We’ll be at CeBIT previewing the latest version of Intranet DASHBOARD, which features amazing new functionality for both new and existing users.

Come and meet the iD team at CeBIT Australia 2013, Hall 4 Stand O31, Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre, Darling Harbour Sydney, May 28 – 30th.

Register now to attend

The Intranet DASHBOARD solution offers two types of News:

1. General News
2. Administrator News

Just as the publishing of News is important to the front end users of your intranet, equally so is News and updates presented by the managers of your intranet – your Intranet Administrators.

Admin News can be seen by all users that try to login to your intranet administration and is a great way for Intranet Administrators to pass on information about special procedures, upcoming system updates or useful administrative content.

With all the great options and functionality included in iD’s front end News app; Admin News allows Intranet Administrators to publish News and updates that include images, links, videos and rich text formatting.

Find out more about the features of Admin News on the iD Help site

Intranet Navigation comes in a number of forms – it is not just the menu bar across or down the page – there are many other functions within your intranet that aid navigation including Search, Breadcrumb Bars, Quick Links, Banner Ads and Navigation Bars.

As  intranet consultants, we have come across many sites that are cluttered with an abundance of menu options and links to different pieces of content. The homepage becomes very text-heavy and as a user, it takes a huge amount of time to find the information you need and becomes a very frustrating exercise! Good navigation is essential to the success of an intranet.

Consider the following when creating your intranet navigation.

Global menu navigation

This is generally a navigation or menu bar made up of headings for commonly accessed information. Consider the name of your menu items carefully. Will a user know what is behind a menu item before they click on it? Will they click on it? Or is it too ambiguous? A common example we’ve seen is “General Information” – this could mean anything! Your menu items should be recognizable to your staff and should deliver on what they promise in the way of content. See some examples below:

Take into account the number of menu items in your navigation bar. Too many items will confuse your users. Generally no more than 8 top level menu items are recommended.

The use of subscript text in horizontal navigation bars is also effective in helping your users navigate. The main items are generally single words, with a short description below to describe each item:

ABOUT History, Mission & Values

PORTFOLIO Examples of our work

This is a great way of keeping your horizontal navigation bar simple and uncluttered, but also gives the user some text to assist with navigation.

Breadcrumb bars

Working with various intranet clients, we’ve found that a lot of companies are simplifying their intranet navigation to be in line with their corporate website. On the intranet, links back to the Home page are no longer solely maintained by the navigation bar, rather they can be accessed via the ‘Home’ link in the breadcrumb bar or by clicking on the company logo as you would on a website.

Role-based navigation

Role-based navigation is becoming more common with companies looking to serve up information for their employees as efficiently as possible. In addition to a global navigation bar, role-based navigation items are provided to allow staff to access information and content specific to them and their role. Our client Jetstar requires their frontline staff to be able to access information quickly and easily:

‘Pilots are required to consume a lot of important safety information and it changes all the time. The role-based navigation and landing pages make it fast and easy for them to find exactly what they’re looking for.’ Digital Communications Advisor

Links to frequently used pages

Users are often looking for the ‘quickest route’ to content. This is often characterized by how many ‘clicks’ away the content is. For example, would a user who wants to access the Payroll system prefer to:

a)      click on Human Resources, then select Payroll, then select Payroll system; or

b)      click the Payroll system link as displayed in a list of links to external applications on the Home page of the intranet

Many of our clients find that collating a list of frequently used Quick Links can assist users to navigate to internal and external links quickly and easily – with most content only one click away.

Images as a form of navigation

In the same way as Quick Links, we recommend that clients consider using images or banner ads to point users to important content or a commonly completed task, i.e. a picture of a beach that links to an online Annual Leave application form. This is a great way to add illustrations and images to your site as well as getting users quickly to the content they want and ensures that your pages do not become too text-heavy and difficult to read or navigate.

Search

A powerful and comprehensive search engine is a very useful navigation tool. We have found that there are still a lot of users who will always rely on ‘searching’ for content – no matter how simple your navigation may be. The search engine should be able to search content within your intranet including associated applications and nominated sources, as well as allow for customized search and refining of content. It should aim to provide contextual results which highlight the search term and display other relevant or related content. This serves as the icing on the cake for your users’ navigation needs.

Usability

Test the usability of your intranet navigation with some simple usability testing. How easy is it for users to find the information they need? Write out your menu items onto cards and lay them out in the order they will appear on the intranet. Ask the user to tell you where they would go to perform a simple task; for example, “Where would you go to download the latest price list?”. Pay close attention to the steps the user takes to find this information, as well as how long it takes them to complete the task. Test the proposed navigation on a number of users from different departments within your company. You can then make changes to your navigation based on your findings.

An intranet is all about the users. In order to get users to trust and rely on the intranet, they need great navigation to guide them through the site and be able to find the information that they need easily and quickly.

Top level navigation is carefully selected with clear objectives to manage relevant second and third level navigation items.  These second and third level navigation items are typically hidden until a user selects a top level item.

With this in mind, iD has a handy configuration setting which allows you to set second or third level navigation items to expand by default. This is particularly useful for intranet sub sites where frequently accessed sub items can be made visible to users, allowing them to quickly jump to a particular page.

It is really easy to configure navigational items in the iD configuration:

-          Select Config Settings

-          Select Nav Editor

-          Select Save Expanded Nav Items

-          Set to ‘True‘ and any level 2 or 3 menu items in the vertical nav will display by default.

To find out more about editing the iD config settings visit the iD Help site.

Expanded navigation settings should be used selectively for “important” menu items. If you feel your intranet navigation is in need of a tune up, iD’s consultants can provide a Navigation Health Check to help you streamline your information architecture.

Customizing News Layout

The News app in iD allows users to manage, approve and publish news across all areas of their intranet. During the design of a client’s custom intranet theme, the “look and feel” of certain elements and applications can be styled uniquely to suit the company requirements.

For example, the News application can be customized to appear differently in the layout of iD; perhaps to assist in promoting a news ‘hierarchy’, or to direct users to important articles. Some clients prefer to have a standard News feed, or categories of News specific to departments within their organization, as well as a ‘feature News’ section which displays news for all users who visit the site.

Other clients require a feature news component that really stands out, a place to promote important articles. A ‘slider’ can be implemented using iD’s powerful CMS feature. The slider will continuously toggle between numerous articles using information it draws from the News application including the article’s title, summary, image and content, and displaying it on the Front End of the intranet.

This solution gives the intranet a polished, professional look, similar to what might be found on many websites.

Individual elements of the News application can be styled differently to achieve a cleaner and more concise look for the intranet. One way this can be achieved is by shifting the publish date from the left of the article title, to above it; as shown below.

With social media feeds, custom news, multiple navigation options and customized styling and themes, iD can deliver it all.

With over 300 enhancements, security updates and features, iD 5.1 is our biggest release yet. We’ve rebuilt Company Calendar and Meeting Room Booking from the ground up with complete integration with Workflow and a huge list of features which ensure information sharing and collaboration are a breeze.

We’ve also improved admin and front end performance so your pages will load faster than ever. Stay tuned for a full overview of the amazing new features in iD 5.1.

Contact us to learn more or try our instant hosted trial and experience it for yourself.

For example:

staffnet.flowercorp.net (the primary intranet solution)

staffnet-erp.flowercorp.net (specialized ERP solution available to staff)

staffnet-crm.flowercorp.net (specialized CRM solution available to staff)

As the organization changes to incorporate new businesses and joint ventures (JV), many difficulties arise regarding the URL naming schemes and management of a wide variety expectations from the different parts of the business. This can cause significant obstacles to maintaining a manageable intranet solution without significant fragmentation.

For example:

As the primary location of the intranet staffnet.flowercorp.net provides the solution for all parts of the organisation. The problem is that as part of the JV deal, the JV has included a requirement to maintain its own intranet URL and identity, mynet.company2.net.

Intranet DASHBOARD provides the solution.

1. Start by pointing the DNS entry for the JV intranet site to the staffnet iD instance and create the required subsite(s) for the JV to use.
2. iD will then always use the URL as requested by the user (ie what is shown in the browser address bar).
3. Folder redirection allows the homepage to differ depending on the URL entered.
4. Dynamic linking maintains all links to content within the site in perfect harmony.

Intranet Managers are now able to effectively run multiple intranets within the same solution and tool, providing all the benefits of a single platform, ease of management, cost savings and combining of resources.

iD has been built with great flexibility when it comes to using multiple URL’s for your intranet site. Even if you are only a small organization that hasn’t hit any of these complexities, it is always good to know that as your business expands, you have the right tool ready to adapt and grow as you do.

If you have any questions regarding any of the features or functionality mentioned, don’t hesitate to contact our support team (support@intranetdashboard.com) as we’d love to explain how iD can achieve amazing things for your organization.

However, using the configuration settings, you can hide the Dislike option, so that users can only choose to Like a page, similar to Facebook.

Providing a Like option for users helps validate the usefulness of the information and is a great way to generate engagement.

To hide the thumbs down rating option, set ‘Rating Hide Negative’ in the admin configuration settings.

Administrators may find it useful to promote content such as an Annual Leave form using the Sponsored Link feature. They could set the terms “holiday”, “vacation”, “taking leave” or “leave taking” to display an Annual Leave banner so that users could more efficiently find the form.

Alternatively, a company may have offices around the world, in locations such as the US, UK and Australia. When different employees search for information, multiple variations in spelling could be used such as “organisation”, “organization”, “color” and “colour”. Implementing Sponsored Links could help monitor these terms and quickly point staff to the desired location.

Find out about more great features in Enterprise Search.

It also has the ability to upload multiple files and replicate entire folder structures for apps such as Document Manager, Image Library and Digital Assets Library.

This feature is perfect for the initial setup of an intranet, ensuring content remains centralized and accessible in one place.

Find out more about the great features of iD Desktop Assistant.

Content updates can be displayed on an intranet page as a handy RSS feed that can be subscribed to and appear in a user’s inbox.

Keeping users up to date with fresh content, helps to promote different areas of an intranet and can be combined with comments & ratings to create further engagement.

Find out more about this feature here on the iD Help site.

Benefits of running iD as an extranet include:

• Staff can get access to content when working from home or on the road.
• It provides access to specific content for clients or partner companies.
• Ability to run both an intranet and an extranet from the one instance of the software.
• No further training is required for creating content on the extranet. It is the same process for the intranet.

Functionality built into iD to control extranet access includes:

• Selecting which login authentication types (eg. Active Directory authentication) to be used on particular IP ranges or addresses using IP based security. This is good for ensuring your internal staff retain automatic login with Active Directory, whilst external users who aren’t logged into the internal network can authenticate using a forms based login.
• Allows you to restrict access to the site for some accounts through a specific IP address for extra security.
• Ability to secure sections of the site so that only authenticated users get access.

To find out more about configuring iD as an extranet, contact the iD Support Team.

This is a great way to ensure your intranet data remains as secure as possible.

To find out more about how to set this feature, visit the iD help website.

This will be the first in a series of articles that will highlight iD’s powerful features and how they can be customized to suit different needs.

The iD Header

The header on your intranet is one of the most important areas of the layout, as it is generally where the company logo will be displayed and is the first element a user will see when the page loads. The default header style in iD is to have the logo displayed in the top left area of the header.

Alternatively, it can be set to the top right.

The header can also be used to create something more visually interesting, with the addition of textures, patterns or images.

We can even go as far as having images or textures carry further down the page and blend in with the horizontal navigation bar.

As you can see, iD provides amazing flexibility that allows clients to design a mockup without having to worry about the constraints of building it. This flexibility is incredibly useful when a client needs their intranet to feature the same “look and feel” as their website.

The iD Footer

Similar to a website, an intranet footer is a useful area for displaying features consistently across internal pages. The default iD layout utilizes this space to display content such as comments and ratings, notifications and links to general information such as copyright and privacy documentation.

With minimal customization, we can also tailor this area include images and logos, links to other pages, scrolling stock tickers and social media feeds such as twitter.

As you can see, many of the features and functions of Intranet DASHBOARD can be tailored to suit specific needs. Make sure to check back here soon for the rest in this series to get some great ideas about how to make your intranet design work for you.

Your intranet may be structured departmentally, grouped by functions or have role-based entry points, etc. There is no right or wrong way of structuring your organization’s information; however the questions here are: Can users find information easily? How many clicks does it take a user to find what they’re after? Is it simple and easy to use? Do the headings and labels make sense when navigating?

These questions and worries are always the same for all intranet projects and usually get raised from the beginning, however do intranet teams address these concerns adequately?

By testing your IA you can confirm whether the proposed site structure is intuitive enough for users to find the information they need. Testing your IA is a simple process and any member of the intranet team could perform this task through the steps outlined below:

1. Develop testing scenarios

Develop testing scenarios that relate to users and different roles in the business. Eg. Scenarios to assist with a daily task as part of a user’s role.

2. Paper-based prototype testing with a group of intranet end users

Present the testing scenarios to a group of intranet end users by asking them to navigate through either an online prototype or paper-based prototype of your proposed site structure.

Record the location that users looked in versus the location that information is proposed to be stored.

3. Reviewing the test results and making appropriate updates to the intranet Information Architecture

Use the results to amend the proposed IA. The main aim is not to identify the exact location of the document, but rather to test that the labels for content areas are making sense to users and that they can find their way through the structure to the right general area.

That’s it, simple isn’t it?

Here is some feedback from our clients who undertook the Persona Testing; we hope to convince you that this could be one of the key steps of launching a successful intranet.

“I thought the testing process was really valuable (as someone who helped draft the architecture), it works very differently in a live situation (even I had trouble finding a few things). This testing was really helpful in demonstrating the real world impact of what we had on paper.”

Susan McDonald
Marketing & Communications Manager
Catholic Super

“The IA testing process was an invaluable step in the development of our new intranet.

As we had an existing intranet that staff were familiar and comfortable with, being able to present our prototype site to a test user audience and get their thoughts and opinions was integral to ensuring we got buy-in from our staff. Also, like all businesses, time is of the essence for us so we needed to ensure that staff would be able to navigate around the site easily and quickly to find information, and the IA Testing enabled us to achieve this.”

Amanda Kemp
Policy & Procedure Coordinator
Qantas Holidays Reservations Sales

Comments can be automatically posted or require admin approval before being displayed.

You can learn more about configuring the Comments & Ratings feature via the following page on the iD Help site:

http://help.intranetdashboard.com/systemadmin/Utilities/generic_components/GenericComponents.html

There are a few common methods we recommend to help keep your Intranet DASHBOARD databases performing at their best.

Defragmenting the database

Some of you may be familiar with defragmenting your hard drive. Defragmenting your database works in a similar way, but it is specifically for your database. Database defragmenting inspects the indexes (or data structure) of the database and then reorganizes the indexes to be in a more efficient order.

Permanent delete

Using permanent delete allows you to clean up some of the old deleted files, or revisions of files stored within iD and the filestore.  This means that old and generally unrequired data is removed, reducing the overall size.

Database shrink

After performing a permanent delete, your database will reduce in size, but this additional space will not automatically be returned to your server hard drive.  As databases increase in size, they also allocate space to “grow”. When you reduce the size of a database, this space is left allocated to the database, unless it is released manually.

If you believe your iD installation could benefit from any of the above maintenance tips, feel free to contact our Support Team (support@intranetdashboard.com) who will be more than happy to assist in implementing these methods.

For example, a board member could log in and be directed to the board subsite by default. This could be a secure area, only available to board members.

Departments may also find it beneficial to view their department homepage as the default, rather than the overall company homepage.

Setting customized homepages in iD

A default homepage can be set for an individual Website User or Website User Group. For easy maintenance, we recommend setting the default path for Website User Groups.

To set the default path for individual users, this is enabled via the Edit Website User page. See the example below:

Alternatively, to set the default path for user groups, this is enabled via the Edit Website User Group page. See the example below:

If a website user is a part of multiple website user groups and has a different default path applied, we can set the Default Path Priority:

http://help.intranetdashboard.com/systemadmin/website_users/SettingtheDefaultPathPriority.html

Designing “corporate but fun” intranets requires a clever balancing act. It’s very easy to go over the top one way or the other and ruin the design altogether. Below are some of the things we think about when we design for both:

1. Keep the page background white.
   Keeping the background neutral is important because it doesn’t allow the page background color to limit the use of imagery or color elsewhere. For fixed width designs we do sometimes use a background image to frame a white content area. In this case it’s important to ensure the background image is not too de-saturated or dark.
2. Keep the color palette simple and the fonts used to a minimum.
   A 2-3 color palette is usually more than enough for an intranet. The more colors you use in your design the more confused the theme of your intranet will be. Intranet’s unlike websites contain multiple blocks of content using the same colors, therefore they require fewer colors. We quite often use background colors and fonts to distinguish between or highlight certain blocks of content.
3. Limit the amount of bold color blocks.
   Too much bold color in a design usually indicates a less corporate theme.  When used sparingly bold color blocks can be quite effective in highlighting important areas or functions.
4. Use imagery of people.
   Imagery of people on an intranet gives the intranet a personal and approachable feel. People introduce warm colors to the design. If the client has imagery of their own staff we encourage using it in the design.
5. Avoid using monochrome or de-saturated imagery.
   The fewer colors an image has, the less effective it is in presenting a warm friendly feel. Having said that, excessively colorful imagery can have the opposite effect. The best policy is to use imagery of real things (people, scenery) with more natural color palettes.

To sum it all up, it’s not easy to find the balancing act between “corporate” and “fun”, but by using a few simple tips it’s achievable.

Creating a child subsite couldn’t be easier. When you create the subsite, just enter the folder name as the parent folder name and the new folder name, separated by a forward slash ‘/’; see below:

This will create a ‘Flower Technology’ subsite as the child of the IT subsite. If the IT subsite doesn’t already exist, it will automatically be created at this point.

Just be careful if you ever decide to delete the parent, the child subsites disappear too. They move as a ‘family’ unit.

Further Reading

• iD Help: Subsites

Hot Topics:

http://<intranet url>/feeds/forum/hottopics.aspx?sid={subsiteid}&idactorid=loggedinuser

Latest Posts:

http://<intranet url>/feeds/forum/newtopics.aspx?sid={subsiteid}&idactorid=loggedinuser

One approach for achieving such engagement is to reconsider the information architecture of your intranet to focus on a user’s understanding of themselves and their role at the organization. A user-centered approach, rather than an administrator-centered approach, will provide key reasons for them to revisit, utilize and contribute to their company intranet. Here are some suggestions to get it started:

Try to avoid presuming what a user ‘should’ know

Aim for an intranet structure that can be navigated by a new starter on their first day in the office, as on this day there is nothing the user ‘should’ know.

By removing this presumption, a pure functional structure immediately becomes inadequate. How would a newbie know if they’re looking for a form, policy, procedure or process if they simply seek to ‘set up my email signature’?

Start by framing all of your top-level content items within such a context.

Define staff roles

A staff member will be an employee, team member, company representative and colleague. Harness the instinctive understanding people have of their roles by creating entry points that reflect them.

For example, identify current intranet content relating to the user as an employee of the organization: Entitlements, rights and rewards, training, code of conduct, position descriptions, staff benefits and new starter information.

Whilst this content may be maintained in disparate areas of the intranet, consider directing users to a single, central location to find it, for example ‘My Place’, ‘My Area’, ‘Me @ the Company’. Then apply the context: Our new starter will visit this page, click through to a ‘New to the Office?’ index, the first link: ‘Setting up your desk & desktop’.

Simple navigational improvements such as these will create a structural cohesion within your intranet for both users and administrators alike.

Test the proposed structure

If a camel is a horse designed by a committee, then chances are your proposed user-centered structure will certainly have a few extra humps until it is tested on users.

Always run scenario-based user testing before applying major structural changes to your intranet. It can be a quick, cheap and simple affair and it’s one of the most effective methods of refining an intranet structure. Include colleagues from various roles within the organization and ask them to locate individual items of content as if they were from another team.

For example, ask the new starter to locate information concerning branch closure procedures for an office in a different state, or ask the accounts receivable officer to locate the current product catalog for regional sales staff.

Such testing will both reveal the strength of your user-centered structure and generate useful clues and comments for improvements to it.

Happy clients are repeat clients. Give the business of your intranet a fighting chance, make it all about them!

[poll id="3"]

A big pat on the back to the winners and thanks to everyone who dropped by to meet the iD team. Keep an eye on our website and follow our @iDintranet tweets as we’ll be attending more great conferences in the coming months.

Visit Intranet DASHBOARD in the Exhibit Hall, stand number 114, right near the Internet Cafe and learn how we can help you improve your internal communications.

Submit your business card at the stand and go into the draw to win one of these three prizes!

See some of our popular apps and the scenarios where they’re most commonly used.

Organizing meetings and facilities

You need to schedule a Director’s meeting, but are unsure of the availability of a room or the facilities on offer. You could use the Meeting Room Booking app to see if the boardroom is available at the required time, make the booking, request that a projector is setup and add a note to ensure morning tea is provided.

Convert your intranet into an information hub

You’ve decided you want your intranet to be more of an information hub, so you want  to include industry news feeds from CNN and Forbes. You can easily achieve this by using the RSS News Feed app and pull multiple feeds directly into your Homepage layout.

Get real feedback

You’ve just published a departmental document featuring new operating procedures and you’d like to obtain some general feedback from your co-workers. The Comments and Ratings app will allow your co-workers to instantly provide comments and ratings at the base of the document.

Collaborate with your team

You’re part of a team working on the company’s branding guidelines and need a central place to store your content. The Wiki app allows your team to contribute their group knowledge into a collaborative document, which can be continually updated with new information.

Update content quickly on the front end

As the intranet manager, you’ve decided you want to add a video and additional content to the homepage of your intranet. Using the iD CMS app, you can swiftly embed a video and make any other changes using the front end, instant inline editing features.

Set approval and workflow processes

A new manager has joined the HR department and you want to ensure they are part of the approval process when staff submits their annual leave forms. Using the Workflow app, you can create notifications for the new manager at specific points of the approval process and allow them to provide authorization where required.

The atmosphere was buzzing with new technology and we joined the excitement by unveiling a new product titled rapid intranet. Free for up to 25 users, rapid intranet is a fully functional intranet suitable for departments, small business and non-profit organisations. You can find out more about rapid intranet on the official website.

Today is set to be another action packed day on the CeBIT floor, with plenty of things to see and some fantastic prizes on offer. If you’re in Sydney, come and meet our iD team – Dave, Mary, Chris and Maree on the Intranet DASHBOARD stand in Hall 4, N17. Speaking of prizes, we have a nice bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne ready to give away…

Come and see us this year at CeBIT in Sydney, Australia, 22 – 24 May, Hall 4 N17.

This year, we will be showcasing Intranet DASHBOARD Version 5. This exciting release of iD includes features such as, a CMS, Enterprise Search, Workflow, Online Forms, SharePoint Connector, Social Media Integration, Extranet Functionality, Document Management, Comments and Ratings, Content Subscription and much more…

We’d like to offer you a complimentary ticket to CeBIT Australia 2012 – the leading IT expo for the Asia Pacific region – so you can see first-hand, iD’s most significant release to date.

To claim your FREE ticket, register now on the CeBIT website and enter the Intranet DASHBOARD Promo code: the82k88

Register online to claim your FREE ticket

Highlights include:

NEW- iD Workflow

iD’s intelligent Workflow engine enables your organization to automate online and paper-based processes in minutes, providing unrivalled operational efficiency, visibility and accountability. Enhanced form builder functionality allows you to tie online forms into business processes governed by iD’s Workflow application.

Functionality

• Create online forms in a matter of minutes using iD’s WYSIWYG form builder
• Build simple and complex multi stage workflows via iD’s intuitive “drag and drop” interface with no technical knowledge required
• Online forms can consist of multiple field elements such as text boxes, drop downs, check boxes, radio buttons, date selectors, file upload, and free text fields
• Users can view incomplete forms, approved forms, forms waiting to be processed and forms currently being processed
• Create workflow rules whereby online forms take a different route based on the choices made by the “submitter”
• Custom email messages can be created for the different workflow stages
• Full auditing functionality means that forms never get lost and a record of the forms lifecycle is recorded
• Apply security permissions to online forms and workflows so that only set users can access, submit and process through the different stages of the workflow
• A “My Forms” section on the Front End of the intranet – unique to each user, showing a list of:
  • Forms you have recently submitted
  • Forms that you need to review and process through the workflow
  • Your favorite forms (ie. the ones you use the most)
  • The intranet’s most popular forms
  • Edit online form submissions at certain steps if the workflow permits

NEW – Social Media Integration

iD’s existing social media features – Comments and Ratings – have received a boost in version 5 with the inclusion of Social Media Integration for:

• Twitter
• Facebook and
• Yammer

iD provides you with the ability to quickly and easily deploy integrated social media streams within the intranet environment.

The iD Showcase luncheons are a great chance to see iD in action, including all the new functionality the latest version has to offer. Our team will be on hand to showcase all the highlights of iD and answer any and all of your questions.

All that plus a delicious complimentary lunch makes for a great afternoon.

Plus, just for attending you’ll go in the draw to win dinner for 2 @ ROCKPOOL.

The Details:

Sydney – 12.30pm; Wednesday, 17^th of August, 2011.

Quay West Suites, Gloucester Function Room, Mezzanine Level – 98 Gloucester St, Sydney.

Some of the exciting new features include:

• New iD CMS components – We’ve added 5 new iD CMS components, allowing content from Ad Manager, Company Calendar, Quick Poll, People Search and Forum applications to be easily incorporated into iD CMS pages.
• Advanced SharePoint search integration – While iD is not based on SharePoint, Enterprise Search now allows the integration of SharePoint site searches with iD searches. You can customize the search tabs in order to search content from SharePoint sites and return the results in the same format as iD search results.
• Lightning fast performance enhancements – iD 4.2 adds a massive performance boost through enhanced caching. Testing has shown that iD 4.2 performs up to 4x faster than the previous version and transmits up to 8x less data. This results in ultra-fast page loading and a reduced bandwidth usage.
• Useful top rated forum topic RSS feed – We’ve added a great new RSS feed of top-rated forum topics based on ratings given by users.
• Flexible user group based login redirection – New functionality is available to configure Front End User login redirects at a user group level. This allows users to be directed to a specific subsite or iD content page when they log in. Previously this functionality needed to be set individually, but now it can be managed swiftly at a group level.

Which is exactly why our latest version – iD 4.1 – includes an all new Video Component. We have added it to the already impressive suite of included iD CMS components to help simplify the process of displaying a video in your intranet.

We think we’ve succeeded because now all it takes is a simple drag, and drop.

Upload, store and display video files directly within iD, without the need for any additional software. We’ve taken all the hassle out of displaying videos, clearing the way for you to create your most interactive and engaging intranet yet.

The Video Component includes 3 players as standard – HTML, Silverlight and Flash, and also supports embedding from external sources such as YouTube.

Other bonus features include:

• Inbuilt automatic encoding of uploaded videos
• Multiple file type support (AVI, WMV, MOV and MP4)
• Auto play: Set your videos to play automatically as soon as a page loads
• Looped playback: Set the video to restart automatically once it has finished
• Customizable start image
• Full screen mode
• Automatic selection of optimum playback format (HTML5, Silverlight or Flash)

To showcase just how easy it is, we’ve (ironically) prepared an instructional video – check it out here.

Like what you see? See the rest of iD 4.1 in action or contact sales@intranetdashboard.com for more information.

We wanted to let all of our valued clients know exactly what to expect from their upgrade, to ensure everyone is taking full advantage of all that’s on offer in the latest version of iD. We have prepared an iD 4.1 Upgrade Considerations document detailing how each of the changes will affect what you see and do every day with iD.

It is an invaluable resource for all clients making the move to iD 4.1. Click here to see it.

If you have any further questions, please contact support@intranetdashboard.com.

Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year from everyone here at iD.

iD 4.1 boasts several new features and a host of functionality enhancements, making it easier than ever to build the intranet that works for your business. See iD 4.1 in action.

Highlights include:

NEW iD CMS Video Component

We have expanded the already impressive suite of included iD CMS components to include the all new Video Component.

The process of displaying a video within your intranet is now as simple as drag and drop. Upload, store and display video files directly within iD, without the need for any additional software. The Video Component includes 3 players as standard – HTML, Silverlight and Flash, and also supports embedding from external sources such as YouTube.

We’ve taken all the hassle out of displaying videos,  clearing the way for you to create your most interactive and engaging intranet yet.  See just how easy it is in this instructional video.

Push Notifications

Automatically alert users to important changes to business-critical content on your intranet, with iD’s all new Push Notifications. Keep users informed and up to date with evolving content, simplifying communication and improving compliance. Alerts can be distributed quickly and easily via email or RSS feed to all relevant users and/or user groups.

Ensure your users never miss a thing. Find out more.

Comments and Ratings – Usability Enhancements

iD’s existing social media features -  Comments and Ratings – have received a makeover in iD 4.1, scoring several major usability enhancements in line with industry best practice.

Like everyone else, we’ve found we’re not immune to the obvious charms of Facebook. So much so that iD’s new inbuilt rating system now reflects the social networking giant’s, offering intranet users the option to ‘Like’ and ‘Dislike’ content. Find Out More.

Comments can now be contributed to your intranet in a similar fashion to YouTube, ensuring users are familiar with the functionality even if they’re not yet familiar with your intranet. Find out more.

Unlike both Facebook and YouTube however, the functionality is flexible and allows administrators to turn these features on/off on a per subsite and per app basis.

Comments and Ratings Reporting

iD 4.1 includes comprehensive new admin reporting functionality for both Comments and Ratings. Get a better understanding of exactly how the functionality is being used, and make the most of invaluable user feedback.

Easily monitor your intranet’s effectiveness and use, for the combined purpose of  improvement and evaluation. Administrators can also moderate all comments and ratings, giving you better control over the manner, and to what extent the functionality is used.

For those of you not understanding this author’s level of excitement, this is the approximate equivalent of a high five from Oprah. In other words, excellent.

The review focuses on the latest version of iD, with highlights including the iD API and all new SharePoint Connector. It makes for a very interesting read, and gives a great holistic overview of the full range of functionality in iD.

CMS Wire regularly review a range of contenders in the expansive CMS market, helping you see the wood from the trees and find the solution that’s right for your business. The size of the various brains behind the scenes make them an invaluable ally on your CMS quest, the Sam to your Frodo.

Click here to check out what they thought of iD.

Any thoughts to add on the review or iD 4? Tell us here.

Just for attending, they were not only spoiled with the pleasure of our company but also went in the draw to win a free dinner for 2 @ ROCKPOOL in their respective states.

The lucky winners have now been informed of their impending flavor fiesta, and we hope they enjoy a fantastic evening on us.

If you missed out on this round of showcases but still have some burning questions about the latest version of iD – never fear. Email or call us for all the juicy details, and we’ll keep you updated with all upcoming iD events.

Seeing as they’re not all that busy, they also decided to become an iD client way back in 2006, and have been going strong with their intranet – The SPot – ever since.

Due to the competitive and changeable nature of their industry, Superpartners must continuously evolve and adapt to remain at the forefront – creating a variety of unique communication challenges. They were kind enough to tell us their story, and how they overcame these challenges to become one of iD’s biggest success stories.

Superpartners have shared some seriously innovative intranet ideas in their new case study, with a focus on creating the intranet that works for your business, rather than creates work for it.

With an enormous focus on engaging employees and improving their day to day experience at work, Superpartners have created and continue to improve ‘The SPot’.

We’ve published their case study on our website to give you all a sneak peek into just how they did it – get your hands on it here.

A big thank you to Superpartners, and congratulations on your fabulous intranet!

It has always been our policy to make it as easy as possible to get the most out of iD, and the new iD API proves no exception.

We have collated the mountains of information being passed between the enormous brains of our Development Team, condensed it, checked and rechecked it and have now officially made it available to you via the iD Help Site.

Visit the iD Help Site and take advantage of the wide range of resources including:

• Getting Started Guide: Explains the iD API basics including instructions for use, installation information, and system requirements.

• iD API Documentation: Navigate through the namespaces, classes, methods and properties that make up the iD Platform.

• Developer Forums: Currently only available to iD Clients – Ask questions, suggest features and be a part of the community.

Click on the lovely green button below to get your hands on all the info you need to start creating new add-on iD Apps & iD CMS components.

With the all new iD API, it’s easy to build the intranet that works for your business.

NB: We’ve also had enough of Melbourne’s so-far poor attempt at Spring, so are very much looking forward to a quick stopover in the Sunshine State.

So if you are looking for a fabulous intranet and a free lunch, you have come to the right place. Register Now

the details:

12.30pm – Wednesday 24th November

Caulfied Room, Quay West Suites – 132 Alice St, Brisbane 4000

Unlike John Farnham’s farewell tour, ours will actually be coming to an end. If you can’t make it this time round let us know, and we’ll keep you posted on when we’re next in town.

The iD 4 Showcase luncheons are a great chance to see iD in action, including all the new functionality the latest version has to offer. Our team will be on hand to showcase all the highlights of iD 4 and answer any and all of your questions.

All that plus a delicious free lunch makes for a great afternoon so Register Now to secure your spot.

But wait, there’s more. No, sadly it’s not steak knives. We’ll do you one better – just for attending you’ll go in the draw to win dinner for 2 @ ROCKPOOL.

the details:

Melbourne – 12.30pm, Tuesday 9th November

Westin Room 3, The Westin – 205 Collins St, Melbourne 3000

Sydney – 12.30pm, Tuesday 16th November

Gloucester Room, Quay West Suites – 98 Gloucester St, Sydney 2000

Created using the  iD API, the SharePoint Connector is an add-on app designed to help you harness the power of SharePoint via iD’s user-friendly framework.

Content including Document Libraries and Task Lists can now be surfaced within iD, creating a window to SharePoint within your intranet. Technical ‘know-how’, or ‘I-don’t-know-how’ as the case may be,  need no longer restrict your employees accessing the information they need from SharePoint.

Merge the respective strengths of both platforms and give your intranet users the best of both worlds.

All the documentation you need to get up and running as quickly as possible, including the source code and a comprehensive ‘Getting Started’ Guide, can be found on the iD Help Site.

The SharePoint Connector is available in the latest release of our wonderful software – iD 4 – so contact us now to sort out your upgrade.

Do not adjust your computer screen, your industrial strength bi-focals have not failed you – iD now comes bundled with an all new API, here to make all your development dreams come true.

We have officially opened our software to allow you to build your own custom iD applications and components. What was already an impressive suite of intranet apps can now be extended to create an even bigger and better intranet, unique to your organization.

Of course, we still give you everything that from our experience goes into making a great intranet – but because no one knows your business quite like you, we’ve included the iD API for any extras you might need.

For those of us metaphorically inclined – consider your Big Mac Meal upsized. We’ve taken something great and made it even better, all at no extra cost.

The iD API not only allows for new iD apps and CMS components to be integrated into your intranet, but also enables you to surface content from other 3rd party apps you might be using e.g. SharePoint, a CRM or HR system.

Anything you create using the iD API can leverage iD’s existing infrastructure, including Style Sheets and security settings. It all looks and feels just like iD, ensuring a seamless experience for your intranet users.

There’s loads more to learn about the iD API so click here to find out more.

While the hectic weeks leading up to a significant release usually see staff bid farewell to their loved ones, surrender keys to any fast-moving mode of transport and substitute sunlight with high potency Vitamin D tablets, an exception was made in this case.

Never fear, before war cries of  ‘release the hounds!’ start getting thrown around you should all know – it was an educational venture.

They attended the book tour for James Robertson’s newly released ‘Designing Intranets – A Guide to Creating Sites that Work’. James is the Managing Director of Step Two Designs, who provide consulting and mentoring services around intranets, among a variety of other things.

James shared some really interesting insights around what he feels goes into making a great intranet design. We won’t spoil the book for you – you can get your hands on a copy here – but it’s definitely worth a read, and would be a great resource for any budding re-designers out there looking for a little inspiration.

There really aren’t a great deal of resources out there giving intranet teams real-world insights into what makes a good intranet, great. As James pointed out yesterday, there seems to be a cone of silence when it comes to intranets; we’re all a bit afraid to get nosey.

Having never been fans of silence and as huge advocates for nosiness, we are with James – the more of us that get talking, the better our intranets will be. At the risk of ripping off what may have been a tag line for a United Colors of Benetton commercial – together we do better.

So get talking…what do you think goes into a great intranet?

It’s just as well because considering the competition, coming out a winner in terms of outer beauty might prove challenging. We are yet to be elevated to supermodel status, nor do we have our daily trip to work interrupted by a pack of overexcited, screaming teenage girls complaining of ADWEBieber Fever. The working week is young though so we will keep an eye out.

Guthy-Renker is comprised of their Head Office, external call centres, shopping centre kiosks and their most recent addition, Direct Selling – representatives on the road selling Guthy-Renker products. They needed to establish an intranet as a single destination for all employees – the place to access all information specific to their particular role.

“It’s completely focused on trying to make their job easier. We wanted a place where we could disseminate information to them quickly and easily, and help make them feel like they’re part of something bigger – not just the department they work in,” said Katherine Mamontoff, eCommerce Manager.

iD was selected over other solutions including Microsoft SharePoint and bespoke offerings because it represented a complete intranet solution, taking out the guesswork and associated cost of building a system from the ground up.

They are currently working with the iD team to create a unique and interactive look and feel for their new intranet, named ‘playGRound’ after a staff naming competition. We’re very happy to have them on board and wish them all the best with their project.

iD will now be an even more versatile and customizable solution. The inclusion of the API means you will now be able to build on iD’s existing platform and create all new custom applications to complement and extend your intranet. Keep an eye on the blog for more exciting iD API news over the coming weeks.

The outdoor clothing and equipment retailer – and iD client since 2008 – has tested us at every turn. Puns, similes and other ill-considered jokes such as ‘weathering the storm’, ‘withstanding the elements’ and ‘paddling their own canoe’ have proved equally difficult to ignore, but we have arrived safely at the end of their case study without being too cheesy.

With 90 stores and counting throughout Australia and New Zealand, Kathmandu is one of the largest and most recognizable retail chains of its kind. Plans to expand operations meant they needed a way to better communicate with stores. With new outlets opening every few months, Kathmandu was on the lookout for new and improved ways to properly support their retail network, including streamlining the management of internal processes and reporting – integral elements of any successful retail business.

The retail giant selected Intranet DASHBOARD (iD) with the aim of enhancing operational efficiency and getting the business fit for battle on the global stage in the years to come. Read the full case study, and get all the gory details of exactly how they did it.

NB: We were forced to exclude Yammer from the headline, not for want of trying but simply because the verb associated with using it evades us at this point.  ‘Yamming’? ‘Yammering’? Either way, we simply could not afford a faux pas here.

ACA is the Australian Government’s arts funding and advisory body, responsible for the allocation of over $158 million annually in funding to arts organizations and individual artists across the country.

In the only known parallel drawn between them and the National Rugby League (NRL) – other than the matching sized acronyms – they have both recently upgraded to iD 3 and are doing some very exciting things with the new functionality available in the latest version of iD (see Friday’s blog post).

A client since 2008, ACA recently enlisted the help of the iD team to do a complete redesign of their intranet to coincide with their upgrade. They wanted to re-vamp the site’s look and feel, with the goal of pulling more people to the intranet, engaging them in an interactive experience and ultimately keep them coming back.

Having previously struggled with employee uptake of the intranet, ACA saw the release of iD 3 as the perfect opportunity to turn things around create a brand-spanking new site their employees would actually want to visit.

Click on the image below to see the new design for yourself.

Big thank you to ACA for allowing us to use this screen shot.

Of that great man, we know only three things for sure:

1. He is most definitely single.
2. He has never seen an episode of ‘Pimp My Ride’ and/or ‘Extreme Makeover’ – whether or not he is better off as a result is a discussion for another time and place.
3. He has yet to experience iD 3.

While we trust your current version of iD is in perfect working order, the latest version of iD is our biggest release to date and we simply couldn’t live with ourselves if we didn’t share it.

iD 3 includes a host of exciting new functionality – some quick highlights being an all new CMS, powerful enterprise search engine and flexible role-based security model to name a few.

At the risk of sounding like a bad infomercial, there’s still more…

Other great reasons to upgrade include:

• Enhancements have been made across the board to our already comprehensive suite of 40 business applications;

• You’re paid up and proud, so why not take advantage of it and get your users working with the best version available;

• Upgrading now will mean future upgrades are even easier & support queries can be logged and processed more efficiently.

Click here to check out all the exciting new features and enhancements available.

Clients including VLM Airlines, Superpartners, Healthscope, Kathmandu and the NRL have already upgraded and are enjoying all the new functionality the latest version of iD has to offer. Upgrading is easy, much gentler than a face lift and much cheaper than turning a Datsun into a Porsche – simply fill out the upgrade form and we’ll be in touch to discuss the next steps.

They recently upgraded to the latest version of iD and naturally wanted to re-launch it looking better than ever. That’s where we came in. The iD Design Team was enlisted as official style counsel, with a whole host of new styling options at their disposal in the latest version of iD.

The extranet re-design started with their login page. While for most, the login screen may seem like little more than a stepping stone to the central system, in the case of an extranet it is the mandatory first stop for all users. Put simply – branding begins here.

Stay tuned for more details and screen shots of the NRL’s new extranet.

A big thank you to the NRL for the screen shot below.

So to reiterate – great content is always going to be one of the most important factors in keeping intranet users engaged. That said, including exciting visuals and interactive functionality is another great way to enhance the overall user experience and push previously underrated intranet pages into the spotlight.

To set the scene – your boss has returned victorious from a phenomenally successful sales expo with a series of high resolution images so majestic and thought-provoking you will be fielding head-hunter calls from The National Geographic for months to come. They would like you to share them on the intranet, and have visualized them sliding smoothly/gracefully onto the screen.

With iD CMS, available in the latest version of iD, this is one request you can fulfill with ease using iD CMS’ HTML component.

The first step is to simply drag the component onto your CMS page and import the relevant Lightbox code.

Next, your boss requests that the images are displayed on the intranet homepage in a carousel format. The HTML component comes to the rescue again by allowing you to import blocks of code including HTML, CSS, Javascript, Flash and even web applications with a just a few quick clicks.

At the risk of appearing hypocritical given our original disclaimer, here are some pictures to make it easier to understand:

Inserting the code

Select and drag the HTML component into the position where you would like the carousel to be displayed.

Now insert the HTML and JQuery code for the carousel into the newly created HTML component box.

Below is an extract of the code. Click here to download the full source if you’re game. Note: the imagery and button graphics should be uploaded to a server and should be referenced in the [path].

<div id="carousel">
<div title="previous"></div>
<div title="next"></div>
<div id="slides">
<ul>
   <li><a href="test.html"><img src="[path]slider_image_01.jpg" alt="scenery1" width="700" height="180" /></a></li>
   <li><a href="test.html"><img src="[path]slider_image_02.jpg" alt="scenery2" width="700" height="180" /></a></li>
   <li><a href="test.html"><img src="[path]slider_image_03.jpg" alt="scenery3" width="700" height="180" /></a></li>
   <li><a href="test.html"><img src="[path]slider_image_04.jpg" alt="scenery4" width="700" height="180" /></a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>

Click OK to continue and save your page.

Voila! When you view the live page the image carousel will appear in the place of the HTML component.

Then you might decide to blow everyone away and customize the carousel with your own imagery and button graphics.

The carousel code uses imagery which is 700px in width and 180px in height. If you wish to change these dimensions, you will need to modify the CSS and JQuery code.

Alternatively, the images themselves can be changed by modifying the src reference in the slides id. You can alter the amount of images by adding or removing the <li> list items.

<!-- Imagery section -->
<div id="slides">
<ul>
<li><a href="test.html"><img src="[path]slider_image_01.jpg" alt="scenery1" width="700" height="180" /></a></li>
<li><a href="test.html"><img src="[path]slider_image_02.jpg" alt="scenery2" width="700" height="180" /></a></li>
<li><a href="test.html"><img src="[path]slider_image_03.jpg" alt="scenery3" width="700" height="180" /></a></li>
<li><a href="test.html"><img src="[path]slider_image_04.jpg" alt="scenery4" width="700" height="180" /></a></li>
</ul>
</div>

Changing the buttons

The next and previous buttons can be updated by altering the background-image url references in the stylesheet.

/* Styling for prev and next buttons */
.leftButton
{
z-index:5;
position:absolute;
cursor:hand;
cursor:pointer;
width:34px;
height:34px;
margin:72px 0 0 10px;
background-image:url([path]control_left.png');
}

.rightButton
{
position:absolute;
z-index:5;
cursor:hand;
cursor:pointer;
width:34px;
height:34px;
margin:72px 0 0 654px;
background-image:url([path]control_right.png');
}

Legacy IE6 gif buttons can be changed in the following section.

<!-- IE6 won't display PNGs -->

<!--[if IE 6]>
<style>
.leftButton
{
background-image:url([path]control_left.gif');
}

.rightButton
{
background-image:url([path]control_right.gif');
}
</style>

<![endif]-->

For more information about iD CMS’ HTML component, click here.

As any truly stylish individual will tell you – if you can catch them between latte’s, sample sales and Davidoff Slim’s – variety is the spice of life. Sure you have your basics – dependable, crowd-pleasing items that go with everything, but a truly fabulous wardrobe is one with much more than just black; it needs at least a few unique, standout show-stoppers.

iD CMS’s Formatted Text component is one such wardrobe.

The Formatted Text component enables authorized users to create page content using a WYSIWYG rich text editor. The WYSIWYG editor comes with a predefined set of styles and formatting options that authorized users can quickly and easily apply to their text. Cue a fabulous coat thrown over an otherwise dull outfit.

What you might not know is that this set of styles can be further customized and expanded to suit your particular needs – enter some highly sought after tailor. Text styles are all defined in the ‘Theme Style Sheet’; for now we’ll use one of our default themes – the lovely ‘Classic 3’ – to demonstrate how to make changes.

1. The first step is to locate the folder where iD is installed. From there we need to then navigate to the ‘Classic 3’ theme style sheet, for example: C:/program files/Intranet DASHBOARD/wwwroot/cfr/apps/themes/Classic3/. This folder contains all the images and styles needed for the theme.
2. Open the file called ‘style.aspx’ in a text editor, then search or scroll down to the section labeled ‘WIKI CONTENT STYLES’. Here you will see all the text styles available in the formatted text component. These are displayed as a drop down box in the rich text editor on the front end like so:

To add a new style, you simply add a new line to the existing styles. The style must be a ‘class’; the class name is what will display in the Front End drop down box as shown above. Its position in the style sheet will also dictate the position in the drop down list.

Let’s say, for example, that you’re feeling spritely in the summer months and want some vibrant text styles to match your mood. To create a new heading style – for example something big, bold and bright orange like a poorly applied spray tan – you would add something like this to the ‘style.aspx‘ file underneath the ‘Heading4’ line:

.headingAlternate {font-family:<%=main_font_family%> !important;font-size:18px !important;color:#ff9600;font-weight:bold;}

Perhaps you need a change? Add a different bullet style to sit neatly under the existing bullet styles, just for special occasions, by adding the following line underneath the ‘customIndentedBullet’ line:

.alternateBullet {font-family:<%=main_font_family%> !important;background:transparent url(<%=GetImage(“star_bullet.gif”)%>) no-repeat left top;padding:1px 0px 2px 20px !important;display:inline-block;}

Note: You will also have to ensure that you add your custom image, in this case ‘star_bullet.gif’, to the Images Directory within the Theme folder.

Now that we have added these exciting new styles, simply save the file and refresh your browser to see how the new styles look from the Front End. In the words of Martha Stewart, here’s one we prepared earlier:

Now you have returned from your undoubtedly fabulous day dream and/or the travel agent, we can resume.

So consider for a moment now that your servers are a lone donkey responsible for delivering precious cargo to your users every day, perched safely at the top of this gorgeous volcanic island. Before these dignified and hard working creatures can brave the steep cobble stone steps, you need to load them up with cargo and unwitting/uninsured tourists.

Ask yourself – would you load all your cargo in a single side bag, leaving the other empty and your precious Ass off balance? Or would you share the load evenly between both bags and ensure the safe and efficient delivery of goods?

The answer is simple – balance the load. (End metaphor)

Load Balancing is the process of putting in place a combination of mechanisms and safeguards to ensure near continuous availability of your website. It can also be used to increase performance and capacity.

It is primarily used to support sites for which any downtime could mean significant impact on business operations and processes. For example – if the website were to stop, so too would the business.

It is also required when servicing a large number of end users simultaneously is simply beyond the maximum hardware limits of a single server setup. Call in the second saddle bag and include additional servers to spread the load.

Now let’s look at Load Balancing in an iD context…

A typical iD installation is made up of the following:

1. A website running in Microsoft IIS server

2. A database running Microsoft SQL server

The website and the database may be running on the same server or on separate servers, however the end result is the same – if the website goes down (e.g. because of a hardware failure) the site is unavailable.

If high availability is important for your site, you can set up iD in a load balanced environment so that there are 2 or more websites (running on separate webservers) sitting in front of the database server. With a hardware or software load balancing managing incoming web traffic, iD web content is now delivered through more than one webserver. If one webserver goes offline for any reason – the equivalent of your loyal donkey faltering mid-journey and threatening to leave Timmy the Tourist on a mountain ledge – all new web requests will be automatically handled by the other available webservers.

For a step by step guide, see our Load Balancing Setup Guide.

This particular event – Intranets At Work – is aimed at helping intranet professionals push their corporate intranet to the next level, with some real-world insights from companies who have fought and won the internal communications battle.

Register now using discount code ‘intranetdashboard’ and receive 20% off your ticket. Spots are limited so get in quickly to avoid missing out.

The Details:

When - 22nd Septmember, 2010

Where - Central London, Venue TBC

For more information, visit: http://www.jboye.com/

To combat the difficulties, and subsequent inefficiencies associated with having an office that spans the Asia Pacific region, Jetstar purchased Intranet DASHBOARD (iD) in 2007 – signaling the birth of JEN (Jetstar Employee Network).

Since then, they have worked with the iD team to improve their intranet and ensure its ongoing success. It now forms an integral part of their business, with employees depending on JEN to make their often hectic lives easier. With limited time to access information critical to their job, ease of use is critical in keeping users coming back to the intranet. Jetstar needs to ensure employees can rely on JEN as the central hub of activity within the business – the place to go to get things done.

Jetstar recently worked with the iD Team to set up Single Sign On (SSO) capabilities for their users. Employees logging on externally to any of Jetstar’s internal systems are now required to login through JEN to do so – effectively establishing the intranet as the front door to the organization. Once employees have been correctly authenticated against Jetstar’s systems, they must pass a 2 factor authentication process developed specifically for them by the iD team. SSO ensures external access to Jetstar’s internal systems is a simple and secure process for employees – perfect for a workforce on the move.

SSO’s secondary function at Jetstar is to enable login credentials to be shared with their other internal HR systems. Once a user has logged into JEN, credentials are passed on to connected systems so that when a user clicks a link within the intranet, they are automatically authenticated and can move seamlessly into the new system without being required to login again. With SSO, users move seamlessly between applications without ever appearing to leave the intranet.

For more information on Jetstar’s intranet, see our Case Studies page.

Thankfully we live in the age of the GPS, and can have our route mapped out and even narrated to us by a gender of our choosing, in a soothing international accent. Your intranet users are not so lucky – they face navigating the online world without the help of their trusty Tom Tom.

Before this terrifying thought has you running back to a paper-based office, there are a number of easy ways to guide your users around your intranet with ease. Navigation comes in a number of forms such as Search, Bread Crumbs Bars, Quick Links, Navigation Bars, the list goes on…

For now let’s focus on Navigation Bars.

A Navigation ‘Bar’ or ‘Menu’ is the most obvious and commonly-used intranet navigation tool. It is a series or set of links or images that directs to key content. It allows users to quickly and easily step through content and sections of the intranet from one page to the next, and back again.

Navigation bars are typically placed vertically on the left or horizontally across the page. It is an integral part of your intranet site as it dictates the page design and layout. It is one of the fundamentals of Information Architecture design – put simply, for the sake of usability you need to get it right.

A Vertical Navigation Bar is placed on the left of a site and may change depending on the site section you are visiting.  A Horizontal Navigation Bar on the other hand, is placed across the top of the intranet site and is used to access content that remains fixed throughout the site. So no matter what page a user is on, the key areas should always be readily available and remain the same.

Stay tuned over the coming weeks for more information on how you – short of leaning over their shoulder and dictating directions – can become the next best thing to a GPS for your intranet users.

In other news – as we have highlighted in our earlier posts, some of our clever clients are doing some really impressive things with iD CMS. The new functionality included in iD 3 seems to have awakened the inner-creative in clients all over the world who,  in conjunction with our design teams, have produced some amazing results.

One such example is Cummins Bridgeway, who has graciously allowed us to share a screen shot of their home page.

As a distributor for Cummins – global power leader and the biggest name in diesel engines in the US – Cummins Bridgeway provides products and services for customers over an enormous territory including Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Kentucky and West Virginia.

Cummins Bridgeway purchased iD in 2009, and since then have set about creating an innovative, fun and engaging intranet for their workforce of almost 1000. Working in conjunction with our design team, they have used iD CMS to create a unique and interactive homepage design.

The design goes beyond simply reflecting corporate branding, to actively support and reinforce company culture and inject a sense of fun into day to day happenings in the business.

Click on the thumbnail below to enlarge the image. Enjoy!

Done anything exceptional with iD CMS that you’re particularly proud of? We’d love to see it. Share your success stories with us in the Comments section below.

So if sponsoring a company trip to a swim up bar in the south of Mexico isn’t your idea of responsible allocation of budget for this fiscal year, why not inject a little daily change into everyone’s life via your intranet?

New and updated content can appear on your intranet from a range of sources at virtually any time. Without a formal way of notifying users, valuable new information risks going unnoticed – particularly relevant considering the advent of applications such as iD CMS and the new Front End Security model in iD3.

Using Notifications and the News application, you can now conveniently display a feed of modified content in the layout of a subsite, ensuring your intranet updates quite literally make headlines.

Here’s how:

1. First, you’ll need to create a Front End user whose Notifications RSS feed you can use. We called ours “wikinotification”, since we want to be notified of changes to the “Wiki” subsite. Make sure to remember the password, since you’ll need it for the next step!
   Note: if you’re using ActiveDirectory security, you may need to create this user in Active Directory if you’re not using IP Based Security.
2. Next log in using this new account and navigate to the thing you want the News Category to report on, in our case, the Wiki subsite.
3. Sign up to be notified, by expanding My Tools, selecting Notifications, and checking ‘Notify Me of Changes Made to this Item’.
4. Click ‘View My Notifications RSS Feed’, and copy the RSS URL.
5. Now simply create an RSS News category using this feed, which you can add to the layout of a subsite as normal. The beauty of it is that the RSS feed URL is unique to the user, so the one URL will work the same for everyone loading the news category!

Further Reading

• iD Help: Front End Notifications
• iD Help: Adding a new Website User
• iD Help: Adding a new RSS news feed
• Wikipedia: What is an RSS Feed?

The main concern for organizations looking to set up external access to internal systems is security. Considering the sensitive and strictly internal nature of the information contained within your intranet, you need to be sure only valid users are accessing it.

If you have iD set up to be externally accessible over the internet, you can restrict access to the Admin interface to your specific internal IP Range. This adds an extra level of security, not to mention peace of mind, by preventing any ‘outsiders’ from accessing the Admin interface and trying to guess your password. This is especially useful when you know you’ve been a little less than creative when selecting one.

All you’ll need is access to the webserver, and someone with a basic knowledge of IIS. The steps below will be different if you’re using IIS6 or IIS7, but let’s start with 7…

IIS7

1. Start by expanding the Intranet DASHBOARD website, click the Admin folder and select the ‘IP Address and Domain Restrictions’ icon.
2. Select ‘Add Allow Entry’ from the Actions menu on the right and enter your internal IP range.
3. Now select Edit Feature Settings from the Actions menu, and change ‘Access for unspecified clients’ to ‘Deny‘. Now only users on your internal network will be able to access the iD Admin.

But wait! We’re not done yet!

4. Expand the Admin folder, click the Images folder and again select the ‘IP Address and Domain Restrictions’ icon.
5. Select ‘Edit Feature Settings’ from the Actions menu, and change ‘Access for unspecified clients to Allow’, since there are images in this directory that are required on the front end.

IIS6

1. Start by expanding the Intranet DASHBOARD website,  right click the Admin folder and select ‘Properties’.
2. Select the ‘Directory Security’ tab, and click ‘Edit’ under ‘Authentication and access control’.
3. Change the setting here, so by default, all computers will be Denied Access.
4. Now add your internal IP Range to the list here and click OK -  now only users on your internal network will be able to access the iD Admin.

But wait! We’re not done yet!

5. Expand the Admin folder, right click the Images folder and select ‘Properties’.
6. Again, select the ‘Directory Security’ tab, and click ‘Edit’ under ‘Authentication and access control‘.
7. This time, change ‘Denied Access’ to ‘Granted Access’, since there are images in this directory that are required on the Front End.

…and we’re done! And in just a few simple steps we’ve greatly increased the security of the website. We can all sleep soundly tonight.

Further Reading

• IP Based Security – Mobilize Your Intranet
• iD Help: IP Based Security Settings
• MSTechNet: IP Restrictions in IIS 7
• MSTechNet: IP Restrictions in IIS 6

One of Intranet DASHBOARD’s most popular and frequently-used applications is People Search – a virtual phone book for your organization. People Search can be used to quickly and easily locate the relevant contact details of any iD user within your Active Directory.

Active Directory however, includes an enormous amount of information – not all of it relevant to your particular search. It may for example, include contact details for all employees of an affiliate organization, or even “non-people” contact data, such as the details of a particular office or branch of your business.

If you want to ensure the only results returned are for people of the living, breathing kind, there is an easy way to prevent any “non-users” appearing in your search results. If you’re currently using ActiveDirectory security mode, you can do this using LDAP Restrictions.

In ActiveDirectory security mode, when you use People Search to search for a user, what you’re really doing is querying Active Directory’s LDAP Server; this means you can prevent unwanted results from being returned by using an LDAP Restriction.

To set an LDAP Restriction:

1. Go to Administration -> Utilities -> LDAP Servers -> Edit LDAP Server
2. Edit the default LDAP Server
3. Select the Restrictions tab
4. Enter the restriction string in the Restrictions field and click OK

That’s all very well, but what restriction string are you meant to use? There’s no one right answer for everyone, but here are some popular ones:

This last restriction is an example of how you can chain restrictions together, the ampersand (&) is an AND operator, meaning that both conditions must be met in order for the result to be returned.

A little tweaking here and there can quickly ensure People Search is only returning the results you need. If you need a hand coming up with your perfect LDAP restriction, contact the iD Support Team, who are more than happy to help.

Further Reading

• iD Help: LDAP Servers
• iD Help: Restricting People Search results on Organizational Unit
• MSTechNet: LDAP Query Basics

This is exactly why it is so important, nay imperative, to ensure that a copy of the data stored on your intranet is readily available should your server(s) decide on an impromptu vacation. Not only is there the potential for your intranet to be offline for an extended period of time (which if you’ve played your cards right, should send your employees into a frenzy), there is also the chance you could lose all your data, not to mention the countless hours of hard work invested.

For those of us fortunate enough to have never experienced the gut-wrenching sensation brought on by the senseless loss of data you have neglected to backup, despite being regularly prompted to do so by your nay saying computer – lucky you. The majority of us who have would agree that in order to guarantee your future sanity, retention of hair and maintenance of happy working relationships – backing up data is a must.

There are a number of different ways you can keep backup copies of your intranet, with the two most popular and frequently implemented ones being:

• Remote server backups of your databases and web files

• Separate Disaster Recovery/Failover Server(s)

Server backups can be taken by following our basic ‘Backup and Restore Guide’. Server Administrators may also wish to automate their backups regularly with one of a number of various different tools available.

Disaster recovery is generally setup with a primary and secondary server. In the case the primary server fails, traffic is redirected through to the secondary (or failover) server, usually through the use of a load balancer. If setting up a disaster recovery server is something you’re interested in (rightly so!), the process can be a little complex so feel free to contact our Support Team for more information.

In addition to all of the above, a good ‘Disaster Plan’ should always outline the measures, steps and processes you have in place to either prevent disaster, or how to recover quickly from one should you have a brush with the (Murphy’s) Law.

If so, chances are that at some point, your staff will suffer from SOA – or Sudden Onset Amnesia, a phenomenon associated with users desperately trying, and all-too-often failing to remember their company’s OWA URL. This crippling e-illness has a number of symptoms, including user-frustration, lack of uptake and increased calls to your Help Desk.

To try and remedy this confusing issue, there is always the quick fix of including the link somewhere within your intranet to direct users externally to OWA. However, to guarantee the long-term sanity of everyone involved, a better solution would be to seamlessly integrate Outlook Web Access into your intranet.

Keep all your users in the one place, cut out the confusion and establish your intranet as the epicenter of your organization – the place to go to get things done. The less you take users outside your intranet to other applications, the more accustomed they get to your system being the key source of information within your organization – and the more valuable it becomes to both users and administrators.

How to integrate OWA with iD CMS

1. Create a new page
2. Drag a Webpage Frame Component onto the page
3. Set the URL of the Frame to the OWA web address
4. Edit the ‘Component Properties’  to adjust the size of the frame

Displaying other sections of OWA by Default

You can easily change the default OWA interface,  or even access shared mailboxes using OWA Web Parts.

For example:

• Loading a shared calendar:

https:// Outlook Web Access URL /owa/ SMTP address of the other mailbox /?cmd=contents&module=calendar

• Loading the logged in users calender

https:// Outlook Web Access URL /owa/?cmd=contents&module=calendar

For more details, click here.

Further Reading

• Create your own theme for OWA 2003
• Create your own theme for OWA 2007
• Create your own theme for OWA 2010
• iD CMS Webpage Frame Component

One approach, and perhaps the most obvious, is to track users’ access. Reporting tools such as iD’s Statistics Reporter can provide you with a quick snapshot of the traffic to your intranet, to give you a feel for what’s happening, to who, and when. What it can’t tell you, is whether or not your users are getting anything out of their time on the intranet.

Time would be better spent focusing on making your intranet engaging, useful and business-critical, so users will not only want to use it, but will depend on it to complete their daily duties.

There are a lot of factors which influence user access to the intranet, including:

Culture – Is using the intranet an integral part of your company culture i.e ‘Have you seen what’s on Flowercorp today?’ or ‘That’s a great idea, let’s create a forum topic on Flowercorp to get some feedback’

Content – Does the intranet contain relevant, up-to-date information that users will want, but more importantly need, to access?

Contribution – Are users trained and actively encouraged to contribute to the Intranet?

Importance – Is it the main repository of information – the source of truth – where users know they will be able to find exactly what they are looking for, quickly and easily?

Something as simple as moving the weekly newsletter onto the intranet instead of offering it via email or in paper-based format can have an enormous effect on users, pulling them to the system to get the information they need.

Another interesting idea is to create an area specifically for users to interact socially. This gives them a relaxed environment to start contributing to and encourages them to log on to see the latest information. An example is shown below using iD’s Coffee Break site.

So rather than focus your energies on monitoring the usage behaviors of your intranet’s users, why not take a closer look at exactly what you are offering and what you could do to improve your user experience. Make it as engaging as possible and they’ll actually want to use it.

Now using iD CMS, you can easily embed a Twitter feed into your intranet. Other popular web based content such as Google Maps or Youtube for example, can also be dragged onto a page using the HTML Component.

We have created a more detailed instructional page to step you through the process on the iD Help Site, but in brief – edit an iD CMS page, drag and drop the HTML component onto your web page, add some HTML/Javascript (we use JQuery here) and voila! You have a Twitter feed in your intranet.

“We love the iD-CMS tool. It is absolutely brilliant and one of our guys is well on his way with a new intranet design, which I must say is looking really brilliant.” – Mercy Health & Aged Care

“We are very excited as to the potential of what we can do!” – Coleman & Greig

It’s great to see clients enjoying the new version. If you are interested in upgrading please click here.

Read the full story on Shell’s communications challenges and how their intranet has evolved to date on our Case Studies page.

Has your intranet become a fancy phone directory? Intranet DASHBOARD co-founder and Director Connie Pandos explains how you can make it a more powerful tool for communicating with staff.

Over the years, intranets have become a ubiquitous part of the corporate communications landscape, but all too often they provide a disappointing experience – failing to deliver on their most basic promise, which is to provide the content staff are looking for.

Due to this lackluster performance, some organizations have come to expect that staff will make minimal use of their intranet. Staff might log in to look up the phone number of a colleague or to find an annual leave application form, and that’s about it. If that sounds familiar, then your organization is definitely missing out on the potential of your intranet to help staff to work faster and smarter, strengthen your company culture and let your staff feel engaged with an employer that listens.

In an economic climate where we’re all under pressure to do more with less, and employees are hyper aware that restructures, layoffs and hiring freezes are part of the job landscape, being able to engage directly with your staff isn’t just a nice thing to have – it’s a must.

The challenge is how to get staff to tune in every day. We’ve worked with over 800 companies to help them engage their customers online, so I’ll share a few tricks of the trade with you, as well as pointing you to some of the trends in online communications.

One trend I’ve observed this year has been the huge effort which different companies put into creating internal communications that suit the personality or culture of their particular company. Companies with strong corporate personalities are very easy to spot. Look at the strong culture enjoyed by Richard Branson’s Virgin companies. Talk to their employees and you’ll often hear Branson referred to as ‘Richard’. This is not just due to the admittedly larger than life personality of Richard Branson himself. The company has an ethos of being a fun, young place to work, and crucially, Branson has built a reputation as an approachable member of the team. This in turn has helped Virgin build a reputation as a company which supports corporate communication and makes staff feel valued and supported.

Hopefully your company already has a mechanism like your intranet which encourages employees to make suggestions on how to improve the business (if not, why not?) but again, you need to put some effort into lifting your corporate intranet above being just a phone directory to being a tool which encourages people to engage.

Here in Australia I can think of several examples of companies who have really gone the extra mile to make their corporate communications come alive and reflect the culture of the organization. A terrific example would probably be SEEK – the online job board. As a fast paced, online company with a strong need to get the right information into the hands of its call center team fast, SEEK knew it needed to get staff buy in when it launched its new intranet. It held a Halloween launch party which doubled as a funeral for the intranet (dubbed “Trevor”). They played ‘Wind beneath my wings’ as staff said goodbye to the old intranet and kicked off the new one. Creative? Yes. Memorable? Yes. A great way to support the staff culture at this young and funky dotcom? Definitely.

Engaging staff, partners and customers is a growing concern for management. In these current times of economic uncertainty, it’s important to encourage and maintain a ‘business as usual’ mind-set – effective and honest communication will achieve this. An intranet helps preserve company culture assists in ensuring staff morale and client, partner and customer satisfaction remain high.

Jetstar has made a real effort to ensure its intranet, nicknamed JEN, is seen as the ‘source of truth’ for the company. JEN is the hub for information and communication for Jetstar’s highly dispersed and well traveled team! JEN is accessible via secure extranet access 24/7 allowing staff to have all the information they require when they require it – whether they are in a hotel room, airport terminal or at home. Jetstar staff are kept informed via JEN and late last year, when Jetstar announced that Bruce Buchanan would take over as the new Jetstar CEO, JEN was used to open up the communication channels between Bruce and Jetstar staff. The corporate communications team set up an “Ask the CEO” section on the intranet which lets staff submit questions to Bruce.

A key factor which made “Ask the CEO” work for Jetstar was the fact that it made a top down commitment to give employees a direct line to the CEO. The company understood that to be credible, “Ask the CEO” would need to provide answers to difficult questions, not just easy ones. The corporate communications team put a process in place which lets Bruce answer batches of questions when he has time, and refer more specific questions to the appropriate departmental heads. They also published staff guidelines for the intranet, so staff understand what behavior is expected of them. As a result, Jetstar has succeeded in getting staff from the CEO down, and across the different segments of the business actively involved in conversation in a constructive manner.

Companies who are succeeding in getting staff to use corporate intranets have made an effort to ensure it fits the corporate culture, as SEEK has done, and ensured that staff can get honest answers from top management, like Jetstar has done. Of course, the job doesn’t stop there. It’s certainly important to establish that your intranet as the ‘source of truth’ and get staff logging in regularly. But to keep their attention, the intranet needs to support your staff in their day to day work. This means it needs to be easy to use, and supply the most up to date information.

The results of our annual Global Intranet Benchmarking Survey highlighted two major trends: a shift in the departmental ownership of intranets from IT departments to Communications departments; and a reluctance amongst businesses to embrace social networking and Web 2.0 functionality in the workplace in their current unmanageable formats – they want collaboration on the intranet but they want to ensure it is managed.

Employees are becoming more and more comfortable in accessing and sharing information online. Social networking tools such as instant messaging, Facebook and Wikipedia have taught even casual internet browsers how to search for, share and edit information. Now more than ever intranets can be relied on as the key tool for internal communication and information. It is time to do away with outdated old fashioned printed material and have faith that your audience will embrace an intranet.

In many cases, employees are clamoring to be able to use the fastest, easiest ways to work, share information and work collaboratively. Where you can use internal tools like an intranet to help them work this way, you can ensure that staff communications and sharing of company data stays internal to the company, rather than being hosted online or by third parties out of your control.

We are helping customers adopt a collaborate but maintain control approach, a cautious approach to collaboration via an intranet. With the latest release of our software Intranet DASHBOARD – iD Version 3.0 intranet administrators and employees have the ability to create and edit content, but with a number of tools included in the software to manage, maintain and govern the intranet and its content, including page templates, permission structures and moderation controls.

Through the Global Intranet Benchmarking Survey, we have really seen a maturing of the corporate communications space and how companies use intranets. In particular, the ownership of intranets moving from IT to communications roles. When communications people manage intranets end users are submitting more and more content more regularly. Out-of-the-box, fully featured intranet solutions such as iD, empower users with easy to use tools and applications like polls, feedback forms and forums and so we are seeing an audience become liberated and now integral to the content supply chain of an intranet.

Like any technology, intranets are only as good as the content they provide and the communication they facilitate. Behind any good intranet is a good corporate communications strategy, which considers the information staff need and delivers it in a fast, accurate and easy to use way. A good intranet helps bring order to the chaos by making sure employees have up to date information at their fingertips. Remember to ask staff what they need from the intranet – after all, communication is a two way street.

10 tips for a successful intranet

1. Develop a strategy, have a plan, and define KPI’s for your intranet so you can measure success and continue to improve
2. Appoint a role or team to oversee the development and ongoing management of the intranet
3. Take a phased approach for launching your intranet – an intranet is evolutionary and ever changing environment
4. Ensure it is the main place to access information. Upload all key company documents – ensure all appropriate content is transferred from server or directory on to intranet
5. Consider the use of role based home pages – this structure provides each member of staff with a more personalized section
6. Usability is your key to success and audience usage. Ensure your intranet is engaging – use attractive design, intuitive navigation, clear defined layout
7. Invite users to offer feedback and suggestions – an effective intranet is constantly developing to suit the needs of its end-users
8. Ensure Search works! – effective search functionality is integral to building trust and faith in your intranet
9. Encourage staff to contribute content – staff-generated content encourages employee development and contribution, while features like footy tipping help keep things fun.
10. Keep the intranet up to date – all information should be current and accurate

IBF 24 took place on 2-3 June 2010 and truly proved to be a landmark day for the global intranet and digital workplace industry, featuring more than 20 live tours of the world’s most innovative intranets.

Superpartners showcased their fabulous intranet to an extremely positive reception. Employee uptake and engagement has been exceptional, and everyone was interested (rightly so!) in just how Superpartners managed to get employees to not just adopt, but engage proactively with the system.

Special attention was paid to their use of the iD Forum tool as part of an offline employee engagement initiative called Spot On – designed to create a culture of ideas sharing and story telling in the business. The Forum tool gave them an easy way to capture employee’s ideas and empower them to take control and drive change within the business. It has been a huge hit and really showcases the versatility of iD’s suite of applications.

Superpartner’s Intranet Manager Sarah Goddard, who hosted the event, had this to say:

“iD had everything we needed to make a really good intranet. It’s all down to how you use it. If you try to over-complicate it, you’ll fail immediately.”

This functionality works by assigning one or more IP addresses or IP address ranges to a given iD Database Website User Account. Essentially, it comes down to secure external access to your internal systems.

IP Based Security verifies user’s credentials by their IP Address, logging them in automatically if they are in the office or directing them to a login form if they are accessing from an external location. It allows you to grant quick and easy access to those who need it, and keep your business critical information safe from those who don’t. With IP Based Security your intranet is never out of reach.

It is gearing up to be a big event, with 1,400 communication practitioners from 40 countries over 4 action packed days. Whilst it is an IABC event, it is not exclusively for members, this event is open to anyone to attend. Register Now

If you are attending the IABC World Conference, don’t forget to stop by our Exhibitor booth in the Exhibition Hall.

Highlights include:
• A brand, spanking new web CMS
• Powerful Enterprise Search engine
• Flexible, role-based security model

…and so much more!

Come along, ask questions, snack on sandwiches and find out exactly what iD can do for your business.

These events are always a hit so register now to avoid disappointment! Learn how you can implement an intranet for less than the cost of your morning coffee.*

the details:
Melbourne: 12.30pm – Wednesday 16 June, River Room, The Arts Centre, St Kilda Rd
Sydney: 12.30pm – Wednesday 23 June, Quay West Suites, The Rocks

For more details, or to register, go to www.intranetdashboard.com/seminars
*Create an intranet for as little as $2 per user per month

Jane is a specialist in intranet strategy, and the author of the Global Intranet Trends Report – which is underpinned by an annual worldwide survey about strategies and practices for intranets, collaboration spaces and social media used inside the enterprise.

Would you like to help Jane conduct her survey and be part of the Global Intranet Trends Report?

Sign up for the 2010-2011 Survey You will receive a complimentary copy of the report for taking part.

A major trend discussed at the J.Boye conference, was that the requirements of an intranet extend well beyond just what a CMS delivers, or what SharePoint offers.

The team at J.Boye blogged about this trend before the conference, analysts repeated the sentiment and vendors agreed.

Here at iD, we’ve always known this! iD is all about intranets and was created with only intranets in mind. As a vendor, our focus has always been about the bigger picture of delivering a holistic intranet and not just a CMS or just Doc Mgt or just a collaboration tool. Maybe we were ahead of our time…

Top ranking online businesses including SEEK, Carsales and Wotif, reveal a common denominator between the phenomenally successful threesome – software solution, Intranet DASHBOARD (iD).

Their success in one of the world’s most fast-paced and competitive industries is no coincidence – each simplifies a service for their customers, reducing the time and effort taken to find a job, book a holiday or buy a car. It comes as no surprise then that they sought an intranet solution with the same goal in mind.

SEEK, Carsales and Wotif are all currently the highest ranked websites in their respective industries within Australia.

Intranet DASHBOARD was selected due to its feature-rich, off-the-shelf value proposition. Cost-effective and rapidly deployable, iD met all the requirements of a booming web business – delivering a world class intranet without the fuss.

“iD was developed as a turn-key solution, delivering an intranet that enables businesses to work smarter, better and faster,” said Connie Pandos, co-founder and Director of Intranet DASHBOARD.

Demonstrating the savvy business attitude that has set them apart and ensured their success so far, SEEK, Carsales and Wotif all recognized they simply didn’t need the cost and complexity involved in developing a bespoke solution.

“We do things fast here – we’re a dotcom, and iD wanted to go as fast as we did. Other organizations might want to spend months developing an intranet project, but that’s not us. It was important the focus remained on our core business,” said SEEK’s IT Manager, Glen Cameron.

The best in the business trust iD to power their internal communication and streamline their processes, keeping them in shape to continue making waves on the world stage.

the details:
when: Monday 24th – Wednesday 26th May 2010
where: Hall 4, Stand L20
Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre

Click on the thumbnail for a larger image.

The iD Desktop Assistant acts as a centralized point for instant access to the latest items requiring administrator approval before being published. Rather than searching on a per-tool basis and risk missing valuable input from employees, the iD Desktop Assistant automatically locates and lists all outstanding front end submissions and alerts administrators.

It also includes a multi-file upload option also enables administrators to quickly and easily upload any number of files simultaneously to the intranet. This includes the replication of entire folder structures to applications such as Document Manager, Image Library, Content Publisher and Digital Assets Library.

iD Desktop Assistant makes maintaining your governance strategy easy, saves you time and enhances collaboration, helping you get the most out of iD. It is available as a free added extra with your installation of Intranet DASHBOARD 2.2 and above. For more information, see the iD Extras on the iD Help Site.

He had this to say about iD:

Australian Intranet DASHBOARD is an off-the-shelf solution which allows the customer to design and tailor a comprehensive, fully fledged intranet using mainly drag and drop widgets and wizards. Shell specifically deployed Intranet Dashboard as a part of a strategy to reduce the number of applications they have.

Read the complete article here.

‘Come together’ – Intranets are re-emerging as a way to connect dislocated employees

With employees in constant movement all over the world, Jetstar is an ideal example of an organization looking to connect dislocated personnel.  In late 2007, Jetstar decided it needed an adequate intranet system to keep its staff connected and engaged. “We had simply grown up as a business and we were starting to experience limitations in being able to communicate what we wanted, when we wanted,” says Jeff Martin, IT project manager for Jetstar.

While the company had an initial intranet system, it relied heavily upon the involvement of the IT department, to the point that even the weekly e-newsletter needed the department’s help. This made the simplest tasks both time consuming and expensive.

Martin brought his concerns to Simon Westaway, Jetstar’s general manager of corporate relations, who helped him make a business case on how a new intranet system would help end this communication bottleneck. The company then held a closed tender in November 2007, with The ADWEB Agency’s Intranet DASHBOARD (iD) named the winner.

Connie Pandos, director of The ADWEB Agency and iD, could relate to Jetstar’s need to limit the involvement of the IT department. With a communications background herself, Pandos helped develop iD as an off-the-shelf intranet solution for companies afraid that these kinds of projects can turn into extensive – and expensive – technological nightmares.

“At its core, the aim of an intranet is not technological,” says Pandos. “While you need to involve your IT department, you have to understand that you’re going to be left running it. It’s like even if the IT department installs your accounting software, at the end of the day they’re not the ones using the programs.”

When Jetstar came to Pandos, this was one of its primary concerns. The airline wanted something that would require little involvement from the IT department once installed. As for the purpose of the intranet system itself, its main goals were to make life easier for pilots, cabin crew and airport staff; move paper-based forms online; make it easy to find employee contact details; and promptly update staff with corporate and staff communication.

“This was a business that had seen really rapid growth,” she says. “Of the 3000 or so employees, three quarters of them will never set foot in the head office. They were anywhere at any point in time.” To overcome this challenge, Pandos worked with Jetstar to create its intranet system using various iD applications. They introduced the use of role-based landing pages so that cabin crew, pilots and other staff groups each had a centralized place with all the information they were likely to need.

“Pilots are required to consume a lot of important safety information and it changes all the time,” says Michael Curry, Jetstar’s digital communications adviser. “The role-based landing pages make it fast and easy for them to find exactly what they’re looking for.”

As great as it was to have this system in place, a key performance indicator was to ensure that the intranet was actively being used once it was up and running, as this isn’t the kind of workforce that sits in front of their computer screens all day. As an initial introduction, they ran a naming competition that came up with the name JEN: Jetstar Employee Network.

While the company considered having a big launch, Martin says that they decided against it as they didn’t want to end up over-promising and under-delivering.

“In the end we launched it low key,” he says. “When we turned it live, staff opened an internet session and they automatically opened up on the JEN home page. We were confident in what we had done and we let JEN speak for itself.”

It’s a strategy that worked. Four months after its launch, 100 per cent of the staff were using JEN. In addition to delivering the initial objectives of access to information such as the staff directory and bringing forms online, JEN has proven helpful at building a sense of community among their staff. “It was a fantastic employee engagement exercise that continues to go on today,” says Pandos.

Exclusive to clients, the iD Client Portal will improve the way you are able to interact with us, making it easier than ever to manage every aspect of your account from a single, centralized location.

The iD Client Portal brings together all the information and resources you need. A one stop shop for all things ‘iD’, the iD Client Portal offers a host of new functionality to put you in control of your account.

Features include:

Support Desk: The Support Desk streamlines online support, offering you a better standard of service for all your support queries. Log and track support requests and manage your support hours from a single location – it’s that easy.

My Account: Download licenses, update your company and billing details, and nominate users for access to the iD Client Portal with not much more than a mouse click.

Software Upgrades: The iD Client Portal is an easy way to keep up to date with details of the latest iD upgrades and exciting new functionality as it emerges – you’ll never miss a thing.

iD Help: A comprehensive online resource, iD Help includes exclusive client documentation to enhance your understanding of iD’s extensive functionality, including in-depth information on our entire suite of clever tools, iD extras and additional premium information.

Click here to Log In and Explore Now

My Account: Download licenses, update your company and billing details, and nominate users for access to the iD Client Portal with not much more than a mouse click.

Software Upgrades: The iD Client Portal is an easy way to keep up to date with details of the latest iD upgrades and exciting new functionality as it emerges – you’ll never miss a thing.

iD Help: A comprehensive online resource, iD Help includes exclusive client documentation to enhance your understanding of iD’s extensive functionality, including in-depth information on our entire suite of clever tools, iD extras and additional premium information.

Intranet DASHBOARD (iD) Director and co-founder Connie Pandos was recently interviewed by Dynamic Business Magazine, regarding what it takes to compete on an international stage in the software business. Her answer – a bullet-proof distribution model.

Ware in the World

Australian software companies are punching above their weight when it comes to exporting the programs used to run a digital world.

Exports from the software industry are as broad as the sea of binary behind the programs being sold. Advances in technology and globalization go hand-in-hand, making software one of the industries most suited to export. Choosing the right distribution model is pivotal in ensuring the success of a product in the global market.

The internet has been perfect for overseas software sales as exporters no longer need to ensure production capacity. Connie Pandos, co-founder of The ADWEB Agency says they reinvented themselves from a web consultancy to develop communication software tool Intranet DASHBOARD (iD) as a standalone piece of software to sell online.

As an online business, Pandos says they need to ensure their website delivers leads, as well as undertake substantial web-traffic analysis in order to tailor their online campaign to the highly specific and widely-varied needs of international consumers.

Including an all new content management system, flexible multi-tiered security model and powerful enterprise search engine all at no extra cost, iD 3 offers all the functionality of more complex bespoke systems, at a fraction of the price.

To trial iD 3, see our Tours and Demos page.

iD Help is freely and readily available – simply visit http://help.intranetdashboard.com

Explore this extensive resource at your own pace and discover all there is to know about:

• iD Tools and Applications
• System Administration
• iD Extras

Improve the knowledge base of all your intranet users and in turn, the overall standard of your intranet.

Make the iD Help site your first stop for all support queries. Click here to Explore Now.

“It was a very challenging task picking our Top 50 from an exceptionally high quality field, and Intranet DASHBOARD should be very pleased with its success,” said James Tuckerman, Editor-In-Chief, Anthill Magazine. “The Cool Company Awards attracted over 350 nominations from some very cool companies from all across Australia.”

The Anthill Cool Company Awards were launched in 2006, as a way to acknowledge and celebrate Australian companies that are doing things differently to bring about positive change.

The national awards were held at a Cocktail Ceremony at the spectacular Melbourne Recital Centre on Thursday 26th November 2009, where category winners and the ‘Coolest Company Award’ were announced. Please find the full list of award winners and finalists attached.

What are the Cool Company Awards?

The annual Cool Company Awards were created to publicly acknowledge and celebrate Australian organizations that are doing things differently – companies that defy convention to bring about positive change. The 2009 Cool Company Awards were judged across six categories. Each category winner competed against other category winners for the overall ‘Coolest Company Award’.

What is Anthill Magazine?

Anthill is a national media company dedicated to innovation, entrepreneurship and rapid business growth, through the production of magazines, digital content and events. Launched from the spare-bedroom of its then 26-year-old founder in late 2003, Anthill is known for its edgy and often irreverent approach to business reporting. According to Nielsen Online Ratings, Anthill Online is among the Top 50 Business and Finance Sites in Australian and among the Top 20 Media Sites in Australia.

Walsh returned to Australia from the U.S. in January 2008 following the conclusion of the sale and has had his eyes open for his next major business venture since. He cites his hobby as building companies which he describes as, “The best job in the world”.

In his new role with ADWEB, Walsh will focus on the expansion of the company’s flagship software solution – Intranet DASHBOARD – across international markets with a focus on North America.

Launched in 2004, Intranet DASHBOARD (iD) is an intranet, extranet or portal solution that’s currently used by over 800 companies worldwide including Shell, Audi, Jetstar and Panasonic.

Commenting on the opportunity, Walsh said, “I was attracted to iD because it’s a proven product with a global customer base, has existing profitability and a great team on board, which combine to give it a very solid base to build from.”

“iD’s ability to scale from SOHOs to multinationals, and be delivered in a host of different languages, makes its addressable market every organization with employees globally,” he explained. “When you think about it this way, the opportunity for growth is significant.”

Walsh is currently embarking on a 100 day review of the ADWEB business and will also be working closely with the company’s existing partner community in Australia, New Zealand, the UK and U.S. to understand the opportunities that exist for this channel.

Over 50 per cent of Intranet DASHBOARD’s revenues currently come from offshore, up from approximately 40 per cent in the 2008 financial year.

The company has twice been commended as one of Victoria’s most outstanding export success stories at the Governor of Victoria Export Awards (2008 & 2009) and this year, also scooped the top prize for Export Excellence at the CeBIT Australia Business Awards.

Connie Pandos, co-founder and director of ADWEB said, “We’ve achieved a lot in our 14 years but have big aspirations for the future, so it’s incredibly exciting to have someone with Andrew’s experience and terrific sense of judgment on the team to help us carve out this new chapter,” Pandos added.

Under Andrew Walsh’s leadership, Hitwise grew from a Melbourne base to become a global player in the internet measurement space with over 1,500 enterprise customers and operations in six countries. Hitwise was consistently ranked as one of the fastest growing technology companies by Deloitte. The sale of Hitwise was one of the most successful exits of an Australian private technology company.

Before joining Hitwise, Walsh held the position of COO with ASX listed internet company Sausage Software Limited from 1992 to 1996 where he worked with the then CEO to rapidly grow the business via merger and acquisition. In addition to his current role as Executive Chairman with ADWEB, Walsh also sits on the board of ASX listed Melbourne IT Limited and is an investor in several internet companies in Australia and the U.S.

iSOFT, a leading global provider of healthcare IT solutions, has selected Intranet DASHBOARD (iD) as its new group-wide communications platform for its 4,700 employees located across the globe.

iSOFT selected iD to replace several existing intranet systems following its merger with IBA Health two years ago.

iD was evaluated against a number of other solutions in the market and was chosen for its ease-of-use, cost-effectiveness and because it offered iSOFT a large number of useful applications straight out of the box.

CIO Martin Wilkinson said the need for a new group-wide intranet was recognized at all levels and across all operational areas of the company because of the need to build a strong sense of unity and corporate culture among iSOFT employees.

“Our new intranet will be the single most important internal communications channel that the company will have at its disposal,” he said. “It will put key information within easy reach of all our employees from a single site and replace the various intranets that currently exist within the group.

“It will greatly increase the level of information sharing and open up new collaboration opportunities, which should have a positive impact on the performance of employees and the company as a whole.”

The creation of the new site has given iSOFT a valuable opportunity to carry out a complete review of its intranet strategy and decide, in an innovative way, how content should best be presented on the new system, rather than purely migrating content across from their existing intranet sites.

The company is training about 40 sub-site administrators and content editors who will be responsible for creating and updating content relating to their specific areas of the iSOFT business, ensuring that the intranet reflects the activities of each business function and regional business unit. It will be available in multiple languages to reflect the global nature of iSOFT’s business.

Connie Pandos, co-founder and director of Intranet DASHBOARD, said an increasing number of companies were choosing iD to help govern their internal communications following a merger or acquisition.

“iD helps bring order to the chaos. When two companies come together there’s usually an enormous amount of information that needs to be brought under control. This is what iD does best. Combined with its price tag and feature-rich toolkit, it’s a great option.”

Intranet DASHBOARD has helped over 800 organizations worldwide streamline their business processes and improve internal communications including Jetstar, Shell, Audi and Panasonic.

iD took out the prestigious award in a competitive field of over 1,200 highly successful exporters.Very exciting!

With already over 800 clients in 65 countries worldwide and an expansive reseller network across Europe, the U.S and Asia Pacific, our sights are firmly set on the global market.

“It’s a great achievement to again be acknowledged as one of Victoria’s most outstanding export success stories. We’re proud to be a Melbourne company making waves on the global stage and have plans to expand our global reach and capitalize on our success to date”, said Connie Pandos, co-founder and Director of Intranet DASHBOARD.

Sales of iD have increased globally year-on-year since its launch in 2004, with the export market currently generating over 50% of total revenue. iD now reaches more than five million users across 800 companies in 65 countries around the world, including 18 Fortune 500 companies.

Ms Pandos puts the success down to the cost effective, feature rich nature of the solution. “iD provides a fully featured, cost effective alternative when your company can’t entertain a couple of hundred thousand dollars for an intranet, extranet or portal solution, which is welcome news when budgets are under pressure” said Ms Pandos.

Now in its 30th year, the Export Awards seek to identify and reward Australian businesses incorporating innovative export strategies and expert execution to successfully take Australian made to the global stage.

RHE to provide local representation for flagship Intranet DASHBOARD product

Intranet DASHBOARD (iD) today announced the signing of its first reseller partner in New Zealand, the RHE Group. RHE Group has joined the recently created channel program to sell and support its flagship intranet, extranet and portal solution, Intranet DASHBOARD (iD).

“Our New Zealand business is growing in leaps and bounds,” said iD’s Partner Manager, Chris Horsley-Wyatt. “We’ve already got customers locally including Kathmandu and Fairfax NZ, however the RHE partnership will give us a much stronger local presence and greater capability to sell and support iD.”

RHE Group is a leading independent IT solutions provider, with industry specialisations in insurance and finance, government and telecommunications. RHE built its reputation on its specialist business knowledge and expertise, delivered in a framework of delivering business value for customers. It has a growing list of satisfied corporate customers across Australasia and the UK with more than 30 successful major projects completed to date.

“RHE Group were attracted to Intranet DASHBOARD because it is a fully featured communications platform that offers all the benefits our customers need at a very competitive price,” said RHE Group CEO, Mark Hamilton.

“Our customers are looking for solutions that can be implemented quickly and are easy to manage, while still being flexible enough to meet their specific needs. iD fits the bill in spades, and RHE’s demonstrated capabilities in the integration and solution delivery space compliment the offering perfectly; providing the customer a total solution ” said Hamilton.

Horsley-Wyatt said the company planned to recruit 15 channel partners across Australia and NZ in the next 12 months. “This indirect model has worked really well for us in the U.S. and UK so it made sense to implement this across our core markets as well. We are looking for consultants, VARs and distributors to represent the product.

“It’s an attractive proposition, with license commissions starting at 30 per cent. In addition to this, partners benefit from the unlimited opportunities to provide value add professional services from which iD do not take any margin,” Horsley-Wyatt explained.

More than 60 per cent of companies in A/NZ currently do not have a mature intranet in place representing strong opportunities for the channel.

“The days of big IT spending are over, and products like iD give channel partners a cost effective intranet solution to offer their clients when half a million dollars for a SharePoint solution just isn’t feasible,” said Horsley-Wyatt.

The company recently launched the latest version of its intranet, extranet and portal solution – iD 3.0 – which is being touted as the most affordable SharePoint solution on the market.

We are happy to announce Kathmandu as the newest member of the iD family. The selection of iD over major competitors such as SharePoint seems to have caused quite the stir.

Intranet DASHBOARD has has scored another major corporate client, lassoing Outdoor clothing retailer Kathmandu.

Kathmandu has implemented the intranet service across its 80 stores in Australia, New Zealand, and the UK to improve internal communications through more timely and efficient information sharing. Kathmandu selected the iD communications platform over Microsoft SharePoint, after discovering it offered most the features it needed straight out of the box, for a fraction of the price.

“We discovered iD on the internet and lined it up against SharePoint to find it offered significantly more value for money,” said Bryan Moore, general manager of Information Systems at Kathmandu. “It was also much less complex, making our decision a no-brainer.”

Following Kathmandu’s sale three years ago, internal communications was identified as a key issue for the business. The company was primarily using phone and fax to communicate with its remote staff. That was proving difficult and at times ineffective. It wanted to be able to deliver simple, consistent management communications to its retailers.

“The intranet lets us channel information to our stores through the one gateway and governs the style and timing of our communications,” Moore said. “It provides a huge opportunity for us to engage with the sales force. Ultimately, we wanted to make sure that everyone is on the same page and aware of promotions, events and related activities. iD gives us one version of the truth.”

The new intranet is also operating as a business intelligence tool by enabling it to gather more feedback and data from its 80 stores. “iD has tools inbuilt that allow us to take timely feedback from our sales force and provide a holistic view of business activity.”

Phase 1 of the iD rollout has gone live with a second phase to follow in a few months time, which will see further functionality introduced into the Kathmandu intranet.

Staff feedback to date has been positive, with an initial survey revealing 60 per cent of employees rate the new intranet as fantastic.

Connie Pandos, co-founder and director of Intranet Dashboard, said customers were increasingly selecting iD over SharePoint because they find SharePoint to be too expensive and complex.

“iD is quickly developing a reputation as the affordable SharePoint alternative among our customers,” said Pandos. “Our latest version of the software – iD 3.0 – provides a fully featured, cost effective alternative when your company can’t entertain a couple of hundred thousand dollars for an intranet, extranet or portal solution, which is welcomed news when budgets are under pressure.”

Intranet Dashboard, based in Melbourne, Australia, has helped more than 800 organizations worldwide — including Jetstar, Shell, Audi, SEEK, and Panasonic — streamline their business processes and has been an award winner at Intranet Journal.

Click here for Kathmandu’s Case Study.

Technology and Business Magazine has profiled SEEK’s implementation of Intranet DASHBOARD (iD) in their June Edition. See the article below for all the details on the communications challenges faced by Australia’s Number One Online Employment Website. For full details, see our Case Studies Page.

SEEK’s new Intranet system helps it find with peace of mind

The company replaced its in-house intranet system with a smarter, easier tool from Intranet DASHBOARD late last year and has not looked back since.

While Seek, one of Australia’s top employment sites, was busy helping the public find jobs, its staff were struggling to find information they needed to do their jobs. Late last year the company tuned to an Intranet management solution, Intranet DASHBOARD (iD) and it has not looked back since.

SEEK’s job site attracts around 15,000 customers per month and has over 200,000 job ads on its site at any one time. The company also offers SEEK Learning, an online training and development business.

The company replaced its in-house developed intranet solution with Intranet DASHBOARD (iD) in October 2008, and it quickly became the single point of information and reference for SEEK’s 400 staff of 400.

Meahan Callaghan, SEEK’s Human Resources Director and project sponsor said that over 90 percent of the company use it for general employee communications, the phone list and social updates such people’s birthdays. About half of the staff use the customer facing content on a daily basis as part of their job.

Callaghan said one of the biggest benefits of the new system is that it does not need to be maintained and updated by the IT department: anyone in the business can use it.

It was chosen over competitors because it was the most cost effective and easiest to use.

“Training takes about 30 minutes — it is a very intuitive system,” said Callaghan.

The system is being used for customer facing content including process, product and system information, general company content which includes things like the history of seek, phone lists, HR policies and programs. It is also used for social information, including birthdays, anniversaries, a calendar for our social events and photos of recent events.

Announced in Sydney overnight, the CeBIT.AU Platinum Award for Export Excellence award recognizes iD’s international export success which has seen us grow our international market across 65 countries.

iD beat a range of Australian and multinational contenders to take out the award. The CeBIT.AU Platinum Award for Export Excellence is one of two Platinum awards – the categories considered most coveted by the CeBIT Australia Board of Advisors. This award is given for overall export excellence, considering not just export revenues but also the company’s identification of export opportunities and the successful execution of its export strategy.

BNET Australia interviewed Connie Pandos, Director and co-founder of Intranet DASHBOARD (iD), to find out her take on how out of the box solutions such as iD stack up against bespoke systems such as SharePoint. Listen to the interview below.

‘BTalk’s Phil Dobbie discusses the benefits of Intranet DASHBOARD in comparison to the bespoke corporate intranet offerings of the past, with Connie Pandos.’

Following the release of the iD’s Intranet Benchmarking Survey results, BRW made the following commentary regarding companies’ adoption of much-hyped social networking tools.

‘Despite the hype and promise surrounding Web 2.0 technologies, support from managers for social networking sites declined over the past 12 months. Thirty per cent of surveyed organizations say they have no interest in supporting such technologies, up from 25 per cent in the previous year.’

Of the 455 respondents to the Intranet Benchmarking Survey 2008, only 7 per cent are using social networking tools, while another 41 per cent expressed interest in the technology but have yet to complete an implementation. The survey, conducted by web technology vendor, Intranet Dashboard, also found that adoption rates of Web 2.0 functionality had dropped or stagnated over the same period. Half of the respondents to the Intranet Dashboard survey were from Australia and New Zealand, the rest based globally.

These results mimic findings by a global survey commissioned by Microsoft-Accenture joint venture Avenade, in which 60 per cent of respondents say integrating social media technologies is not in their plans. This is despite the fact that 75 per cent of respondents recognized social networking was already working its way into their business by stealth, and 90 per cent said they expected it to arrive with the next generation of employees.

Roughly half the respondents to the Avenade study expressed concern the social media technologies would have a negative impact on productivity, although about 60 per cent suggested such technology would lead to improved levels of customer satisfaction and an improved reputation in the market place. IT research director for Frost and Sullivan, Andrew Milroy, suggests the most strategic approach is for companies to encourage employees to use social media. “Some companies are writing it off too soon, rather than looking for how it might help to improve productivity,” he says. “It will become increasingly useful in the corporate space, and having employees who understand how the technologies work will be a clear benefit.”

With more than 455 respondents globally, the survey is the most comprehensive evaluation of how companies communicate internally. This year’s survey has found that as companies grow to rely on their intranets for internal communication purposes there has been a shift in who manages the intranet. 76% of respondents view the intranet as a ‘valuable to extremely valuable’ part of their business – up from 67% last year. In addition, 70% of the companies surveyed stated that ‘improving internal communications’ was their highest priority in the next 12 months. The major intranet challenges currently faced by businesses relate to the areas of communication and content governance. Intranet DASHBOARD co-founder and director Campbell Dobbin says that these answers give a telling insight into how companies are managing their intranets. “Companies are telling us that they are grappling with ways to improve internal communication. The solutions to these challenges lie within the communications departments and not the IT departments, who are the traditional owners of the intranet.”

“We’re really seeing a maturing of the space over the last twelve months and developments in how we can best communicate with our staff. I think we are at the beginning of a great transition period,” he said.

The survey results also indicated a change in the departmental ownership of intranets. Currently, 58% of IT departments have day-to-day responsibility for the intranet compared with 28% of Marketing and Communications departments. However, IT departments hold the budget for the intranet in only 40% of the respondents’ companies. The most telling result is that 54% of IT departments themselves believe they are not the rightful owners of the intranet. Overall, 66% of respondents believe IT departments should not hold the budget for intranets.

“While the intranet is a ‘technologically driven solution, its core basis, content and purpose is not technological,” said Connie Pandos, founder and director of Intranet DASHBOARD (iD).

“Intranet DASHBOARD is a communication platform – offering an effective and efficient exchange of ideas and information in the workplace. iD enables collaboration through an environment that maintains governance and control,” she said.

This year iD surveyed 455 intranet users globally to assess trends in internal communication, social networking and Web 2.0 use in the workplace. This commitment to research and development cements iD’s place as an innovative industry leader.Of the global respondents, only 32% indicated that management supported social networking strategies in the workplace, a significant drop in popularity when compared with last year’s result of 42%.

In 2008, 30% of respondents indicated no interest at all in social networking as an internal communication tool compared with 25% in 2007. Australia was even less willing to gamble on social networking strategies with 33% of companies reporting no interest in social networking. This proves an interesting insight into the Australian business psyche when compared with international results: 25% of companies in the rest of the world who showed a lack of interest in social networking.

Adoption of instant messaging has dropped 13%, which has fallen from 49% to 36%. The only Web 2.0 collaboration application that has increased in its adoption is the use of corporate blogs – up 6% from 39% in 2007 to 45% this year. Other functionality that increased in popularity since 2007 includes News Search & Wikis.

The Intranet DASHBOARD survey demonstrates that Web 2.0 applications have obviously not proven their worth to CEOs and management. This underscores similar findings in the CIO Insight May 2008 survey.

Connie Pandos, founder and director of Intranet DASHBOARD (iD), said, “Web 2.0 collaborative tools are often misused or abused by staff for personal rather than business use. Environments such as Facebook offer functionality that can distract staff from their work and this is clear in the evidence that many organisations are banning access to such web sites.

“Web 2.0 functionality that deliver tangible benefits to the user, improve business efficiencies and increase productivity are proving to be increasingly popular in an intranet. Intranet DASHBOARD enables Web 2.0 functionality to be delivered within a framework that meets the strategic objectives of the business and is centrally controlled and governed,” she said.

Home, Sweet Home (Office)

Telecommuting can save on real-estate costs, reduce pollution and give workers the flexibility many of them need. So why are so many organizations still against it?

The pluses associated with telecommuting (increasingly called “telework”) include a reduction in pollution as well as bottom line benefits such as reduced office real-estate costs. Employees continue to clamor for telework, making it an effective recruiting and retention tool. In fact, a recent survey by Irving, Tex.-based software provider Intranet DASHBOARD found that 36 per cent of employees would prefer the option to telecommute over a pay rise.

Many employers appear to have gotten the message. The Society for Human Resource Management’s 2007 benefits survey showed that 56 percent of the 590 companies surveyed are offering some form of telecommuting, up from 51 percent in 2006. A survey by the US General Services Administration of 1.7 million federal employees found that 140,694 people had telecommuted in 2004, compared with 72, 844 in 2001.

However, the Intranet DASHBOARD survey found that 70 percent of respondents were restricted from telecommuting.

The reason given by companies for limiting or not offering a telecommuting option? Trust. An unsupervised employee, managers seem to feel, may not do his or her job and remain productive in home environment.

Some research suggests just the opposite. A survey of the Bureau of Labor Statistics data released last year found that men who work from home are paid about 13 cents more per hour than men who work from the office. For women, the difference is about 9 cents.

Campbell Dobbin, president and CEO, Intranet DASHBOARD said, “We are delighted to be selected for this award two years running, and to showcase Australian innovation in the intranet and portals category. Intranet DASHBOARD represents a new, mature, and consolidated approach to intranet management. It is an acknowledgement that we are leading the field in this area.”

Michelle Manafay, of eContent Digital Content Strategies & Resources, comments that, “Success for some means market share, but for most it means thought- and technology-leadership, and innovation. The selection group pounced on this year’s crop of contenders and only the strongest survived. Intranet DASHBOARD was one of the leaders, featuring powerful tools and technologies to suffuse content in and outside the enterprise.”

International award-winning intranet software company Intranet DASHBOARD, today introduced release 2.1, adding additional functionality to its suite of over 40 in-built tools and applications. Intranet DASHBOARD is an all-in-one intranet solution enhancing organizations’ collaboration and communications across the enterprise to increase productivity. The latest release was introduced today at the KMWorld & Intranets 2007 Conference and Exposition.Intranet DASHBOARD now features an enhanced navigation interface featuring horizontal navigation for improved usability. This enables organizations to further customize their installation and provide additional formatting and style options. With Intranet DASHBOARD 2.1 external single sign-on is now offered further enhancing the integration between the intranet and other external applications. With this new functionality users only need sign-on once to securely access and move from the intranet to other applications and vice versa.

Other tools to Intranet DASHBOARD have also been upgraded, with highlights including the following:

• MS Outlook web access through iFrame integration enabling users to view their calendars, inbox and for better diary management within the intranet user interface.
• External applications can now be imported to the content publisher such as YouTube videos further enhancing content options.

“We continue to commit ourselves to create software that truly enhances the business of our clients,” said Campbell Dobbin, president and CEO of Intranet DASHBOARD. “With our new functionality and enhanced integration, Intranet DASHBOARD will allow our customers to increase their productivity and communications through the ONE product,” said Dobbin.

“Even so, the telecommuting trend is set to increase due to technology that enables people to perform their jobs outside of the office walls,” said Campbell Dobbin, CEO of Intranet DASHBOARD. “This ability offers employees a lot more flexibility in terms of how and where they work.”Telecommuting trend is on the rise
A 2006 Gartner and Deloitte survey revealed that telecommuting practices are set to increase, with 100 million corporate employees expected to be working from home at least one day a month by 2008.

The 2007 Telecommuting Survey released by Intranet DASHBOARD showed that two-thirds of American organizations support the concept of telecommuting and 72 percent of the 390 survey respondents see telecommuting increasing in popularity over the next five years.

Telecommuting benefits employers and employees alike. U.S.executives who participated in the Telecommuting Survey identified a significant savings to be had in infrastructure costs, absenteeism and productivity. And, employees stand to benefit from the option to telecommute as well. According to the survey, 83 percent of participants said teleworking is considered an incentive or perk for staff, and 65 percent responded that flexible schedules are more important as an incentive to motivate and retain staff over an increase of base compensation, monetary bonuses, equity incentives or rewards programs.

Similar results were revealed in an Information Technology Association of America survey, which revealed that 36 percent of respondents would choose telecommuting over a pay raise. “There are a number of benefi ts for telecommuting; organizations that offer the flexibility to telecommute are seeing more efficient and productive employees, in addition to reducing absenteeism and reducing office overheads for those staff that regularly telecommute,” said Dobbin. “This is a far cry from the positives those who lack trust in telecommuting can point to.”
Telecommuting policy is a good idea. A good way to ensure that telecommuting employees know what is expected of them is to outline it in the form of a policy. A policy will make clear what is expected of the employee and, in the alternative, what actions will not be tolerated.

According to Dobbin, a telecommuting policy should outline:

• what is expected of the employee when they choose to telecommute;
• job performance expectations whilst telecommuting;
• risk management of commercially sensitive information in the context of the telecommuting environment; and
• expectations in regards to insurance and
• safety to corporate and private property.

It is easy to track the production of employees who work in your organization’s office, but how do you track the productivity of employees who work from an alternative location? “It goes back to the same management principles that would be expected if the employee was in the offi ce,” said Dobbin. You should ask, “What are the performance measures in place for that employee?” and “What work or projects should they be focused on?”

“There are checks and balances available to track when an employee logs on or off the network or is “online,” or to track how much time an employee spends on their corporate intranet,” he continued.

“Because this “big brother” approach won’t work for all organizations, you should encourage your managers to continue to communicate with their telecommutingsubordinates, to ascertain how, and at what pace, work is being performed, that it is submitted to the same standard that is expected of them and that the employees is actually getting the work done.”

Dobbin suggests an open and communicative approach to managing telecommuters will make an organization more likely to see the benefi ts of telecommuting.

Problem: lack of trust
Companies are forfeiting telecommuting productivity benefi ts because they lack trust in their employees, according to results of the Telecommuting Survey. The survey shows 70 percent of respondents are restricted from teleworking, and that the major reason telecommuting is not more prevalent in the U.S. workforce is due to upper management’s lack of trust in employees and concerns regarding reduced productivity.

Management’s concerns trump employees’ desire to have the option,” said Dobbin.
According to the Telecommuting Survey, management’s largest concerns with telecommuting are lack of employee productivity, while document safety, bandwidth issues and IT infrastructure costs followed as concerns.

“Organizations are facing a “fear factor,”” said Dobbin. “This fear of the unknown drives concerns for lack of productivity by employees that telecommute and the lack of trust in telecommuting in general. However, as we are seeing from the organizations that do offer telecommuting, the productivity gains are one of the many benefi ts that are being seen, which is a complete contradiction to the fear that is holding organizations back.”

The concerns of employers, managers and non-telecommuting employees about the productivity of those who do telecommute need to be discussed in an open forum.

“Consider having your organization open a dialogue about what is expected from telecommuting worker so that everyone is on the same page,” said Dobbin.

Regaining lost trust. Telecommuting employees in whom you have lost trust will likely seek to regain that trust. “Revisit your organization’s clear objectives as outlined in your policy,” said Dobbin. “Remind the employee what is expected of him or her and then decide whether or not you want to allow for a second chance. In the meantime, a telecommuting employee who can perform their role and deliver what is expected of them is on the right track to re-building trust.”

Give telecommuting employees access
According to Dobbin, it’s a really exciting time to be in today’s information era. “The ability to have flexibility in the workplace and give employees the opportunity to telecommute is a huge step forward,” she said. “Organizations that give access to their telecommuting employees through intranet systems such as Intranet DASHBOARD, provide a form for sharing information that is pertinent to those in and out of the office. Access also provides telecommuting employees with the opportunity to use social networking and corporate culture building. This is a key factor in attracting and retaining employees and also increase employee performance.”

Source: Interview conducted by CCH, a Wolters Kluwer company, of Campbell Dobbin, CEO of Intranet DASHBOARD.

iD now operates in two TV networks, a national radio network, and seven print media companies, across the organizations including sales and operations.

The latest win is Seven Network Limited who are using iD to bring together their sales division, pull together databases such as Salesforce.com, share resources and documents, provide a platform for motivational communications and news for sales staff and enhance the ability to cross-sell other products and discover other sales opportunities amongst the team.

Research at one media organization using iD found on average the 600 plus employees spent 20 minutes each day accessing information, news, and collaborative features of the intranet, and accessed the site up to 330 times per month.

Dmg Radio executive Tim English said: “We estimate that having this central one-stop-shop, plus content management efficiencies, can liberate A$600K [US$480K] of paid staff time for more productive tasks each year.”

At Nine Network Australia, which has been using the iD software since 2005, Peter Clarke, Corporate IT Manager, Nine Network Australia says: “We needed to implement a highly functional, low-maintenance, intranet solution without investing expensive developer time re-inventing the wheel. Intranet DASHBOARD met all our requirements and the iD team continue to develop their product to address our needs.”

Dobbin said national media networks were ideally suited for the rich collaborative and information sharing features offered in iD software. “They demand real time communication and information exchange across disparate offices, massive distances, and active teams in the field. iD is the ultimate business and human resources connector for such organizations.”

The media line up now using iD includes:

• The Seven Network
• Nine Network Australia
• Fairfax Media ( NZ )
• DMG Radio
• STW Communications
• The Photon Group
• The Riverina Media Group
• Southern Connecticut Newspapers, Inc (US)
• Outdoor Channel Holdings (US)
• Independent Newspapers Limited (South Africa)

Taming the Jungle

At oil giant Royal Dutch Shell PLC, the main issue faced by intranet manager Andrew Fix was not that information was missing, but that there was simply too much of it. With more than 140,000 users, the things people needed to find had become scattered across too many separate sites and lost among all the duplicated or out-of-date information. Even something as simple as lists of preferred hotels for traveling executives became impossible to find.

His solution was to centralize, consolidating the separate country sites into regional ones and then finally into a single global intranet using a single software program, Intranet DASHBOARD.

The initial consolidation of just the Asia-Pacific intranet reduced the amount of content to 20 sites and 30,000 pages from more than 1,000 sites and 212,000 pages. Duplicated and out-of-date material was weeded first by simply not allowing a mass migration of content from the old site to the new one. People in the various business units were required to re-post what they wanted to transfer with the new software, which was easier to use. Then Mr. Fix made sure there was much more coordination between the site’s administrators, and he added processes for deleting old information, so that the sprawl didn’t start building up again.

“We saw savings of more than $1 million” for the Asia-Pacific effort, says Mr. Fix, “purely through less need for infrastructure and expensive IT resources.”

Shell has since replicated this model for the rest of its businesses, seeing additional benefits beyond dollars and cents — mainly, being able to find useful information more quickly.

Campbell Dobbin, CEO of Intranet DASHBOARD said: “The groundbreaking Global Intranet Benchmarking Survey conducted by Intranet DASHBOARD showed IT departments and marcoms were battling for control of the intranet, and if global trends are any indication this conflict will only escalate.”

Dobbin said this trend was evident in the sales process for iD in Australia and globally where the departments seek to control what is considered the most powerful communications and productivity tool within the corporation.

Key Australia comparisons with the rest of the world (ROW) that were revealed in the 27 question Global Intranet Benchmarking Survey which garnered 386 responses were:

Control of the intranet:

• 39% of Australian IT depts. hold the budget for the intranet compared to 36% ROW
• 29% of Australian Marketing & Communications depts. have overall responsibility for the day to day intranet operations compared to 34% ROW.

Social Networking adoption:

• 53% of Australian companies are interested in adopting social networking tools, but have not implemented any as yet. This compares to 41% of companies from ROW
• 26% of Australian companies are using social networking tools, such as wikis (15%), blogs (10%) and podcasts (6%) in their organizations, in addition to other more familiar social networking tools which have been on the scene for longer, Bookmarking/Linking (29%), Discussion Forums (23%) and RSS Feeds (22%)
• Over 1 in 3 Australian companies plan to implement these social networking tools into their organizations in the future.
• Australians are more likely to adopt social networking technologies that they have previously had experience with. Over half of respondents are very likely to use book marking/linking (55%) or Discussion forums (53%), and (41%) of respondents are very likely to use RSS feeds. 1 in 3 are likely to use Blogs (29%) or Wikis (33%) and 1 in 5 would be very likely to use podcasts.

Collaboration role:

• 1 in 3 Australian companies use their intranet as a collaborative environment and 37% of these companies find these collaborative work environments to be very to extremely valuable. 60% ROW use intranet as a collaborative work environment.

Overall the survey found from all respondents that:

• 59% responded that “Improve internal communications” was the highest priority challenge they hope to overcome in the next 12 months
• 67% rated their intranet as “valuable – extremely valuable” to their organization
• Most popular intranet functionality:
  - Document Management
  - Search
  - News
  - Shared Calendars
• It appears that when it comes to social networking, companies are taking a cautious approach and slowly adopting tools/functionality.
• When asked what social networking tools they are likely to implement, the tools/functionality that have been in use for a longer period of time were most likely to be implemented – Bookmarking, Discussion Forums & RSS Feeds. Blog is the tool companies are least likely to implement.
  - 47% of companies said they are interested in social networking but have not implemented any tools
  - Only 7% of companies have deployed and are using social networking tools
  - 25% said they have no interest at this time
• Top 3 challenges hope to over come in next 12mths:
  - Improve Internal Comms
  - Improve Content Management
  - Improve Usability

iD 2.0 Launch CeBIT May 1, 2007

“Our customers, which range from small business, to large global companies, needs are always changing, they are the foundation of our success, and providing them the best, most affordable and easiest to use corporate intranet solutions, is paramount to the Intranet DASHBOARD mission,” said Campbell Dobbin, CEO, Intranet DASHBOARD.

“With Intranet DASHBOARD 2.0, we are not only releasing fantastic new applications, but perhaps more importantly, we are applying our thorough understanding of all aspects of our client’s workflow to deliver solutions that drive productivity.”

“They spoke, and we listened, that’s what we do best, we provide ONE product and ONE solution from ONE company, rather than a multi-vendor solution which inherently brings an added level of complexity to corporate intranet roll-outs,” said Dobbin.

“The need for corporate intranets with solutions like Intranet DASHBOARD is escalating as clients worldwide demand sophisticated online collaboration and communication tools. More companies also now depend on the intranet as the glue that binds together the organizational culture and helps deliver on the core business mission.”

• Intranet DASHBOARD 2.0 includes, a comprehensive collection of applications that enable efficient task such as, Dynamic Linking, which allows companies to maintain links regardless of where you move the document.
• For ultimate corporate intranet control and ease of use, version 2.0 includes, Advanced Content Publishing and Document Management, enabling content check in and out, version control, content undelete options, and notification alerts on new content additions, as well as content expiry controls.
• Keeping up with clients needs, version 2.0 now allows for Enterprise-level load balancing, which enables robust data storage, performance efficiencies, faster and more efficient data access.
• Intranet DASHBOARD version 2.0 also includes, new streamlined interface skins, with slick new themes, providing a current new look and feel.

Local company blogs lag according to Intranet Research

Three-quarters of Australian companies are interested in using social networking tools such as blogs and discussion forums to improve communication between their employees, according to a survey by software company Intranet DASHBOARD.

The survey of 386 respondents, 200 in Australia and the rest worldwide, found that just over half the Australian companies were interested in social networking tools but were not using them yet. Another 26 per cent had begun a trial or were using them.
But it seems that Australian companies are lagging: one in three overseas companies surveyed had begun a trial or were using social networking tools.

“This is what Web 2.0 is all about – communication, everybody contributing rather than staying in their individual silos,” Intranet DASHBOARD director Campbell Dobbin said.

“When you improve communication you promote cross-collaboration. You can capture and share knowledge within your company and make more accurate decisions about the future of your business.”

But opinions varied about which social networking tools were useful.

Only 10 per cent of Australian respondents had set up corporate blogs, although another 19 per cent planned to.

Almost half the respondents had either set up, or planned to set up a facility for employees to bookmark internet sites and share the links with each other.

Almost a quarter had RSS feeds and discussion forums, while 15 per cent had a wiki and a further 16 per cent planned to have one.

Social collaboration, and the use of Web 2.0 ideas in a corporate context, is becoming a key part of enterprise services, said Tien Tzuo, chief strategy officer at on-demand software company Salesforce.com.

Mr Tzuo said classic content management software was about storing and finding documents but by adding Web 2.0 tools such as tagging, a company could create a more co-operative environment.

The software could also be extended to bring the company closer to its partners and customers, he said.

Salesforce is using this model to develop ideas about features and fixes for its software. Customers suggest and promote ideas they want developed on the IdeaExchange website.

“The concept of voting (for software features) sparks participation – the user community is galvanised around that,” Mr Tzuo said.

The Intranet DASHBOARD survey also found that Australian chief executives were less likely than overseas chief executives to contribute to an internal blog.

Only 13 per cent of Australian chief executives surveyed had a blog, compared to 20 per cent of those overseas.

In Australia, 9 per cent of chief executives used their blog for regular communication with employees, while 4 per cent used it to communicate outside the company.

“We congratulate Intranet DASHBOARD as the category winner for “Best Web-based application” . Intranet DASHBOARD is an intranet management solution that beat extremely strong competition from some of the leading international names in tech. It was only late in the nominations process that we discovered they were an Australian company and were doubly pleased at their success in the final vote.”

“Intranet DASHBOARD‘s success is reflected in the number and size of their customers, which include companies such as Shell. Their software is elegant and supports a massive number of business tools designed to enhance any company’s internal corporate communications and productivity. Plus it’s one solution from one vendor, a key fact that will resonate well with IT departments and CFOs universally,” said Sarno.

iD is the software powering the largest single application corporate intranet in the world to date with 130,000 users worldwide. According to APC magazine: “The APC Internet Technology Awards are for the innovative products and solutions most responsible for advancing the development and uptake of the Internet and IP technologies over the past year.”

The Awards are chosen by APC readers, who comprise one of Australia’s largest single groups of technical/professional experts and power users.

“In making their nominations over the period December 06 to end of February this year, APC readers took into account technological innovation, market impact and relevance of the products to the Internet’s development, delivery or security, “ according to the magazine.

2007 has kicked off with a run of high profile deal wins for iD including St George Bank, Singleton Ogilvy & Mather, Repco, and the University of Technology, Sydney.

“Our customers from the large global firms through to SMEs say they are attracted to the iD product because it is ONE product, and ONE solution from ONE company, rather than a multi-vendor solution which inherently brings an added level of complexity to corporate intranet roll-out,” said Campbell Dobbin, Director of Intranet DASHBOARD.

CMS Wire has declared Intranet DASHBOARD (iD) the temporary victor in our long-running David and Goliath battle with Microsoft SharePoint. After coming away with not one, but two Intranet Journal Product of the year awards, we didn’t think life could get much sweeter and yet here we are. See below for the full article.

‘It’s not often that Microsoft gets beat in the intranet and collaboration game — what with its market leading SharePoint (MOSS) flying off the shelves and garnering much recent media attention.

The other day, however, Intranet Journal announced that Melbourne, Australia-based Intranet DASHBOARD had won, not one, but two awards in its first reader judged Product of the Year Awards. They went home the winner for both Best Intranet Design Software and Best Hosted Intranet Solution.’

“We are certainly proven global leaders in the Intranet sector and it is great to be further recognized by readers of this leading industry resource,” said Campbell Dobbin, president and CEO, Intranet DASHBOARD

The software vendor topped Microsoft’s Sharepoint Server 2007 in the Intranet Design category and Central Desktop in the Hosted Category, demonstrating both a broad feature set and some notable versatility.

“Intranet DASHBOARD can handle many jobs,” said Tom Dunlap, managing editor of Intranet Journal, “With its user-friendly interface and collection of digital utilities, it’s hard to imagine something that Intranet DASHBOARD can’t do. […] you can’t find a better collection of integrated tools and solutions than Intranet DASHBOARD, it puts everything at your fingertips.”

There were four other awards given out with Blogger, MediaWiki, Zimbra and Google coming out on top. The finalists and winners in each category were:

Best Intranet Design Software

• Central Desktop
• Intranet DASHBOARD
• Mindbridge’s IntraSmart Enterprise Edition
• Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
• Vialect IntraNet v.5

Winner: Intranet DASHBOARD.

Best Hosted Intranet Solution

• HyperOffice
• Vialect IntraNet v.5
• Intranet DASHBOARD
• Central Desktop
• CSI Web@Work

Winner: Intranet DASHBOARD.

Best Blogging Software

• Squarespace
• WordPress
• Traction Software’s TeamPage
• Blogger
• Sixapart.com (MovableType, TypePad, LiveJournal, and Vox)

Winner: Blogger.

Best Wiki Software

• CustomerVision
• MindTouch DekiWiki
• MediaWiki
• Blogtronix
• Traction Software’s TeamPage

Winner: MediaWiki.

Best Document Management/Collaboration Product

• IBM Lotus Notes and Domino 7.0.2.
• Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
• HyperOffice
• @task v.4 by AtTask
• Zimbra Collaboration Suite 4.0

Winner: Zimbra.

Best Enterprise Search Software

• Google
• ISYS:web 8
• Exalead One: Enterprise 4.0
• Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
• FAST Search

Winner: Google

Interview with co-founder and CEO of Intranet DASHBOARD, Campbell Dobbin, following our dual victory at the Intranet Journal Product of the Year Awards 2007.

Big Clients Drive Intranet DASHBOARD’s Success

The biggest winner in Intranet Journal’s first annual Product of the Year awards was the away team, because Intranet DASHBOARD, based in Melbourne, Australia, swept two categories. It won for Best Intranet Design Software and Best Hosted Intranet Solution, beating such names as Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Vialect IntraNet, HyperOffice, and Central Desktop.

Intranet DASHBOARD is currently used in 46 countries by more than 500 clients, including the Shell Group, Adidas, and Fantastic Sams. The clients appreciate Intranet DASHBOARD’s unified approach, ease of use, and rapid deployment. While the company has kept a fairly low profile in the U.S. so far, it’s starting to crow about its comprehensive and elegant intranet solution. We spoke with Campbell Dobbin, CEO of the ADWEB Agency, the company behind Intranet DASHBOARD. The company didn’t start out to create excellent intranet package; it actually started in 1995 as a full-service Web design agency, but business in intranet creation soared since the agency was the only one in Australia specializing in them. When Dobbin and his coworkers saw that 90 percent of their intranet clients were looking for the same features, they realized that they could build an intranet template and sell it to many clients.

Intranet DASHBOARD is a new concept in intranet tools, says Dobbin. Its unified approach lets users get all the internal applications they need from one source, and it offers one search tool that covers all the contents. While other solutions require users to piece together different systems, Dobbin says, Intranet DASHBOARD offers everything from one source. As a result, buyers can get a custom intranet up and running quickly.

Intranet DASHBOARD has risen quickly in the few years since it was released, and is now used by some of the world’s biggest firms. Just before the Beijing Olympics, Adidas, the major sponsor, contacted Intranet DASHBOARD to create a system that could store assets and documentation related to the games. At the time, Intranet DASHBOARD didn’t have a presence in China, but Adidas wanted support nearby. ADWEB obliged, and now China is a big market for Intranet DASHBOARD.

Another enterprise client, the Shell Group, has what Dobbin thinks is the world’s largest single application Web site, an intranet that 130,000 employees use every day.

“Intranet DASHBOARD has been instrumental in the consolidation and standardization of our intranet,” said Andrew Fix, Shell’s B2E communications and solutions developer. “Our focus has been, and will continue to be about simplification of the intranet, to increase usability and business benefit. Consolidating legacy intranet environments onto iD has not only reduced costs, but made these costs much more transparent.”

Travelscene American Express, an Australian travel agency chain, is also a pleased customer. “Intranet DASHBOARD, has provided the most effective and easy to use intranet solution for our business,” said James Gaskell, head of Technology Strategy. “With 5,000 users currently and that number set to increase, Intranet DASHBOARD provides a single vendor solution which has empowered our employees and our business to rollout group wide across the organization internationally.”

Despite its success, Intranet DASHBOARD and ADWEB won’t be resting anytime soon. The upcoming version 2 of the program, available in March, will offer big improvements, says Dobbin, including dynamic linking (allowing companies to shift major content areas without breaking links), and a document version control system with check-in/check-out abilities. All totaled, version 2 will offer over 40 new tools.

Many of the improvements were suggested by clients, says Dobbin, and that’s partly why Intranet DASHBOARD has been so successful.

“When we find a lot of clients asking for the same thing, we just put it in the software,” Dobbin says. “That’s why we have such a large and happy client base.”

Building an intranet is not for the faint-hearted. Being internal resources, intranets tend to evolve rapidly and reflect the changing focus that a line-of-business has as it iterates towards gathering and presenting the data and intelligence it needs online to function.

The result of this evolution is that the IT guys are going to need antidepressants due to the extra workload. That is, unless they have a tool kit that can provide an easily edited and managed framework.

Such a framework is what Intranet DASHBOARD (iD) is all about. Intranet DASHBOARD can actually be used to create intranets and extranets and provides centralized management facilities. You can control users and intranet applications across your site and provide different tools; and look and feel for different constituencies making it easy to tailor solutions for individual lines-of-business or departments.

The bundled applications include document management; meeting room booking; project workspace; forms management; digital assets library; company calendar; various search facilities including people and resources; employee training; a survey system; portal push & pull feature; layout manager; and localization.

Building an intranet with Intranet DASHBOARD is easy, using the browser-based tool you simply drag and drop the intranet site components onto a layout, arrange them as required, and publish when ready. Hierarchical administration is provided, allowing for editors with granular access to defined areas of the intranet content so that departmental administrators can make their own changes.

“As a banking corporation focused on fostering community and economic development that is a catalyst for positive social change, we are excited about incorporating Intranet DASHBOARD’s online solutions to enhance our profitability while reducing the environmental impacts of our work,” said Ronald Grzywinski, chairman, ShoreBank Corporation.

iD’s suite of smart intranet applications enhance, empower, and increase the efficiency of large organizations by giving appropriate access to all company documentations across sites and departments in a community friendly online space.

“ShoreBank’s partnership with Intranet DASHBOARD will enable the bank to strengthen its financial, community development, and environmental performance, while helping to it to improve its operational efficiency by reducing paper consumption and waste,” said Campbell Dobbin, president and CEO, Intranet DASHBOARD, “By reducing ShoreBank’s paper consumption through our online solutions, we are a natural partner in their efforts to reduce environmental impacts.”

ShoreBank Corporation, with assets of $1.8 billion is the nation’s first and leading community development and environmental bank holding company. It is committed to providing access to the financial services and information that create new opportunities which help transform under-served neighborhoods into healthy, vibrant communities and reinvigorate peoples’ lives. Headquartered in Chicago, ShoreBank has banks and affiliated nonprofits in Chicago; Cleveland, OH; Detroit; Ilwaco, Washington and Portland, Oregon; business development services in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and consulting services around the world.

Intranet DASHBOARD developed the structure, implemented, configured, and trained administrators for implementation of our intranet which is designed to improve internal communications. Intranet DASHBOARD’s solutions are critical to improved environmental and operational performance, by reducing paper waste and circulating valuable information that enhances employee performance and customer service in a timely and effective manner.

A panel of Global Fortune 500 senior executives and internationally-recognized knowledge management/ intellectual capital experts selected the 2006 Global MAKE finalists. The panel rated organizations against a framework of eight key knowledge performance dimensions which are the visible drivers of competitive advantage and intellectual capital growth.

The 2006 Global MAKE finalists have been recognized as leaders in:

• Creating a corporate knowledge-driven culture
• Developing knowledge workers through senior management leadership
• Delivering knowledge-based products/ solutions
• Maximizing enterprise intellectual capital
• Creating a learning organization
• Delivering value based on customer knowledge
• Transforming enterprise knowledge into shareholder value

According to Rory Chase, managing director of Teleos, “These organizations have been recognized as global leaders in effectively transforming enterprise knowledge into wealth-creating ideas, products and solutions. They are building portfolios of intellectual capital and intangible assets which will enable them to out-perform their competitors now and in the future.”

Intranet DASHBOARD Lights the Way

To the creators of Intranet DASHBOARD (iD), an installed intranet creation tool, there have been three phases of corporate intranet development: too simple (imagine an unadorned list of links), too complex (massive systems that don’t deliver what they promise), and, finally, just right.

That last one refers to their own product, which they describe as a consolidated, holistic approach to intranet creation. Intranet DASHBOARD makes creating an intranet simple enough for people with little development experience, while allowing them to create sites that are loaded with useful features and applications. It lets users make attractive sites with multiple subsections and group administrators, a system that puts each internal group in control of the look and content of its area.

The company behind Intranet DASHBOARD, The ADWEB Agency, is based in Melbourne, Australia, although it has a sales office in Dallas. The company began providing online services in 1995. In 2003, it recognized the need for an easy intranet creation tool, and launched Intranet DASHBOARD the following year. It now has a staff 35, with more than 430 client companies worldwide. Thirty percent of its business is in the U.S.

While most competing services offer hosted tools, Intranet DASHBOARD will appeal to people who prefer an installed solution. The controls are accessed through a browser, where the admin first completes a seven-step wizard to create the basic layout of the site, customize its look, and pre-populate pages with a collection of useful applications.

The product offers apps that provide group calendaring, forums, centralized online storage, and more (see screenshot below).

The developers have even thrown in a few fun apps, such as “sports tipping,” which lets employees place friendly bets on upcoming games. The company says it’s a fun way to get people to return to the intranet.

The admin can also create page headers and meta tags with the initial wizard. When finished, he or she uses other simple tools to create page layouts with drag-and-drop flexibility.

Intranet DASHBOARD sites are largely decentralized, with group admins responsible for the upkeep of their areas. This allows each group to post its own content and takes the strain off IT. Individual users can post to several areas of the site; postings to areas like the forums and project spaces go live immediately, while news and other postings need to be approved by an admin.

Intranet DASHBOARD even offers advanced document management features, showing that it really is a complete solution for all an office’s needs. Users can post docs in central directories, and copy those documents to sub-sites, if needed. Users can also set exactly when new stories appear on the site, and when they’ll expire.

Intranet Dashboard sites offer a professional, attractive layout and loads of useful applications.

Michelle Manafay, of eContent Digital Content Strategies & Resources, comments that, “Success for some means market share, but for most it means thought- and technology-leadership, and innovation. The selection group pounced on this year’s crop of contenders and only the strongest survived.” Intranet DASHBOARD was one of the leaders, featuring powerful tools and technologies to suffuse content in and outside the enterprise.”

Based on the IBF’s ongoing work to evaluate members’ intranets, the top 10 intranets were shortlisted in each of the award categories. These intranets were then put in front of a panel of judges made up of IBF members and IBF staff.

Paul Miller IBF founder and Chairman said, ‘We are publicly acknowledging the hard work and vision of our members. These high-performing intranets are indicative of a maturing in the intranet and portal field.’

One judge, Liz Kirby (UK Group Intranet Manager, AXA) commented, “We were looking for intranets which performed consistently well across the board and exceptionally well in their category. Shell, who won the design award, demonstrated clarity of layout, good use of graphics, color and screen space, and excellent legibility.”

Simon Saville, Head of Web Communications, Shell International, said, “We are delighted to receive this award, against some strong competition. It is recognition for the hard work that the team have put in to get the basics right. We are now building on this platform to integrate our intranet sites and the Shell Online portal into a common user experience.”

The International Benchmarking Forum is the leading intranet benchmarking group globally and is acknowledged to have established the industry standards for intranet and portal performance.

As the popularity of social media increases ever more quickly, isn’t it about time your organization got on board? Here are some of the basics of using “web 2.0″ technology for your intranet with examples of organizations that are leading the way.

Intranet 2.0

The latest buzz word for advancing knowledge-sharing, is ‘SMIFing’ – social media inside the firewall. This refers to Web 2.0, or in this case, Intranet 2.0 paradigm shift which has been building for the past few years where collaboration and free speech reign, and users are encouraged to network and form the content of the site.

Tools such as, ‘Wiki’ and other knowledge base facilitators such as ‘frequently asked question’ lists, forums that include subscriber notifications, blogging, news and RSS aggregators. The beauty of these tools is that they give a voice to the ‘real’ people, as opposed to just management or the internal marketing professionals, demonstrating transparency and openness within the organization through two-way conversations. It also assists with networking, all those soft skills and benefits. On the internet front, tools such as MySpace have become so popular that even Rupert Murdoch deemed it important enough to spend $580m acquiring.

What are they – a Quick Primer

Wiki

A ‘Wiki’ is quite simply a shared online medium that everyone can update. It comes from the Hawaiian word for ‘quick’! It can be used to create a knowledge base or reference for staff, researchers, sales teams or customer service representatives.

According to Bill Ives , Motorola for example are using approximately 1944 Wiki’s. Toby Redshaw, Corporate Vice President of Information Technology Strategy, Architecture and e-Business describes “how wikis really helped save them time by getting around the need for a web specialist to maintain many important pages.” ² with the added benefit of getting knowledge out of people’s heads.

Blogs

Now we all know about forums or bulletin boards, which in some ways are distantly related to the wiki AND the blog, but a blog differs from both – it’s a conversation with a mind of it’s own. The posts are sequential in date order. When used within the corporate firewall, they may be written by one or two knowledge-area specialists or can be used to generate input from everyone. It differs from a forum in that you aren’t really able to create sub-categories, but subsequently you also don’t need to expand through all the posts to read everything. It’s often used within the corporate website or an extranet environment to demonstrate expertise to prospective clients, create an environment of inclusiveness, and even to support a work-life balance.

One example of a corporate blog is one created for the Victorian Public Service, Australia, which is using it for a Continuous Improvement Network. Once again, Motorola are getting their hands dirty as early adopters with 2700 internal blogs! In addition, they are preparing to share information from the existing blogs and wikis with their 500 live extranet sites which they use to collaborate with partners.

RSS

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) allows people and organizations to subscribe to external content in XML format. It takes a leap of faith by companies to adopt this, as it is tantamount to allowing anyone through the front door to the gate-keepers of a strictly controlled IT environment. Other news tools include allowing your own users to create the news – scandalous idea really!

Quiksilver and DMG radio use RSS to provide weather details to their employees, which in turn brings people back to other important intranet tools and corporate communications.

Figure 1. Example of RSS feeds creating return visits to the intranet.

KM & intranet governance with SMIFing

The outstanding issues facing organizations embracing the new online culture, include how to provide governance in this environment, and how to deal with disagreements between contributors (in the case of a Wiki). A wiki is a fantastic knowledge resource but it does need to be facilitated in some way in case disagreements arise. A case in point is the rather daunting-looking process of arbitration at Wikipedia itself. See an example at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration. For corporations, a remedy would be to supplement the wiki with usage guidelines plus an online poll, forum, or ensure there is a feedback mechanism in the chosen knowledge base.

See the following example of an FAQ tool demonstrating the last point.

Figure 2. Providing rating and feedback on a knowledge base tool.

You’ll see that in addition to everyone being able to submit a knowledge base article (similar to the wiki scenario), people can also submit feedback or changes that then go through a central moderator before they are published.

Similarly a blog is often best in the hands of the knowledge experts who are free to share the fruits of their experience with other staff. A forum is a good tool to encourage Communities of Practice (CoPs), or knowledge-sharing generally, as you can control the flow of conversation through sub-categories. You can also move high-value topics into the FAQ/ KB tool.

With the featured forum below you can also create KPI’s around participant knowledge-sharing behaviour. The more people contribute, the greater their rating!

See below.

Figure 3. Providing ranking system for contributor performance

Features such as these can help improve customer service, support competitive intelligence for product and marketing development, and give staff a better understanding of their company’s competitive advantages. It gets the shy people to contribute in a less threatening way than in a face-to-face meeting, and it reduces the likelihood of domineering personalities (who may not necessarily have the best solutions or ideas) from taking over the conversation.

Finally, RSS is a way to stimulate interest in the intranet and draw people to the knowledge management tools you have provided them. Ever heard the phrase, ‘build it and they will come’….it’s not true.

Here’s another example of RSS used within an intranet environment to get people participating,

Figure 4. Another example of RSS news.

The features described offer some solution to the corporate conundrum of command versus the new paradigm of free flowing conversations, in a way that makes sense in this unique corporate situation. Offer ‘controlled flexibility’ to share ideas and knowledge within the firewall.

Bring business partners and customers into the KM mix

Don’t forget your clients. Why wouldn’t you include them in your knowledge management plan? Give clients and business partners a way to contribute through blogs, or forums.

Many companies, particularly IT ones, are using collaborative technologies to capture the knowledge in clients heads, not just their own. One million heads are better than one – there’s a wealth of information out there that can be shared through the corporate website or through a premium extranet environment which allows you to control who sees what. Microsoft have a vast knowledge base incorporating forums and blogs that serve the entire partner and customer community, cross referenced by product, campaign and resources. Similarly Intranet DASHBOARD has a support community site supplemented by premium forums for clients.

Use forums and secure web pages to build trust through premium content devoted to your valued partners or clients in return for their participation as in our earlier example from Motorola.

The world is changing and corporations need to move with it! Open the lines of communication and knowledge-sharing is a sensible way through controlled flexibility in the land of Intranet 2.0. Collaborative tools like Wiki’s , FAQs, Blogs, Forums and RSS do have a legitimate role to play behind the firewall.

Excerpts published in KM Review Vol 9, Issue 4 Sept/Oct 2006

¹ http://billives.typepad.com/portals_and_km/2006/06/many_wikis_work.html
² http://danbricklin.com/podcast.html#danbcast-2006-03-23-18-39-40

Speaking at Key Forum’s Managing and Maintaining a Decentralized Intranet Conference, Select Australasia’s web administrator, Ms Caralyne Blackburn told delegates: “We needed a scalable intranet which could be updated with a minimum of fuss. It had to be something that each of our service departments, and the individual brands could use – and more importantly, update and develop themselves as required.

Intranet DASHBOARD was adopted by Select Australasia in April 2005 as part of their decentralized intranet strategy. Select’s business goal was to increase their internal communications and build a stronger sense of community. This has been achieved by using Intranet DASHBOARD as the solution for their intranet platform. iD delivers the infrastructure for building, creating and administrating an intranet as well as over 40 immediately deployable tools and applications.

“With Intranet DASHBOARD we can quickly and simply add new sub sites – for new brands or departments and assign them to the ‘real’ owners of the content. This has offered controlled flexibility in being able to assign people to areas of content, locking down certain parts of the layout to create a consistent style. Authors now have the flexibility to change the sites enough to appeal to their audience and create a feeling of ownership,” stated Ms Blackburn in her presentation.

IT Managers and CIOs are realizing that their team doesn’t have to do it all when it comes to the uploading of content and day-to-day management of the intranet. Organizations are adopting a decentralized model for their intranet in which each department, or publisher, owns the content and understands the message rather than passing it onto the IT department to do for them. This is how organizations such as Select Australasia, IOOF, Shell, and Quiksilver continue to create buy in from their staff, and in turn increase the productivity of each department.

In order for an intranet project to succeed in the longer term it is imperative that a holistic knowledge management strategy be put into place from the outset. We found that 83% of the organizations surveyed are using iD to facilitate their knowledge management strategy through tools such as Document Manager, Content Publisher, Project Space, Forums, News and Polls.

The new features are Language Localisation, which allows multiple language settings and customisation of system messages to suit an audience, and Contact Manager which assists the management, maintenance and sharing of contacts, including adding new contacts and details via SMS.

The software is a comprehensive content publishing system, enabling non-technical staff to create and manage intranet sites with ease.

“We have committed ourselves to creating software that truly enhances and reflects the business of our clients,” said Campbell Dobbin, CEO of Intranet DASHBOARD. “With our new applications and enhancements, Intranet DASHBOARD will allow our clients to deliver further communication and knowledge management benefits to their employees, and business partners through the extranet functions.”

Intranet DASHBOARD was chosen as V/Line’s portal software to communicate to the general public information on timetables, fares, events and destinations that benefit both Victorian tourism and the community as whole.

“V/Line adopted Intranet DASHBOARD as a customer facing portal, to utilize the robust tools and applications available within the Intranet DASHBOARD solution. V/Line,” said Campbell Dobbin CEO of The ADWEB Agency. “It is a testament to the flexibility of Intranet DASHBOARD to be used as an intranet, extranet or portal solution.”

Intranet DASHBOARD, comprises of 39 tools and applications including document and content management tools in addition to business and collaborative tools to enhance communication.

The ADWEB Agency, creators of software solution, Intranet DASHBOARD, has set up a new partner program to attract resellers.

Campbell Dobbin, chief executive at ADWEB, said the Melbourne-based ISV had five resellers in Australia but sought about 15 or 20 in each state.

“We’ve put together a pretty good offering that we think will give many different types of consultancies of all different sizes an opportunity to make a few dollars,” he said.

Dobbin said ADWEB’s new partner program had a “massive” lead generation program fed by advertising across a variety of media, including search engine giant Google.

ADWEB also promised a 30 percent commission on software licensed through its own software assurance program, Dobbin said.

Resellers could push ADWEB’s single offering, Intranet DASHBOARD, to companies with 20 to 200 users or large organisations. They could then create their own ongoing services around the dashboard software, which had 34 in-built tools and applications, he said.

However, a statement released by ADWEB noted that Intranet DASHBOARD retails for $995 per license, with Enterprise 100 and 1000 versions starting from $87,000.

Dobbin claimed that significant cost savings were possible, making the product worthwhile even for SMBs.

The dashboard operated virtually straight out of the box, taking 15 minutes to set up as opposed to the many hours needed for some rival dashboards, he claimed.

But Dobbin said the varied functionality possible for the one price meant different revenue streams could be built around the dashboard, based on customer needs.

“[For example] they can on-sell their own training and support,” Dobbin said.

ADWEB boasted 22 resellers worldwide. “What we’ve actually found is that of these existing resellers around the world, regardless what country they’re in, resellers have found the same changes and issues in their own client base,” Dobbin said.

Intranet DASHBOARD users included oil giant Shell, which Dobbin said had a massive intranet for its thousands of staff, and local HR firm network Select Australasia, a company with 600 staff.

In a roll-out that began last year, Shell installed Intranet DASHBOARD, a Microsoft .NET-based product developed in by software firm The ADWEB Agency.

Intranet DASHBOARD allowed Shell to cut its web server databases from 140 to a single Microsoft SQL Server database. Deployment was swift, with the product rolled out to 8000 employees in 20 countries in a single day, and 30,000 staff in a week.

The Shell IT Communications Director says one of the key attractions for Shell was that the product needed no add-ons. “Often you get the engine but not the body or the wheels,” he says. “This product came with a suite of ready-to-use applications, as well as lots of templates and wizard-driven stuff.”

The simplification of internet content creation allowed Shell to cut back on the use of third-party contractors, which together with cuts in infrastructure, hosting and support delivered an estimated saving of 50 per cent.

“Intranet DASHBOARD is a total and complete Intranet Management Solution – an outstanding piece of software that rivals commercial offerings from leaders such as Microsoft, Vignette, Plumtree & IBM,” said Campbell Dobbin, Director of Intranet DASHBOARD. “Initial demand and feedback for Intranet DASHBOARD has been overwhelmingly positive. Industry experts have commented that it is a unique and an incomparable solution as it consolidates and delivers what a number of different pieces of software would otherwise have been required to do.”
Intranet DASHBOARD enables organizations to quickly realize business value by streamlining the creation, management and deployment of their Intranet; enabling them to provide a highly productive, tailored experience to their employees in Real Time. Intranet DASHBOARD comes complete with a suite of tools and applications which are immediately deployable – out of the box.

Developed using the latest Microsoft .NET framework, Intranet DASHBOARD sets a new technological standard in Intranet management solutions, Intranet DASHBOARD has been developed using a multi-tiered object-oriented architecture which helps make it “future-proof” and easily scalable.

We are currently installing our first global rollout of Intranet DASHBOARD for a prominent multinational energy company.