Intranet And Extranet

Building business to business solutions

Introduction

We have been developing our intranet expertise since 1997, when we were commissioned to provide the intranet for the London Borough of Southwark. The brief for this project was to provide an accessible framework for council employees to find data on a variety of subjects.

The server platform chosen was Microsoft Windows NT and the client platform was Windows 3.11 through Windows 95 running Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0.

We were required to:

• build the entire structure for the intranet using the available technology
• provide an accessible publishing medium

Since then our knowledge and skills have increased and our methods developed even further. We now confidently advise companies on the best knowledge management strategy and provide a tailored but tried and tested solution.

Aims

Our philosophy for any successful implementation is to ensure that

• Documents are easy to publish for all.
• Documents are published in a controlled way.
• The intranet is maintenance free wherever possible.
• Data is easy to find.

These overriding principles ensure that the content providers are encouraged to publish data quickly and easily whilst the system indexes the data consistently and in the most appropriate way for successful searching.

Publishing

The heart of any successful Intranet or Knowledge Base system is the quality and quantity of the information provided. Any successful system should provide publishing tools that are both controlled and inclusive.

In the case of the London Borough of Southwark this was to be achieved using the Microsoft Word program that the authors were already familiar with.

Publishing privileges

Publishing privileges allow Authors publishing rights only to departmental areas where they have expertise or authority to comment. This ensures that the Intranet information is relevant and accurate in key areas. The Wizard checks the underlying database for the Authors privileges and only allows the upload process to occur in areas where the Author has valid current rights.

Each Author is assigned publishing privileges by the administrator. These can be revoked quickly at any time so that disgruntled employees are not allowed to publish defamatory remarks!

Navigation

The most important aspect of intranet design is to ensure that it is:

• stylish
• fast
• up to date

Our implementations do all of this and more. Navigation is created "on the fly", so that as new documents are added no one needs to create buttons or icons- improving speed and reducing maintenance.

Security

When sensitive company information is involved security is paramount. In all of our installations we ensure that only those allowed to see data will do so. Within any organisation there are levels of permissions which are set by the Intranet Administrator using the ADMIN CONSOLE.

The Intranet Administrator controls which documents are accessible to which people. For example, engineers will have different privileges than salesmen or agents- they can access complex schematics or build documentation, whilst agents can view commercial information. Permissions are granted using Web based forms, meaning most of the main requirements can by changed even if the Administrator is away from the server (out of the office, on a business trip etc).

Site map

A popular option in our intranet design is the site map. This automatically generates a complete picture of all of the directory structures on the intranet. It ensures that the navigation is always 100% up to date and navigable and any topic heading is only a mouse click away.

Advanced searching

Finding documents on an intranet can be very difficult on a poorly designed system. Our approach is to design the intranet to suit our clients- bringing the experience of our years in Internet technology to the development strategy.

Our intranet search facilities can be designed to suit the individual client needs. They will allow searches by:

• Author
• Published date
• File Size
• File Type
• Topic, sub-heading or category in specific directories.
• Using keywords, phrases or complex Boolean logic such as AND,OR,NOT etc.

Document feedback

Each document has its own feedback form which informs the author or the administrator of any amendments, corrections or comments that the readers think would make the data better. The form automatically adds the document reference to the e-mail messages.

Intranet look and feel

Although Authors often want to ensure their documents are distinctive, it is our philosophy to impose certain style constraints on documents published. This ensures that key information is in the same place each time, and font styles and settings are not different all over the intranet. This allows users a much easier read as they look for data.

Phone lists

Searchable telephone lists are always useful and they are popular additions. An intranet based list will cut the printing costs of keeping paper-based lists up to date, and a phone list with searchable indexes will increase efficiency.

What's new?

All of the latest additions to the intranet can be viewed on an automatically generated page. The settings for this page can be adjusted but typically the page will show links to data added within the last 7 or 14 days. This option can be enhanced to allow for automatic e-mail to be sent to a predefined list each time data is added in a subject area the reader is interested in.

Monitoring and measuring

Monitoring the usage of the intranet and the hardware performance is an essential way of deciding on enhancements or additions. We have several modules that can record who views what, and our modular approach to design means that we can easily add any extra functions you require.

Administrator

The administrator or administrators have a customised area where they can determine the layout of the intranet and the privileges of MEMBERS and AUTHORS.

Author administration

The administrator can choose who publishes what and where the administrator can choose who publishes what and where by enabling authors from a central console. With a specially constructed site map the administrator can decide the publishing permissions of an individual down to a single sub directory. These permissions can be temporarily disabled without destroying the user profile. This is especially useful during background server administration tasks.

Directory administration

Only the intranet administrator is allowed to add new directories and sub directories to the intranet. This ensures a consistent set of rules are followed. The addition of new directories is normally part of a procedure specifying the needs of the business and with the overall business plan in mind.

Membership administration

Since membership of the intranet may cover a diverse range of employees, the permissions of off site workers and the administration of these is a key area. Each member is only allowed to be a part of a discreet user group or groups that are able to browse certain information. Generally non-direct employees are not allowed to browse sensitive company information, but they are encouraged to take on board certain knowledge articles.

The member will be presented with a personalised view of the intranet so that they don't even know such articles exist. These articles do not show up in the search results of members with reduced privileges.

Membership administration can be revoked very quickly for similar reasons to the Author administration.

CD-ROM option

In a recent project we have developed a utility that allows the administrator to copy certain selected files from the intranet directly onto a CD ROM. This is done in such a way that the data and graphics remained navigable, from an index page listing links to all of the titles on the disk.

This means that the data on the intranet can be disseminated to employees and customers who either:

• Have no Internet connection, or
• Have very low privileges, for example potential clients or those seeking general information.