An intranet is a companys' own private website. It is a confidential business network that uses the same underlying structure and network protocols as the internet but is protected from access by unauthorized users. Intranets enhance existing communication between employees and provide a common knowledge base and storage area for everyone in your business. They also provide users with easy access to company data, systems and email from their desktops. Because intranets are secure and easily accessible via the internet, they enable staff to do work from any location simply by using a web browser. This can help small businesses to be flexible and control office overheads by allowing employees to work from almost any location, including their home and customer sites.

The Adaxa Suite has integrated relevant components of the eXo Platform to enable users to create and manage their own intranet. Set out below are some examples of the type of content, productivity improvements and benefits of deploying an intranet.

Examples of content

Types of content found on intranets:

• administrative - calendars, emergency procedures, meeting room bookings, procedure manuals and membership of internal committees and groups
• corporate - business plans, client/customer lists, document templates, branding guidelines, mission statements, press coverage and staff newsletters
• financial - annual reports and organizational performance
• IT - virus alerts, tips on dealing with problems with hardware, software and networks, policies on corporate use of email and internet access and a list of online training courses and support
• marketing - competitive intelligence with links to competitor websites, corporate brochures, latest marketing initiatives, press releases, presentations
• human resources - appraisal procedures and schedules, employee policies, expenses forms and annual leave requests, staff discount schemes, new vacancies
• individual projects - current project details, team contact information, project management information, project documents, time and expense reporting
• external information resources - route planning and mapping sites, industry organizations, research sites and search engines

Productivity improvements

Your business' efficiency can be improved by using your intranet for:

• publishing - delivering information and business news as directories and web documents
• document management - viewing, printing and working collaboratively on office documents such as spreadsheets
• training - accessing and delivering various types of e-learning to the user's desktop
• workflow - automating a range of administrative processes
• front-end to corporate systems - providing a common interface to corporate databases and business information systems
• email - integrating intranet content with email services so that information can be distributed effectively

Intranet benefits

The main benefits of an intranet are:

• better internal communications - corporate information can be stored centrally and accessed at any time
• sharing of resources and best practice - a virtual community can be created to facilitate information sharing and collaborative working
• improved customer service - better access to accurate and consistent information by your staff leads to enhanced levels of customer service
• reduction in paperwork - forms can be accessed and completed on the desktop, and then forwarded as appropriate for approval, without ever having to be printed out, and with the benefit of an audit trail

It is a good idea to give your intranet a different image and structure from your customer-facing website. This will help to give your internal communications their own identity and prevent employees confusing internal and external information.

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