Total Computers

Bringing organisational wide information, resources, and news into a central space for the benefit of all staff – SharePoint Intranet.

Business Requirements:

While this solution worked for departments, it meant that the wider business was finding it difficult to traverse these areas to retrieve and find organisational relevant information. With company news managed in email and Teams, communications were also lost in the stream of daily emails and Teams chat.  Total Computers knew that SharePoint had the ability to support an intranet solution that would facilitate a fully interactive communications experience for the whole business. This would bring organisational wide information, resources, and news into a central space for the benefit of all staff – SharePoint Intranet.

Solution: (built using SharePoint)

Total Computers have collaborated with OfficeLabs before to utilise our specialist expertise in SharePoint intranet solutions, and contacted us with their initial wireframe so that we could guide on the best way forward.  

After consultation we supplied a proposal outlining a SharePoint Intranet that would also utilise Microsoft 365 features to expand the overall solutions capabilities. 

Our proposal was accepted, and we embarked on a 3-month project to build an Intranet that would encompass everything SharePoint has to offer; metadata, lists, document libraries and pages, expanded out into Microsoft features including Yammer, Delve, Bookings, Forms, and Power Automation. A solution that would bring every resource to the forefront, filtered by departments and job roles to create targeted dynamic content displays. 

Implementation:

Based upon the proposal, we conducted workshops with key stakeholders to better understand how the solution could benefit and improve the surfacing of information for each department to the wider organisation. From these workshops we rebuilt and expanded the wireframe to match and underpin the defined objectives, building pilot examples for user testing and concept validation.  

SharePoint: Using the information obtained through the workshops and wireframe we built an intranet hub, applying company branding via theming to facilitate a consistent look and feel within the solution. SharePoint lists were used to build comprehensive gallery views of department information that would help inform the wider organisation. Metadata and Audience tools were used to surface meaningful content to the right people based on department or job type, building a data web that could be accessed and viewed from multiple relatable reference points, connecting people with ease to the right content. 

The desired business outcomes included removing information silos, employees felt empowered with the ability to navigate and now visualise a company data structure from a new single navigational point. This in turn facilitated a simplified resource sharing solution that could be used across the business. Staff training enabled a more positive approach towards the system changes. The solution was simple, complementary with the business culture and accessible to all.

OfficeLabs then looked to integrating Microsoft 365 features.  

Yammer: The first was a Yammer integration to enable live organisational wide community feeds that supported topic driven engagement and dialog.  

MS Forms: Merging Forms into SharePoint pages and creating links to forms enabled processes to be linked into and from the intranet, helping to support business standardisation. 

MS Bookings: Linking MS bookings into the SharePoint event webpart enabled staff to interact and book onto internal events and courses arranged within the organisation, creating a simpler and more automated events experience for the organisers and staff.  

Delve: Utilising the People webpart facilitated direct views to individual Delve pages, enabling staff the ability to easily learn more about the people that made up their wider organisation. 

Power Automation: To remove manual repetitive administrative processes across the intranet solution, creating a simpler and consistent single communication portal, Power Automate was applied. 

Prior to going live with the solution, OfficeLabs supplied tailored training to key stakeholders and Power Users on all the tools and processes required to maintain and support the solution. OfficeLabs directed Total Computers in building a roadmap to help underpin the continued development and growth of the solution in parallel with the companies own forward direction.

Conclusion:

Utilising all that SharePoint has to offer with Microsoft 365 features enabled Total Computers to create a comprehensive intranet that integrated seamlessly with their Microsoft 365 Tenancy. Total Computers were able to use their current Microsoft 365 licensing to support all the tools outlined in the solution above, enabling a full functionality adoption without any extra licensing costs. The solution was able to replace other platforms in creating a central portal of all organisational related resources, enabling staff a single-entry point that could navigate them across all news content, resources, processes, department, and staff structures to obtain a clear and detailed picture of the organisation’s informational landscape and ethos. Also due to the analytical functions within the solution Total Computers leadership were then able to see and understand their staff’s engagement with the new platform. 

Client feedback:

“Office Labs were the perfect partner to work with on this project. With their infinite knowledge, experience, and patience we were able to launch an intranet to our business keeping our colleagues informed and engaged. Feedback from our users has been great and we will no doubt work with Office Labs in the future to further develop this SharePoint platform. – Amy Lewcock, Communications Manager and Project Lead 

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