Microsoft SharePoint
Simple sharing and seamless collaboration
What can a SharePoint intranet do for my business?
At Mintivo, our SharePoint intranet sits at the heart of our organisation. During lockdown, it’s been the glue that’s held our team together and helped us work productively, no matter what disruption was thrown at us. Now, there are plenty of articles and blogs that explain what an intranet can do and the benefits it can bring so we won’t cover that here. We simply wanted to share our experience; why we wanted an intranet and what Mintivo expected to get from it. We hope it’s useful if you’re considering an intranet yourself.
Setting our requirements for an intranet
Our requirements/objectives were broken into 5 main areas:
- Technology choice and ease of integration
- Team contribution and collaboration
- Company direction and communications
- Efficiency / productivity
- Tracking results and KPIs
To leverage existing systems, SharePoint was the answer
Firstly, it’s important to note that SharePoint is not the only intranet platform. Why did we choose SharePoint for our intranet? It came down to one thing… We already had SharePoint as part of our Microsoft 365 licensing. Because SharePoint is a key part of Microsoft’s suite of apps, it offered key advantages over other options, including:
- Free (no extra cost)
- Simple authentication (using existing 365 user credentials)
- Deep integration with other Microsoft applications and services
SharePoint Your mobile, intelligent intranet
Share and manage content, knowledge, and applications to empower teamwork, quickly find information, and seamlessly collaborate across the organization
Helping team members make a full contribution
At Mintivo, we’re growing fast and regularly bringing new members into the team. Every member of staff, irrespective of their role, can bring new ideas, suggestions and observations to make us better. It would be a missed opportunity if we didn’t provide a platform that allowed our staff to contribute these ideas. So our first group of requirements centred around ideas sharing and ensuring that each individual felt included and encouraged to voice their insights.
Light hearted, revealing staff profiles and new starter introductions
We find that people are more comfortable sharing if they feel genuinely included. The intranet could help to introduce new starters, welcome them to our team and reveal something about their colleagues. This was particularly important during the enforced remote working but it would also help connect individuals across our offices. Fun, engaging staff profiles were important. After all, not everything needs to be serious and sharing hobbies, interests and experiences brings a team together.
Weekly catch up on what's going on in the business
To get the most helpful input from our team, it’s important that we share what’s going on across the business, regularly. We needed a ‘catch up’ feature to keep everyone up-to-date on work outside of their immediate role or responsibilities.
Organisation chart, including roles and accountabilities
Who’s responsible for what? As we grow it’s easy for responsibilities to get confused and important functions can fall between the gaps. We wanted a clearly defined organisational chart that remained up-to-date and was transparent at all levels.
Virtual staff suggestion box
A simple suggestion box feature would allow everyone to post an idea or observation quickly. We also wanted to ensure that suggestions didn’t get forgotten and that the best ideas were celebrated and recognised.
Keeping everyone on the same page
As we grew, we realised that our ‘message’ or ‘direction’ wasn’t entirely clear to everyone in the organisation. We needed a way to keep everyone on the same page so we identified several intranet-based functions that could help, including:
A global events calendar
Team notifications and integrated Microsoft Teams Channels
Company news, press releases and marketing activities
Image libraries
Company history timeline
Policies and procedures
Get things done faster and better
This was key for us at Mintivo. There’s never enough time to get things done and technology is there to help – so our aim was to optimise the software tools at our disposal so that we could get more done, better and faster than before. Requirements included:
- Workflow for HR routines including holiday requests, expense forms and approvals (FYI Microsoft Flow combined with Active Directory would facilitate this)
- Signposting toolsets and software services (So that everyone is aware of existing software tools and can access them)
- Training resources, including videos in Microsoft Stream
- Intuitive, searchable document libraries augmented with metadata (To move away from the standard folder and file 'trees')
- Finely tuned access privileges to documents and information, on and offline
- Co-authoring documents, version history and sharing (To avoid multiple copies and put everything in one place )
- Information security management system with risk registers and non-conformance reporting (To control lists around security events and incidents)
- Information security management system with risk registers and non-conformance reporting (To control lists around security events and incidents)
- Customer information area with maps integration (Essentially a mini-CRM in SharePoint)
Keeping everyone on the same page
As we grew, we realised that our ‘message’ or ‘direction’ wasn’t entirely clear to everyone in the organisation. We needed a way to keep everyone on the same page so we identified several intranet-based functions that could help, including:
Support ticket volumes and SLA commitment
Monthly sales targets and results
Support timesheets and resource usage
Marketing results, including channel statistics
The intranet was to become a platform to publish all manner of PowerBI statistics.
A mix of social and practical tools to work better, together
The requirements above are just the tip of the iceberg, but we hope they inspire ideas for your intranet. For us, we wanted to use what’s already there; To take advantage of existing services and software that we could use ‘off-the-shelf’ and configure to our needs. We thought that might constrain us but, as it turned out, we were able to achieve all the above and more without any custom development.
Meet your account manager
Shane (pictured) is typical of our Account Management team. It’s Shane’s job to make sure that our service is delivering value, that problems are not recurring and that your business remains aligned and compliant with IT best practice.
"Not only did Mintivo successfully move all of our staff to BYOD, they also set up remote print access. Now, with the tools to function outside of the office, we have a much broader reach for our recruitment and can attract incredible talent from further afield.
The change has been unbelievable, moving from a full-on office setup to a cloud-based system. This would not have been possible without Mintivo.”
“Mintivo provided a cloud-based solution and secure VPN which has proven to scale effortlessly.
For example, Mintivo were able to set up 20% of our users on portable devices within 3 days prior to the national lockdown. That wouldn’t have been possible without the ‘Gold Image’ build and deployment process.”
Is it time for a change?
Focus on your job while we support your team and your infrastructure
Rest assured that those repetitive issues and recurring distractions are gone for good. Leave the day-to-day IT support to our team while you focus on more strategic activities.
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