navigation. Here are some of the ways that you can be creative with our turnkey, out of the box intranet software:
Tip #1 – Make use of new features
When you buy Intranet Connections software, you have a fleet of developers providing new features and functionality to your intranet on a regular basis so take advantage of this!
Tip #2 – Use a clean, fresh design
When you first go live with your intranet, sometimes it’s good to have a bold design theme, lots of graphics and a few boxes on the home page for social-fun content. This helps to drum up interest and attract employees to the new intranet.
Tip #3 – Rethink your navigation
Think Labels. A menu item called “General Information” does what exactly for employees? Now a menu item labeled “Employee Info, Events & Resources” is something I would click on expecting to find value for me, the employee.
PS: if your navigation is NOT at the top of the home page real estate, move it on up. Navigation first!
Tip #4 – Give users some power
Get your employees involved – you might be surprised at their level of responsibility and ability to share valuable information. For example: Suggestion Box, Discussion Forum, News, Blogs and Knowledge Center are collaboration tools that engage your employees.
We recently redesigned the Utah Community Credit Union and Northern Savings intranets as a thank you for participating in a recent case study. These intranets are used as the central portal for all company information by their employees. Simplifying the navigation and design of the site can increase productivity because it takes users less time to find what they are looking for. Check out the design revisions we completed using our Intranet Connections software:
Utah Community Credit Union Intranet before and after:
- To modernize the home page, we removed the blue background and replaced it with simple white
- Organized the content of the site by adding a centered top menu header which houses the sites content in drop down’s
- The new accent colors for the site were pulled from the corporate logo and website. This gives the intranet a look that is cohesive with their company website
Northern Savings Intranet before and after:
- When we spoke to Christine Komadina at Northern Savings, she expressed that their intranet theme had not changed since they implemented their intranet in 2006 and she felt like their site was ready for a facelift
- In the original site, there was a large amount of content on the home page and throughout the site. In order to cut back on scrolling and word clutter, we added a left aligned menu header with drop down’s to the home page
- We pulled colors and images from the Northern Savings corporate website, which gave it a cheerful and clean look
Using our Intranet Connections software, we can show clients what their intranet would look like with corporate branding incorporated on their site. We recently branded intranets for BleuBlancRouge and Sonoma Valley Hospital, and here are the results:
BleuBlancRouge Intranet:
- We used BleuBlancRouge’s corporate webpage as a template for their intranet theme
- We incorporated their corporate logo and branding on the intranet and added bright fuchsia to contrast with the white background
- Since this is an advertising and design company, we incorporated photos from their advertising campaigns on the intranet homepage
Sonoma Valley Hospital Intranet:
- We really loved their website’s autumn colors and photos, so we used them throughout the Sonoma Valley intranet
- The background of the intranet is white to contrast with the dark menu header, this allows the important menu information to be highlighted and easily searchable
Do you have an award winning intranet? The Neilson Norman Group is looking for the World’s 10 Best Intranets, and it could be yours! The Intranet Design Annual 2012 competition is now open, click here for more information.
New intranet blog posts will be added to our site weekly. Check back often for more ways to create a functional and engaging intranet using the Intranet Connections software!
Tags: Client Stories, employee engagement, Intranet Applications, Intranet Design, intranet resources, intranet ROI, Intranet Success, Intranet tips, Intranets
Posted in Customer Stories, Intranet Software | 4 Comments »
Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011
Peter Barron is an Intranet Connections Fan; he provides significant feedback on our blog, Linkedin and Facebook pages and speaks candidly about our software as it applies to his organization. Over the past ten years, Peter has managed the Rio Rancho Public Schools intranet, which is internally called “Rionet”. With over 20 school district departments that use the rionet, Peter targets applications and widgets that make the intranet process fast and easy for thousands of users. We recently interviewed Peter to find out what makes his intranet so successful, and today we are delighted to share his responses with our intranet community.
Here are Peter’s six tips for an efficient intranet:
| Time: Seeing as Rio Rancho is a school district, the majority of intranet users are teachers. Teachers are incredibly busy with students during the day and they lack freedom of time to peruse their intranets. In order to overcome this timing issue, Peter leverages the notification capabilities of the “rionet” with subscriptions to departments that the teachers have invested interest in. This subscription service has been a big push for Peter and the Rio Rancho Schools because it decreases searching time on the intranet by targeting topics of interest for the user.
E-forms: Teachers must attend conferences, so Peter created PDF e-forms for them to request conference admittance and funding in rionet. Directly from their classroom, teachers fill out the request form, and it is processed right away. |
 Rionet Intranet |
Collaboration: Peter says that collaboration among teachers is a difficult task because teachers don’t have extra time to go on the intranet. To overcome this, he encourages them to set up subscriptions to get alerts and on topics that they are interested in. This subscription section of rionet gives them a place where they can share information and tools back and forth (blogs, docs, and forums) in an efficient way.
Calendars: All of the Rio Rancho schools and school districts utilize the calendar tool. This is the primary application on the rionet because all important events can be easily added and searched here.
Tech support: Peter uses the tech support and help desk application for all 20 districts and schools. Users love the ticketing process because the tickets route directly to education technology specialists. This way, the issue is taken care of right away and then it is documented in their secure intranet site.
Mobile: In school districts, mobile capabilities are not beneficial because staff use their own cell phone providers. Although most people now have smart phones, they are not accessing wireless through Rio Rancho’s provider, so it is unlikely that accessing their intranet via mobile will occur.
At Intranet Connections, we enjoy connecting with our clients and receiving customer feedback to ensure that our software is meeting your needs. The Intranet Connections team would like to say a gigantic thank you to Peter for taking the time to answer our questions with great ease and detail and we hope that his insight is helpful to your intranet development.
What are you doing to simplify your intranet’s ease of use for busy employees?
Tags: Client Stories, Collaboration, Employee Communication, employee engagement, Intranet Applications, intranet software, Intranet Success, Intranet tips
Posted in Customer Stories, Intranet Software | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, April 19th, 2011
Sharlyn Lauby, a writer for Open Forum, recently wrote an article called “5 Challenges for Human Resources in a Digital World” which shares the automation challenges that HR departments face today. Sharlyn explains that an array of automation tools is available to HR professionals; however, the adoption of this technology is slow. A great way to overcome computerization issues is to implement an intranet to share and store human resources information digitally.
Once an intranet is up and running, there are exceptional applications that can make HR documents and polices accessible to all business sectors securely.
Justin Olson from the Utah Credit Union, who has been on our intranet software since 2004, created two unique time-saving Human Resources tools on his intranet:
Non-salaried employees clock-in using Hyperlinked logos that are connected to their external time tracking system. Hours worked are tracked through one site so that HR does not have to login to another system.
Full time employees have a Human Resources widget for health benefits, medical, dental and 401K plan information. Justin said that providing all of the proper documentation in a central area has freed up Human Resources because less people have questions when all of the forms are easily available on the site.
Practical Intranet HR Tools:
- Encourage employees to use the intranet by solely providing HR forms and policies on the intranet
- Use the vacation application to track and manage absence requests from employees.
- Create HR e-forms; all files can be stored and managed in this secured area
- Manage employee course registration with the training application
- Obtain user feedback by adding comments and ratings to the bottom of each widget or application that you create. This way, employees can respond on how things are working.
- Utilize the anniversary and birthday widgets so employees can respond to their coworker’s special occasions
These are a few of the great ways that an intranet can automate HR in a protected and organized manner. How has your company enhanced Human Resources capabilities via your intranet?
Tags: best practices, Client Stories, Employee Communication, employee engagement, Intranet Applications, Intranet Design, intranet ROI, Intranet tips
Posted in Customer Stories, Intranet Software | 4 Comments »
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