Creating Well Designed Intranet Sites in SharePoint OnlineJohn Ross & Randy DrisgillSharePoint MVPsRackspace Services for SharePoint

SPC015

Building Intranets is Easy…right?Building Intranets is easy….right?

What’s this session all about?What are we going to talk about?

• The recipe for building an effective intranet

• SharePoint Online provides a great platform for intranets!

• Branding & Design Lead – Rackspace Hosting• Author

• Coming Soon – SharePoint 2013 Branding & UI Design• http://bit.ly/SP2013Branding

• Professional SharePoint 2010 Branding• http://bit.ly/sp2010-brandingbook

• Blog:• http://blog.drisgill.com

• Twitter:• http://twitter.com/Drisgill

• Orlando, FL

Randy Drisgill

• Custom Solutions Lead at Rackspace Hosting• Author

• Coming Soon – SharePoint 2013 Branding & UI Design• http://bit.ly/SP2013Branding

• Professional SharePoint 2010 Branding• http://bit.ly/sp2010-brandingbook

• Blog:• http://johnrossjr.wordpress.com/

• Twitter:• http://twitter.com/johnrossjr

• Orlando, FL

John Ross

• Office 365 / SharePoint Online Overview• Planning for an Intranet on SharePoint Online

• Vision and Goals• Information Architecture

• Common Intranet Scenarios• Custom Branding• Creating Collaboration Sites• Creating a Company Portal

What are we going to talk about?

• Small Business Plan (P Plan)• Designed for up to 25 employees who want:• One site collection for collaboration• One Public web site automatically created at the root

• Enterprise Plans (E Plans)• Full access to create SharePoint 2013 site collections• Can turn on the publishing features• One Public web site collection can be created

What flavor of SharePoint comes with Office 365?

Planning

• 62% of projects overrun on time• 49% of projects overrun on budget• 28% of organizations have experienced projects

that do not fit requirementsDynamic Markets Survey of 800 IT Managers (2007)

Think planning isn’t important?

• Project Management (54%)• Business (21%)• People (14%)• Method (8%)• Technical (3%)

IBM Systems Magazine 2/2012

Top 5 influences for project success/failure

Work Breakdown Structure

Planning

Branding

Other

Site Build/Configure

Migration

• Create your vision and goals• What do we hope to accomplish?• How will we know when we get there?

• Vision• To create an effective communication and collaboration tool for the company’s geographically

dispersed employees

• Goals• To migrate from our current intranet platform to SharePoint Online.• To reduce IT support costs by 20%

Vision and Goals

• Gather specific requirements• Audience? Goals?• Type of site? • Major types of content• Corporate Style Guidelines?• Navigation needs? Searching? Web Parts?

Requirements Gathering

Good/Bad RequirementsGood• The site will support a

resolution of 1024x768 without showing horizontal scroll bars

• The top navigation links should be consistent across all sites and pages

Bad• Do whatever everyone else

usually does

• Make sure it does social stuff

• Write it down! • Level of detail should match the size of the project• Communicate your plan to all stakeholders• Make sure they agree• Makes sure they can refer back to the plan when needed

What do we do with our planning?

Collaboration

Collaboration is a process where two or more people work together to realize a shared goal

• Where much of the work gets done on the intranet• Examples:• Team Sites• Communities• Social• Search

Collaboration Sites

• Department Sites• Document Management• Calendaring• Tasks• Share key business data

• Discussion Groups to Share Ideas• Brainstorming• Information Finding/Sharing

Examples

• Social Everything• Personal Sites (My Sites)• People Search• Tagging

• Search

More Examples

Tour of collaboration optionsJohn Ross

Portals

What is a portal?

A web site that brings information from diverse sources in a unified way.

Good portals do more than just bring content together.

Why create a portal?Portals give your users a single starting point for content in your organization. They are the answer to question “where should be the first place users go to find what they are looking for?”

Basic guidelines for content management• Define specific areas for content• Tag content with relevant metadata• Roll it up where you need it

SharePoint BenefitsAuthoring ExperienceCQWPControlled publishingBranding

Web Content Management (WCM)

WCM Features and Content Query Web PartRandy Drisgill

Great technical solutions are only half the battle

Usability and adoption are the ultimate key to success

• Keep your site clean and simple• Research shows that a humans’ short term memory can only retain

about 5-9 things at a time

• 3-Click-Rule• Users will stop using the site if they aren’t able to find what they are

looking for within 3 clicks.• More clicks are okay as long as users feel they know where they are

and were to go next

Source: Best of Smashing Magazine

Starting your design with usability in mind

• Users seek content in different ways• Navigation• Content• Search• Shortcuts for frequent users

Source: Best of Smashing Magazine

More usability

Branding

Photo by ImagineCup - http://www.flickr.com/photos/imaginecup/

Branding is: - The promise a company makes.  - The consistency at which they deliver on it

-Andrew Hanelly - VP, Digital Experience at TMG

• Distinguish the Intranet’s value• There are a lot of sources of information these days• Branding shows employees that the information has value• Give the Intranet a name that people can remember!

• Enforce consistency• Colors, fonts, logos, messaging• Foster teamwork and equality among departments

• Help users identify with the company

Why brand an Intranet

• Composed Looks• Quick and simple way of adding colors, fonts, and background image• Add a site logo to complete the look

• Design Manager• Convert standard HTML / CSS to SharePoint Branding• Requires Publishing

• Full SharePoint branding• Custom Master Page and Styles• Page layouts• Content Rollups• Custom functionality

Options for branding in SPO

SPO Branding Options

Randy Drisgill

Bringing it all together

Building Your PortalPlanning

Branding

Other

Site Build/Configure

Migration

User Training

Support

• Need to get content and data into your portal – how do you do it?• Start from scratch• Move over as needed• Migrate everything• (or a combination of the above)

• Allocate enough time – usually not instant

Don’t forget migration!

• Site needs to obviously provide value to users• Does it make user’s lives easier?• Usability is key• Most tasks should be reasonably obvious• User training• Documentation• Make help obvious to find• Share success stories!

Adoption is the key to success

• Blog:• http://blog.drisgill.com • http://johnrossjr.wordpress.com/

• Twitter:• http://twitter.com/drisgill • http://twitter.com/johnrossjr

• Email• randy.drisgill@rackspace.com• john.ross@rackspace.com

Contact Info

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© 2012 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, Windows Vista and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.