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ClearBoxCONSULTINGI N T R A N E T S | C O L L A B O R A T I O N | S H A R E P O I N T

SHAREPOINT INTRANETS IN-A-BOX

The definitive guide to turnkey solutions2019EDITION

clearbox.co.uk

EXECUTIVESUMMARY

ClearBox Consulting Ltd.Treliske HouseQueens Park Road, ChesterUnited Kingdom, CH4 7AD

© Copyright ClearBox Consulting Ltd. 2018, all rights reserved. Screenshots used by permission from the vendors. ClearBox Consulting Ltd. UK reg. no. 06030251

V4.1.0 December 2018

Usage LicenseIn all cases, the contents of this report may not be shared outside of your organisation (including with any agencies, partners, customers, prospects, or suppliers), in whole or in part in any physical or digital format without written permission from ClearBox Consulting Ltd. Sharing of short sections of text with attribution in accordance with standard copyright fair use for review purposes is permitted, but this excludes scores, tables, and screenshots.

The content may be shared inside your organisation subject to the following conditions:

In all cases, the contents of this report may not be shared outside of your organisation (including with any agencies, partners, customers, prospects, or suppliers), in whole or in part in any physical or digital format without written permission from ClearBox Consulting Ltd. Sharing of short sections of text with attribution in accordance with standard copyright fair use for review purposes is permitted, but this excludes scores, tables, and screenshots.

The content may be shared inside your organisation subject to the following conditions:

• If you have purchased this report as an ‘End User’* then you are licensed to share it either digitally or in print inside your organisation with other employees (and direct contractors) of the same organisation. You may make the report available on your internal file server or intranet. Re-use of paragraphs and tables for internal reports in accordance with standard copyright fair use is permitted, provided it is with attribution to ClearBox Consulting www.clearbox.co.uk.

• If you have purchased this report as a ‘Consultant or Vendor’** then you are licensed to share up to five (5) copies, either digitally or in print, with your immediate internal team. No more than five copies should exist within your organisation, and it may not be made accessible via a file share or your intranet. If wider access is needed, then please contact ClearBox Consulting for an extended licence agreement.

• If you have received this report as a complimentary review copy, then the licence is for your personal use only and it may not be shared with any other person.

Contact:

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@ clearbox.co.uk

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*End Users. End users are considered to be professionals responsible for their organisation’s own internal systems and will not provide services, advice, or products to other organisations on any matter related to the content of this report. Examples include, but are not limited to: IT Manager, IT Director, Intranet Manager, Internal Communications Specialist.

**Consultant or Vendor. Consultants or Vendors are any business that involves providing systems, advice, or services to other organisations on any matter related to the content of this report. Examples include, but are not limited to: Sales manager, Account Manager, Business Development Manager, Product Manager, Consultant, Communications Agency, Customer Success Manager.

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SHAREPOINT INTRANETS IN-A-BOX REPORT 2018

This report really helped me shortlist the vendors to speak to. It saved me at least 4 weeks of studying the market. If you are looking for a ‘buy not build’ solution, read this report first.— Malou Wezemael, Digital Workplace Manager at EDF Luminus, Belgium

…a tremendously valuable and well-written report. It provides a clear, objective and unbiased assessment of a range of options for implementing world class intranets…— Andrew Wright, intranet manager and founder of the Worldwide Intranet Challenge, via LinkedIn

If you are in the position of looking at an intranet in a box product to purchase, I would highly recommend investing in this report to save you the pain later on.— Jeremy Thake, Senior Product (Office 365) Marketing Manager, Microsoft, via Medium

A superb achievement in both scope and quality….This is a report that just shouts ‘Read Me!’

Each vendor is profiled in a well structured format together with an assessment of its product that could only have been carried out by a team that had substantial experience in SharePoint technology and implementation together with a deep understanding of what users expect an intranet to be able to deliver..— Martin White, author of ‘The intranet Management Handbook’ and ‘Enterprise Search’, of Intranet Focus

Reviews of the full report

Order and download the full report instantly You can download a company-wide license for the report as a PDF from clearbox.co.uk

THE FULL REPORT CONTAINS:

39 products reveiwed in depth, 56 prodoucts in all

Details and screenshots that go far deeper than the vendor websites

Commentary and analysis on what is good and what needs improving

Full comparison tables of features and costs

sharepoint@clearbox.co.uk

UK: +44 1244 458746

Our independent assessment of suitability across 8 scenarios

NEWS PUBLISHING

USER EXPERIENCE

SOCIAL & KNOWLEDGE

MANAGEMENT

SEARCH

ANALYTICS EMPLOYEE SERVICES

INTEGRATION WILDCARD

Contents2019

1 AKUMINA DIGITAL WORKPLACE Akumina 38

2 ATTOLLO The Attollo Group 54

3 BEEZY Beezy Inc. 69

4 BONZAI INTRANET Skyvera 88

5 CORE Bool by Sigma 103

6 EASYSHARE EasySharePoint 117

7 ELASTIC INTRANET Elastic Cloud Solutions 132

8 ELEVATEPOINT INTRANET PLATFORM ElevatePoint 145

9 FRESH Content and Code 159

10 FUSE Catapult Systems 172

11 GO INTRANET ACCELERATOR Habanero 183

12 HADRON Cloud2 195

13 HOOZIN Hoozin 211

14 HUBFLY Hubfly Software Technologies 225

15 INJIO WebVine 236

16 INTRAACTIVE ProActive 248

17 INTRANETPRO Codesigned 265

18 INVOLV Cognit 278

19 KASAMA Circle T Industries 291

20 KIRA CompanyNet 304

21 LS INTRANET Lizard Soft 318

22 MATCHPOINT CYCL 331

23 MERCURY Intelligent Decisioning 344

24 MESH Acuvate Software 358

25 MOZZAIK365 Infeeny 371

INTRODUCTION TO THE 2019 EDITION 5

USING THIS REPORT 8

PRODUCT REVIEWS 10

HOW WE EVALUATED 13

PRODUCT COMPARISON SUMMARY 16

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 34

ABOUT CLEARBOX CONSULTING 36

Full Reviews

26 NEON CIRCLE LiveTiles 384

27 OMNIA INTRANET Precio Fishbone 399

28 ONEWINDOW WORKPLACE Withum 412

29 POWELL 365 Powell Software 425

30 RISE Perficient 443

31 SAKETA INTRANET SUITE Saketa 458

32 SP INTRANET PORTAL SP Marketplace 472

33 SPARROW MODERN WORKPLACE DevFacto Technologies 485

34 SWISSCOM SHARESPACE Swisscom 499

35 THE HUB AMT Evolve 514

36 UNILY Unily 525

37 VALO INTRANET Blue Meteorite 542

38 WIZDOM Wizdom 558

39 XREACH.INTRANET Implexis 572

Short product listings 582

40 ATTINI Attini 584

41 DEBBLE Debble 487

42 DIGGSPACE Create IT 590

43 DOCK INTRANET PORTAL Dock 365 of Global Infonet 593

44 ENTREE Meetroo 596

45 ESSENTIALS INTRANET ClearPeople 598

46 INSTANT INTRANET Rapid Circle 601

47 INTRANET KIT Covenant Technology Partners 604

48 ONESOURCE INTRANET ACCELERATOR Micro Focus 607

49 ORIGAMI CONNECT Sharemuch Software 609

50 PEOPLEINTRANET PeopleNet 612

51 ROOT SHAREPOINT INTRANET PORTAL MessageOps 614

52 SEAMLESS AskMeWhy 616

53 SIMPLYSO SimplySo 619

54 SPROKET Sope Web Technologies 621

55 TITAN Adapt Software 624

56 XINGATE X3.0 XSPERA 627

Available in full report

INTRODUCTION

EXPLANATION OF SCORES

SCORE WHAT THIS MEANS

Product performs this scenario exceptionally well

Performs well on most of the scenario, but with a few limitations

Delivers some parts of the scenario only

Very few enhancements over standard SharePoint

Relies on standard SharePoint features

N/A The product does not attempt to address this scenario, and nor does SharePoint

Partial ratings indicate a potential capability achievable with extra effort and/or costs. The example shown left indicates a score of 2 for the base product but 3 with an optional add-on.

EXPLANATION OF PRICING

PRICE BAND

500 Users

5,000 Users

50,000 Users

Very few vendors are willing to publicly show pricing for their products, as there are many configuration dependencies, potential volume and sector discounts to consider.

To help you group products by price range, we asked each vendor to quote a list price for 500, 5,000 and 50,000 users over three years, with only the basic services needed to install the system. Not all vendors supply to 50,000 users, and some declined to give a figure, so this is indicated as ‘N/A’ (not available).

We picked three years as a realistic lifecycle for an intranet, and also to smooth out comparisons between per user per month pricing models and those that have a high initial fee but then low ongoing maintenance costs.

Where vendors had multiple price options, we have matched the pricing to the version we reviewed and use the ‘potential’ score to show what could be achieved at a higher price point (see the explanation of scoring symbols, above).

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Introduction to the 2019 edition

The intranet in-a-box market has seen some dynamic growth and changes through 2018. We hope you find our reviews a valuable tool to help you navigate to the best options.

Since our last report, Microsoft has made significant progress in enhancing the intranet capabilities of the standard SharePoint product, particularly through hub and communication sites. The introduction of the ‘modern’ user experience (UX) has also raised the bar. Both of these factors mean that the intranet in-a-box vendors that we cover have been compelled to update and enhance their products.

We see this as a positive thing for intranet managers: more of the SharePoint interface is easy to use, more flexible and mobile-friendly than we’ve ever had before. However, the complexity of Office 365 and the gaps and overlaps in functionality still leave much room for in-a-box products to add value. For on-premises customers the gap is wider still, even with SharePoint 2019.

For those launching an intranet on SharePoint, there are some hugely capable products out there. They simplify the experience for all employees, and for intranet and site managers they make previously complex tasks much more straightforward.

ENHANCEMENTS OVER OUR 2018 REPORTGiven Microsoft’s changes to SharePoint over the last year, we’ve substantially revised our evaluation criteria to ensure that products are keeping pace. Every vendor was asked to carry out a live demonstration of their product; we checked how they have embraced modern UX, how they align with hub and communication sites, and where they add value. Many scenarios have got tougher, resulting in a reduction in scoring for some products.

What’s new:

• 39 products reviewed in depth, 11 reviewed for the first time

• An expanded listings section with a further 17 products

• A ‘voice of the customer’ section, giving real-world feedback

• An explanation of what you get from standard SharePoint compared to add-on products

• Eight revised scenarios with new criteria for alignment with communication, hub sites and mod-ern UX

• More information on vendor profile and product architecture

• New ‘Intranet Choice’ categories – signposting for your shortlist

As always, our reviews are entirely vendor-neutral (nobody pays to be in the report; we don’t sell any products or accept referral fees). They are based on in-depth live demonstrations against the criteria we set and go through rigorous fact-checking.

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INTRODUCTION

MARKET TRENDSFour big trends struck us this year:

• light-and-lean philosophy

• language support

• digital workplace hubs

• some volatility in the market

Light-and-leanAs the base capabilities of SharePoint grow, we start to see a clearer branching in product philosophy. One response is to bulk up the add-on capabilities, often through a stand-alone cloud application that frees the product from some of SharePoint’s architectural constraints.

The other is the ‘light-and-lean’ model, that says “if Microsoft adds this feature, then we’ll embrace it rather than compete”. Some vendors even say that they will take away current features in their product once things on the Office 365 roadmap go live. Products taking this route include Infeeny, Mercury, Kira, SP Intranet Portal and OneWindow.

Light-and-lean reassures buyers that they won’t be paying twice for the same thing, and it gives the best chance of compatibility. However, it also means that users have to live with things that are sometimes mediocre.

Language SupportWe’re really glad to see how many vendors have thought through the needs of multilingual companies. It is one of the clearest gaps in SharePoint’s capabilities (yes, there is the ‘Variations’ feature, but if you’ve ever used it, you’ll know why there’s a big market for alternatives). Many

also make use of Microsoft’s cognitive services to generate a machine translation. The best offerings show the source and translation side-by-side to make it easy for translators to do a final polish (see IntraActive for a good example).

Digital Workplace HubsLet’s be clear: you can’t buy a digital workplace, it is a concept not a product. However, you can buy tools that go well beyond intranets in their scope and have the potential to be a hub or development platform for your digital workplace technology.

Complex companies, multinationals and those looking to integrate processes from outside the Microsoft world will particularly benefit from this. Products such as Akumina, Beezy and MatchPoint all offer tools to make it easy to produce a much more coherent employee experience as a result.

Market volatilityWe didn’t expect to see many new players in 2018, but we were wrong! Even as we go to press, there are products being launched. It makes sense where products bring an innovative approach (see our thoughts on Sparrow in the ‘Intranet Choice’ section), but those that

mostly offer a little branding and on top of Office 365 will find it hard to persuade buyers that SharePoint alone is not enough.

As an indicator of this stronger headwind, we note that some of the products we covered last year have either disappeared or consolidated. The necessary cost of updating to modern SharePoint will also make some vendors wonder if it is worth the effort. We try to help by setting out company scale and credentials, but as always, procurement departments should factor in financials and product roadmap before the contract stage.

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INTRODUCTION

What we’d like to see more ofAs you may expect for intranet products, most of them do a decent job of news publishing and making reference content (static pages) work well. But we do still see some persistent gaps:

Activity StreamsOne of the biggest gaps we see in the current employee experience offered by most digital workplaces is how fragmented and distracting it is to keep track of notifications (see ‘The future of the activity stream’). We want to know when we get new messages, comments, document updates, likes, approvals and so on. However, we don’t want them all with the same level of attention-grabbing, and we don’t want to monitor a dozen different locations. For a long time, the default approach was (and often still is) to use email. Teams offers some hope as an aggregation point, but Microsoft has never articulated a vision for this. Fresh, then, is commendable for its ‘Around me’ feature, but we’d like to see something more like Blink.

Social intranetsGiven the maturity of social intranets and the power of SharePoint alternatives like Thoughtfarmer, Iris, Oak and Interact we would expect better support for fully integrated social features across most products. Microsoft has left SharePoint-based intranets hanging, with Yammer’s weak integration leaving comments on news, videos and blogs fragmented. The rise of Teams, and functional overlap doesn’t help (see our article Microsoft is sending collaboration loopy). While some products do an excellent job of fixing this significant issue, we would like to see every vendor working to close this gap.

AnalyticsVery few products received full marks for analytics, even though we have kept the conditions for this scenario much the same for the last two years. We can understand that products pitched at large enterprises can assume a third-party tool might be used, but otherwise there is a notable gap between what SharePoint offers and what intranet managers need. This is exactly the sort of requirement an in-a-box product should cover. Some vendors have made good progress however, with Neon Circle and Powell 365 being good examples.

SearchWe were encouraged by some vendors working hard to improve the user’s search experience, mainly by thinking about search dialogues and results pages in a more creative way. Search is such a fundamental part of an intranet and we’d like to see all vendors, rather than just a few, focus on making intranet-specific improvements. Microsoft has indicated that it plans to make advances in 2019, so we hope this will lead to more attention across the industry.

Focus on employee experienceAlthough this report centres on intranets, we’re excited to see how these products are taking a broader, digital-workplace view. They are embracing the continuity between collaboration and communication and are running faster than Microsoft when it comes to delivering an integrated experience across the broad Office 365 toolset.

The great opportunity is that organisations have to spend less time on the mechanics of getting the platforms to work, freeing up resources to address pain points and needs from an employee perspective.

Sam Marshall, ClearBox Consulting, November 2018

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INTRODUCTION

Using this report

CHOOSING A PRODUCTThe target audience for this report is intranet managers and IT teams that are looking to understand the options and draw up a shortlist of potential vendors.

As an outline process, we recommend that before you look at products you need to be clear on your intranet strategy and have a prioritised set of high-level requirements. Ideally, these will define a small number of scenarios in detail (to give vendors context) and avoid a long list of features to check off. Establish what the essential non-functional requirements are early on too. Licensing model, hosting and language constraints might be non-negotiable.

Armed with these, use this report to shortlist vendors to speak to.

INTRANETSTRATEGY

REQUIREMENTPRIORITIES

MARKETEXPLORATION(THIS REPORT)

FORMAL RFPOR POC

INFORMALVENDORDEMOS

FINALSELECTION

We recommend building a dialogue with vendors rather than going straight in with a formal procurement process. An informal demonstration will help you to get to know the company as well as the product and help to narrow your shortlist down to a final three or four. You’ll get a much better response if you are open about this too.

The formal Request for Proposal (RFP) or Invitation to Tender (ITT) can be very time-consuming, not just for vendors but for purchasers too (another reason to shortlist).

As a minimum, you should ask for a demonstration linked to your requirement scenarios. A demo site that can be tested with your intranet users would be much better. Some companies, where there are more complex needs, will go through a proof of concept stage. Vendors will typically expect payment for at least some of their costs.

Your final choice may not be one that scores highest overall; the best value may be achieved by matching those who scored well on your priority scenarios and offer the right pricing, flexibility and support too.

INTRANET STRATEGY AND REQUIREMENTSYour intranet strategy needs to define the role of the intranet within the context of your whole digital workplace. What we mean by this is that there are multiple ways in which employee needs could be met for things like formal internal communication, team collaboration, access to services and so on. You need to decide which elements of these are best delivered by an intranet in your organisation and which will fall to other tools, even ones that might also be part of Office 365. It is an area that is getting trickier, and ClearBox often helps organisations define intranet and digital workplace strategies systematically.

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INTRODUCTION

Goals met byan intranet

Organisation Goals

Goals met by adigital workplace

Intranets only meet some digital workplace needs, and there may be multiple tools that would meet a requirement

Prioritising requirements is also essential. A simple MoSCoW (Must, Should, Could, Won’t) notation is fine. Use anything that helps you focus on what is essential and what is a ‘nice to have’ so that you don’t get swayed into buying a product that has an impressive feature list, but also a price tag for things you’ll never get to use.

NON-FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTSTechnical and operational constraints (‘non-functional requirements’) matter too. They may include compatibility with other IT systems you’re committed to, or the way in which your data is hosted.

The tables at the start of each vendor review will help you to eliminate vendors that don’t meet your basic criteria. However, we would encourage you to be as stringent in non-functional requirements as you are with the functional ones and not to second-guess implementation details too much. For example, ‘Does not change the master page’ is something we often see, but it would be better to ask the vendor how robust the user interface is to changes by Microsoft – several have found viable work-arounds.

CHOOSING A VENDORAlthough we primarily focus on product features, the relationship you will have with the vendor is also important. Sometimes compromising on features so you can work with somebody in your time zone can be a smart choice. There are notable clusters of vendors coming out of Australia, the Nordics, the UK and USA, but the value of having a relationship with a local supplier should not be under-estimated. Our summary tables indicate where vendors are based and the extent of their support and partnerships in other countries.

Some of the products have been around for several years, others are relatively new and evolving fast. The impact of this may not be so visible in the product per se but in how well the vendor has shifted from a project mind-set to a product support one. Each review includes details on update processes, the company background and their support arrangements.

Some of our clients worry about relying on these smaller vendors on top of any changes Microsoft might introduce, so we have indicated vendor profiles in the report. We have also indicated compatibility with different versions of SharePoint and with cloud-based options.

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INTRODUCTION

Summary of the product

Our view in a tweet

Overview of scores and pricing

Product ReviewsEach review contains the following sections.

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INTRODUCTION

Key strengths, improvements and considerations

Details of the company

Technical specifications and support

Voice of customer feedback

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INTRODUCTION

Scores for each scenario

Improvements needed and things to consider

The vendor’s roadmap.

Highlights and illustrations

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INTRODUCTION

How we evaluatedLIVE DEMONSTRATIONS

Each vendor was required to give a live demonstration of their product and show how it would fulfil the criteria in the evaluation scenarios described below. We made sure that what was demonstrated was available to buy (not a pre-release beta). We also asked whether what we were looking at were ready-made features or examples of customisation so that these could be reflected in the scoring.

By using scenarios, we can make cross-product comparisons and not be led into focusing only on the things the vendors want to show us. The scenarios reflect real needs we have seen with our clients and are mostly focused on business scenarios rather than technical specifications.

SCENARIO SCORINGWe gave a score out of four for how each product coped with our scenarios. To ensure consistency, each score was checked by three other reviewers and compared with how similar products were rated. If a better result could be achieved with additional product options or services, then we show this as a ‘potential score’ using one or more arrow icons.

Where on-premises and cloud/Office 365 versions of the product exist, we reviewed the cloud version and noted significant differences in the scoring comments table. If vendors have multiple tiers of product, our review is based on the features included at the price band shown in the tables.

This example indicates a score of 2 for the base product but a potential score of 3 with an optional add-on.

Note that when an intranet does not provide any capability for a scenario or any additional functionality above SharePoint – for example no additional analytics – this is recorded as ‘0’. If neither the product nor basic SharePoint has anything to offer, we show ‘N/A’ for ‘Not applicable’ in the scoring.

The scenarios are not intended to cover everything an intranet might do, but to be a representative sample. If we missed any real areas of strength, then vendors had a final ‘wildcard’ option to demonstrate this. We also concentrate on areas where SharePoint out-of-the-box has significant gaps. This is why we don’t ask about document-based collaboration: SharePoint on its own does this just fine already, so it wouldn’t differentiate between the options.

The eight scenarios selected are:

NO. SCENARIO NO. SCENARIO

1 NEWS PUBLISHING 5 ANALYTICS

2

USER EXPERIENCE 6 EMPLOYEE SERVICES

3SOCIAL AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

7 INTEGRATION

4 SEARCH 8 WILDCARD

Each of these scenarios is covered in more detail below.

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INTRODUCTION

VOICE OF CUSTOMERThe idea of the ‘voice of the customer’ is to get some real-world feedback about what it is like to live with the product and work with the vendor.

Vendors were asked to nominate two contacts which we then approached directly (i.e. vendors didn’t supply any text or take part in conversations). Secondly, we spoke to ClearBox’s own contacts where we knew they’d been using a product we are reviewing. Thirdly we put out a public appeal for feedback via a short survey. Responses are a combination of quotes from telephone interviews, email and survey responses. We then edited them down into our own commentary on what we heard.

Customers were asked:

1. What is best about the product?

2. What changes would you like to see?

3. How has your experience been of working with the vendors?

Of course, this is a small sample, and like any public reviews, readers should bear in mind that responses are likely to be skewed either by happy customers, or ones motivated to speak out because of a dissatisfaction. All the same, even happy customers tend to comment on what they’d like to add to a product, and this in itself is revealing.

VENDOR FACT CHECKVendors were given the opportunity to correct any factual inaccuracies in their review, but not to influence scores or opinions. They also answered a questionnaire about the key features of the product, technical requirements, their client support model and details on how the product can be launched within a business. This too was given a second check before going to press.

SHORT PRODUCT LISTINGSFor products that are very new or local to just one market, we opted for a different approach. We wanted to acknowledge that they are out there and there may well be circumstances where they should be on your shortlist.

For these products, we’ve included a screenshot and basic details. We give a viewpoint based on their materials but have not had a demonstration or allocated scores. These are listed in a separate section at the end of the report.

THE INEVITABLE CAVEAT AND DISCLAIMER At the time of writing (September-November 2018) all details were accurate as far as we know. We asked vendors to check the details in our reviews but ultimately they are independent write-ups with our own opinions. Vendors are working hard to improve these products and it may also be that details have changed by the time you read this, so please confirm any details with them before making a final purchasing decision.

In most cases screenshots have been provided by the vendors and may be subject to copyright.

The opinions and information in this report is for guidance only. Any decision around acquiring software should be considered carefully with reference to your intranet strategy, organisational needs, risks and technology landscape. Don’t be afraid to ask us to help, we’re always happy to have a no-obligation introductory chat.

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INTRODUCTION

OUR VENDOR NEUTRAL POLICYAs a consultancy, we think it is essential that we act with our client’s interests foremost, so ClearBox has a strict vendor-neutral policy. This means that we do not enter into any agreements with vendors that would bias our recommendations to clients. No vendor has paid any money to be in this report. We don’t take payments for referrals or to write reviews. We don’t sell any software or licenses. We only write the reviews we want to, and we fund them ourselves (including all the work that went into this report).

This doesn’t mean that we won’t talk to vendors though: we are keen to keep up to date with developments in the intranet and digital workplace field and enjoy a good relationship with many of the companies involved in this report; we thank them for their time and co-operation in putting it together.

WHAT ABOUT NON-SHAREPOINT SOLUTIONS?There are many good intranet platforms other than SharePoint available. Typically, we find they trade flexibility and scope for ease of deployment and ongoing ownership. Usually this is a fair trade off, but it is important to know what you need from an intranet. Our Strategy Consulting services can help you determine this.

There isn’t really anything as comprehensive as SharePoint (let alone Office 365) if you need all the elements of publishing, collaboration, application development and system integration. However, we often encourage organisations to consider some of the non-SharePoint alternatives for low cost of ownership and a quick start.

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Continues in full version of the report

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INTRODUCTION

TECHNICAL DEPLOYMENT AND PRODUCT TYPESWe have indicated some of the basic requirements for each solution, such as SharePoint version compatibility, handling of updates, and hosting options. We would encourage buyer IT teams to talk though other standards and constraints with vendors, such as authentication needs and data sovereignty concerns with cloud solutions.

One aspect that may not be immediately apparent is the range of architectures used by the different products. Each of these options has implications when introduced to an existing company IT landscape, so IT departments need to be involved in the evaluation of any software. To help differentiate we have classified products into 4 broad categories:

Ready To Run Application Framework AcceleratorReady To Run Application Framework AcceleratorReady To Run Application Framework AcceleratorReady To Run Application Framework Accelerator

Ready to run: These are true products in the sense that they can be installed in a matter of hours. Any additional work is about configuring options to suit the client. Most are updated very regularly to ensure compatibility with SharePoint changes, but often there are stricter limits on what can be customised. SP Marketplace, Hubfly and EasyShare are good examples.

Framework: Some products are more like building blocks that require greater expertise to assemble. This is often where partner agencies come in to build intranets that can be more flexible for client needs, but with the option of little or no coding. Akumina, MatchPoint and Rise are good examples. Some, such as Bonzai and Valo, are both ready-to-run but can also be the base framework on which more customisation can be applied by the vendor.

Application: The majority of products work purely within SharePoint by customising web parts and style sheets. But some, such as Hoozin and Unily, have created quite separate applications that ‘talk’ to SharePoint data. This means they are less likely to be affected by Microsoft changes, but also less able to readily incorporate any enhancements Microsoft might make.

Accelerator: Accelerators are closest to the agency model; each intranet is built from a collection of ready-made components, but each delivery is bespoke. Accelerators can be highly configurable and often a good match if a very specific look and feel is needed. However, they take longer to deliver and may not be updated as often. Good examples are Go Intranet, OneWindow and Injio.

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Table in full version of the report

INTRODUCTION

WHO STOOD OUTEven when people see the summary tables in this report, they still ask us “who’s best?”. There is no single ‘best’ product: there is only a product that is the best match for your needs, and that’s why we really encourage potential buyers to do the groundwork on requirements and strategy first.

However, we appreciate that in a complex marketplace like this one, some signposting can be helpful. Based on our scenario scores, pricing, vendor track record and customer feedback, some products do stand out in our opinion, and deserve recognition for it. Here we present ones that we expect will often be on people’s shortlists.

Intranet Choice – Value

2019

ClearBox

INTRANET CHOICE – VALUE

It ’s easy to look at the ratings and forget that the price point for some of these products is a big factor. We see a very broad range of prices for what is on offer in our evaluations. We compared a product’s score against price band to get a sense of who offers the best deal (see chart for one example, but there are several permutations we factored in).

Overall, we feel that Involv stands out for an impressive combination of a well-rounded product, quick implementation and excellent value. For mid- to large-sized organisations Valo also has a lot to offer and plenty of flexibility to extend. Omnia scores very well on value too (see the Intranet Choice – Europe section).

We commend products that have a simple fixed-fee model, as these make a lot of sense both for small companies and larger organisations that want to fill a few gaps over standard SharePoint. For small to medium enterprises The Hub, Mozzaik365, and ElevatePoint also offer many of the essential features at a good price.

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Table in full version of the report

INTRODUCTION

option, reflected in its impressive client list, only its pricing makes us hesitate.

Intranet Choice – North America

2019

ClearBox

INTRANET CHOICE – NORTH AMERICA

We’ve always thought LiveTiles was an interesting product, but its building-blocks approach made it less of a pure-play in-a-box offering. Now they have added the Neon Circle layer on top, we feel this has more instant appeal, without losing any of the underlying flexibility.

Powell 365 also has a solid presence in North America, and their rich feature sets will meet many companies’ needs admirably.

An honourable mention goes to Bonzai; it has always scored well in our reviews and is well worth considering. But just for the moment we’d like to see how things play out under new ownership before putting it on our Intranet Choice list.

Intranet Choice – Digital Workplace

2019

ClearBox

INTRANET CHOICE – DIGITAL WORKPLACE

‘Digital Workplace’ is a new Intranet Choice category this year, reflecting a shift in emphasis from news and publishing towards a toolset that integrates across Office 365 and beyond. We don’t expect any tool to be a full digital workplace, but we looked for products that could help unify the various collaboration and communication tools offered by Microsoft. The best also understand that most organisations also use other suppliers, such as Salesforce, Workday and SAP.

MatchPoint and Akumina both fulfil this brief well. We particularly liked the way they demonstrated dashboards that pull together information from multiple sources. Beezy takes a somewhat different approach, integrating employee services from third-party systems with considerable flair. All three continue to offer very comprehensive tools for communicators too.

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INTRODUCTION

Intranet Choice – Innovation

2019

ClearBox

INTRANET CHOICE – INNOVATION

We felt it important to recognise vendors that are doing more than simply filling the gaps left by Microsoft with this category.

Sparrow, new to the report in 2019, stood out for its approach to frontline workers. Their mobile-first design has a consumer like approach that makes it highly accessible. They’ve put thought into how to onboard people without email addresses too, a key issue for many organisations.

Fresh by Content and Code showed us some forward-thinking concepts for how they simplify the user experience for Office 365. For example, their ‘Around me’ widget is everything the Office 365 waffle should be, turning it from a simple menu into a valuable dashboard.

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INTRODUCTION

SHAREPOINT INTRANETS – IN-A-BOX, OUT-OF-THE-BOX OR BUILD YOUR OWN?

You might have bought this report to see if it is worth buying one of these products compared to building it yourself or engaging an agency to do so. Increasingly the message from Microsoft implies that SharePoint offers all you need out-of-the box (to avoid confusion, we’ll call it ‘standard SharePoint’ from here on). We sometimes get asked to show how SharePoint alone would score in our scenarios, but by definition it would be zero as our scores are based on how well a product enhances the basic SharePoint offering.

We see numerous advantages to in-a-box solutions, and our recommendation is that standard SharePoint is capable of only simple intranet scenarios without some extra work on top. Microsoft has definitely closed the gap between common intranet requirements and their standard product though.

The short answer is that if you need multiple languages, on-premises support or consistent navigation across the entire intranet, then you need an in-a-box product (or very significant development time).

If you want close control over how and where news gets published, and personalisation of content, then you will also need more than the standard SharePoint offering. It will certainly be quicker to get up-and-running this way, and the costs may be comparable to paying an agency to configure standard SharePoint for you (despite the demos, it ’s not easy to plan an intranet at scale using hubs, communication sites and web parts).

In other cases, there are many things that in-a-box products offer that will make life easier (for example dedicated mobile apps, site governance, better people search). Still organisations with a simple structure and straightforward needs may conclude that standard SharePoint is good enough once the promised upgrades appear from Microsoft in 2019. We recommend you set up the empty sites and test the navigation and news process before making a decision.

The arguments in favour of an in-a-box productRange of features. With an in-a-box product critical gaps in SharePoint capabilities are already filled, such as intranet-wide menus, news management, personalisation and multiple languages. Many come with appealing enhancements including page layouts, site request governance, mobile news apps, flexible branding and a better search interface.

Speed of implementation. We see this as far the biggest win for going down the in-a-box route. Many products can be up and running in weeks, and even those with customisation often only take a few months. Compare this with relatively modest SharePoint intranet projects that typically take over eight months, and can even stretch into eighteen month projects. Choosing an in-a-box product means companies start to get a return on their investment much earlier.

Reduced project risk. It can be difficult and time-consuming to specify every intranet feature. It is much easier to see something ready-made and decide if it suits. So much effort goes into negotiating and correcting specifications for custom development that teams sometimes run out of momentum before they even get to the critical elements of content, adoption, governance and day to day support.

Reduced technical risk. Microsoft’s roadmap for SharePoint and Office 365 is ambitious and fast-moving. Any intranet built on SharePoint will need to be updated to keep in step with these changes. By buying a product, you are sharing the burden with many other customers of the vendor.

The arguments in favour of build-your-own Not everything comes out in favour of buying a ready-made product, however. We still see companies choosing to go their own way. Some of the common reasons are:

Cost. For large companies, the products that are based on a per-user-per-month model can become very expensive. Over five or even three years, it may work out cheaper to create your own solution,

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INTRODUCTION

especially if you have the skills in-house to do the development and support.

Flexibility. Some companies have clear and advanced visions for what the intranet should be. This is particularly true when it needs to play a specific role within a complex digital workplace. Although there are ‘toolkit ’ products that are very flexible, you can be more certain of getting exactly what you want by building it yourself.

Ownership and support. Most product vendors are operating on a small scale – they are not blue-chip suppliers like Oracle or Salesforce. There is a risk that vendors stop supporting the product or are just too small for your procurement standards. The support model gets more complex too when the buck can potentially be passed between client, vendor and Microsoft. Arguably, though, an agency-developed solution has the same risks, so this only really applies when in-house development is an option.

Compatibility. Nothing offers greater compatibility with SharePoint than using SharePoint alone. Some organisations feel that even if SharePoint can’t do what they want right now, they would rather live with that and wait for Microsoft to fix it. Using a light-and-lean product (see Introduction) in the interim can also be a valid strategy, as these tend to give access to new features as soon as Microsoft releases them too.

IN-A-BOX PRODUCTS BUILD IT YOURSELF

SPEED OF IMPLEMENTATION Very quick, potentially weeks Usually very slow, often 12 months or

more

INITIAL COST Can be very low for per user per month models

Nearly all development costs need to be covered up-front, but these can be low if sticking to standard SharePoint.

TOTAL COST OF OWNERSHIP

Various product pricing models available, smaller organisations are most likely to see a saving

Very large organisations may find building cheaper than per-user licensing

TECHNICAL RISK Vendors take on cost/risk of maintaining compatibility

Microsoft changes may add cost/issues after launch

PROJECT RISK Risk of unforeseen issues is relatively low

Increased costs and delays due to unforeseen issues are common

BUSINESS RISK

Vendors may stop supporting the productMany products pass data to vendor cloud services hosted abroad

You own the code so have full controlDesign can ensure full compliance with your security standards

FLEXIBILITY Varies by product, but not as good as build-it yourself

The main appeal of build-it-yourself is you can get exactly what you want

In-a-box or build your own intranet – pros and cons from a project perspective

The value-add of in-a-box productsUntil you get into the detail, it ’s not always easy to see what the added value of the products we review is. To help explain it, we’ve produced a couple of charts. The first is for pitching to your stakeholders. The second is for a more detailed analysis.

Our comparison is based on SharePoint Online with Office 365 using the modern features. If you’re using SharePoint classic (e.g. publishing sites) then the start point is much more basic and the need to do custom development is pretty much a given. The same applies to SharePoint 2016 or earlier. For SharePoint 2019, remember that hub site and Delve capabilities aren’t available.

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MICROSOFT SHAREPOINT AND OFFICE 365 ROADMAPWith every new SharePoint announcement, we get asked if this means the end for in-a-box products. Certainly, Microsoft’s extensive roadmap is keeping vendors on their toes, but we still see a healthy market for the next few years.

Microsoft has a track record of going broad but shallow: new features often look like they tick the boxes but soon run into scenarios that can’t be handled without technical knowledge or coding. That said, we do think vendors pitching to SMEs will have a harder time; it ’s not that their products aren’t good, but that explaining to a potential sponsor why an attractive communication site isn’t sufficient is much harder than when SharePoint always looked ghastly.

Some of the notable developments affecting intranets include communication sites; hub sites and the modern UX. One of the things we looked at in detail in the reviews is how well vendors are incorporating these into their own products.

On-premises users can also now benefit from the improved user interface, as SharePoint 2019 features the modern look across team sites and communication sites. However, it also significantly lags the cloud experience. For example, hub sites aren’t available on-premises and communities - the only social element – have been retired (‘deprecated’ to use the technical term).

Enhancements for news and navigationCommunication sites have been very well received, and hub sites have gained interest. Communication sites are ideal for single-topic page collections, such as news, events and images for a department. Hub sites pull together communication and team sites under one collection, and automatically aggregate changes such as news from the associated sites. Think for example, of a hub site for a national sales department and seven regional sales team sites associated with it. At the moment though, they have some frustrating limitations. Microsoft has said that nested hub sites – one of the most frequent requests – are ‘top of mind’ but has not put this on its formal roadmap. Many in-a-box products therefore act as a fully functional hub site alternative.

Microsoft has also said it plans to release a mega menu ability for hub and communication sites. This makes them more viable as an intranet home page but link maintenance is manual and the menu will not persist across sites unless it is a hub site.

Also coming is audience targeting. This lets you configure news so that it only appears for certain groups in your active directory. It is valuable when you only want segments of your employees to see something, for example if you have a different expenses policy in each country, you can promote it to members of the country group, but it will still appear to anyone in search.

What’s missing for communicators is a tool for creating a news centre. This is what many in-a-box products add: a single place to create news and then syndicate it across multiple delivery points based on user profiles. This makes it much easier to schedule and manage corporate communications. Microsoft has mentioned plans for ‘personalisation’ as well as targeting, but it is likely that it will still be a decentralised ‘publish anywhere and collate’ model, so more similar in feel to Yammer.

Also missing for multinational organisations is any way to manage content across languages. You can create sites in different languages, but there’s no sense that “Announcement ABC” in English is the same as “Anuncio ABC” in Spanish. The better in-a-box tools will take the English version, create a machine-translated draft, let you polish and approve it, then also alert you if the English version changes again.

Other enhancementsIf you’ve not looked recently, it ’s worth re-visiting SharePoint lists. They have become much more user-friendly. Promised improvements include the ability to cut and paste from Excel, drag columns to re-arrange, and add conditional formatting to cells, just like Excel.

Search is scheduled to be the focus of much attention in 2019. Microsoft has demonstrated much better type-ahead functionality, for example. At the moment, there are multiple search boxes across Office 365, meaning you get different results if you search from Office 365 home, SharePoint home, a communication site or Delve. We’re told that when ‘Microsoft Search’ replaces it, then this headache will go away. And of course, there will be AI pixie-dust.

Yammer results will finally appear in search too, though it seems still as a segregated ‘conversations’ search result, so there’s no absolute ranking between Yammer and page content, for example.

We do hope that these enhancements to search work as well as demonstrated, but even if they do they will still be behind the best of the in-a-box tools, particularly for people search.

SHAREPOINT FOR INTERNAL COMMUNICATORS

“The workshop was extremely helpful and informative. The feedback from the group has been very positive.”

– Simeon Lewis, Head of IT, WSPA International

“Very well done and enjoyable”

-Tom Colley - HSBC Internal Communications Exec

What participants say about ClearBox Workshops

BUSINESS-FOCUSED TRAINING THAT EXPLAINS THE ‘WHY’ PART OF SHAREPOINT

Our training is delivered in-house and tailored to meet your needs

The Trainer:

What You’ll learn:

Find Out More

OR

+44 1244 458746 | hello@clearbox.co.uk | ClearBox on Twitter

How leading organisations get the most

out of SharePoint for internal communications

Strategies for governing SharePoint and showing

business value

Effective ways to use SharePoint and Yammer for

engaging employees

Tactics for SharePoint adoption

Good practice and pitfalls when collaborating with

SharePoint

Simple ways to explain “what to use when”

Workshops are run by Sam Marshall, owner of ClearBox Consulting. He has specialised in intranets and the digital workplace for over 17 years, working with companies such as Unilever, AstraZeneca, AkzoNobel, BT, Sony, SABMiller and Rio Tinto. He is a regular columnist at CMSWire and is a regular keynote speaker at international conferences. In 2015 he was given the Intranet Now award for remarkable contribution to the intranet community.

Download the SharePoint for Internal

Communicators brochure

Contact us for Booking details

INTRODUCTION

AcknowledgementsReport Director and lead reviewer

Sam Marshall. Sam is the owner of ClearBox Consulting and has specialised in intranets and the digital workplace for over 19 years, working with companies such as AstraZeneca, Vodafone, Diageo, TUI Travel, Sony and GSK. 

His current activities focus on intranet and digital workplace strategy, and the business side of Office 365.

He is a regular keynote speaker at international conferences and was named a ‘Contributor of the year’ for his CMSWire column in 2015, 2016 and 2017. In 2015 Sam was given the Intranet Now award for ‘remarkable contribution to the intranet community’. Follow

him on @sammarshall

Reviewers

James Dellow is a freelance human-centred designer and a technology strategist, specialising in technologies that help people connect, communicate and collaborate with each other.

He brings more than a decade of experience working in intranet and knowledge management roles and as a consultant with a wide range of government, professional and blue-chip companies. James has helped clients with intranet vendor selection and has worked with SharePoint as a consultant advising on strategy, governance, information architecture and content management.

Wedge Black. Wedge is an Intranet Consultant at ClearBox and was an in-house regional and global intranet manager before becoming a consultant. He specialises in the user research necessary to build navigation, structure, and home pages that meet employee’s expectations. Content and internal communications will always be close to his heart, even as the intranet develops into a task-focused digital workplace.

Wedge is the founder of the Intranet Now conference, and tweets a lot about intranets - follow him on @Wedge.

Andrew Marr is an intranet and digital workplace consultant with over 15 years’ experience in digital business strategy and management practice. He has completed a wide range of digital workplace strategy, intranet management and technology vendor selection assignments for world-leading brands and government organisations. Coming from a practitioner background, Andrew was responsible for intranet strategy and development at international healthcare group Bupa and implemented pioneering social and collaboration applications during his time there.

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Chris Tubb is an independent digital workplace and intranet consultant based in the UK. He has consulted with dozens of organisations worldwide, in particular helping them with strategy, governance and measurement. Prior to being a consultant Chris was responsible for intranet strategy and architecture at France Telecom/Orange.

Guy Van Leemput is an independent intranet and digital workplace consultant based in Brussels. He has extensive intranet experience as a corporate intranet manager at financial network provider SWIFT and as an independent consultant to large and mid-sized organisations in the Benelux countries. Guy is the founder of ValueIntranet, helping organisations to create measurable value with their intranet and digital workplace projects.

Report Editing

Steve Bynghall is an independent consultant, researcher and writer specialising in knowledge management, intranets and the digital workplace. Steve works independently as well as through Step Two. He has written extensively through blogs, articles and books.

Following an MSc in Information Science from City University, Steve worked at accounting firm BDO LLP for over thirteen years, working in various knowledge roles. In 2010 he set up Two Hives Ltd and more recently Spark Trajectory Ltd, with Chris Tubb. Connect with Steve on Twitter at @bynghall.

Report Design

Paul B. Florescu is an experienced freelance graphic designer from East Europe, with a Bachelor degree in Computer and Fine Arts. He specialises in high-end layout design for print but also has good knowledge of UI/UX practices for web & mobile.

Over the last 10 years, he worked for big companies in the US and EU like The Epoch Times International, Shen Yun Performing Arts and EastSong Consulting. You can see a small selection of his work at www.behance.net/bogdanflorescu

VendorsWe are grateful to each vendor for their co-operation in demonstrating their products to us. The products we feature are a combination of companies we approached and ones that asked to be involved in this 2019 edition. If you’re the vendor of a product and would like to be included in the next version of this report, please get in touch.

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INTRODUCTION

About ClearBox ConsultingWHO WE ARE

ClearBox Consulting Ltd. is a specialist independent consultancy that believes in making the workplace a better and more productive experience. Our goal is to help organisations collaborate and communicate more effectively.

We specialise in intranets and the wider digital workplace, including internal communications, social media, knowledge management and collaboration tools. We understand technology, but we approach it from the people side first.

ClearBox is run by Sam Marshall, former Global Intranet Manager for Unilever, together with a network of associates that can be introduced as-needed. We all have hands-on experience of the realities of introducing change in organisations.

WHAT WE DOWe bring clarity to digital workplaces. Often our clients want to reinvigorate their intranets or introduce more collaborative ways of working. We help them develop and implement a strategy that supports their business goals but which also understands employee needs.

What makes us different is that all our consultants have first-hand experience of managing intranets, so we’re not just about the theory. Collectively we’ve worked on over 200 intranets, so we can help you plan effectively and anticipate any challenges.

We are also technology and vendor neutral: we don’t implement any specific tools or get fees for recommending them. That means we help our clients make choices with their business needs in mind.

CONSULTING FOR IN-A-BOX PRODUCT SELECTIONIf you need further help to choose the right product for your SharePoint intranet, then we can apply our extensive knowledge of the marketplace to meet your specific needs. Our consulting help can range from:

• A telephone advisory call if you want to sense-check your decision

• A one-day workshop to review requirements and explore options

• Detailed requirements discovery from stakeholders, employees and partners and then our recom-mendations on a shortlist

• Support for an end-to-end vendor selection process, from drafting a Request for Proposal though to vendor interviews and final selection.

Our other services include:

• Design of intranet and digital workplace strategy to directly support organisation goals

• SharePoint and Office 365 strategy, governance and adoption

• Workshops on SharePoint and Office 365 for internal communications, intranet governance and adoption

• Intranet design and usability

• Launch of intranet, social and collaboration tools to ensure strong adoption

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INTRODUCTION

ClearBox Consulting Ltd.Treliske HouseQueens Park Road, ChesterCH4 7AD United Kingdom

Contact: hello@clearbox.co.uk@ClearBoxclearbox.co.uk+44 1244 458746

WHO WE WORK WITHWe work with organisations that range from a few hundred employees to over 100,000, typically as partners to Communications, IT and HR functions. Our assignments have included projects with both profit and non-profit sectors, including AstraZeneca, AkzoNobel, Bupa, Diageo, GSK, Ofgem, Rio Tinto, RSPB, Sony TUI Travel, Unilever Vodafone and Wessex Water.

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