How to Choose the Best Intranet Software
Use this checklist template to increase efficiency as you look for the best solution for your company. Plus, these bonus intranet software templates will skyrocket your team's efficiency.
Templates that jumpstart your intranet software rollout:
Internal Process and Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) Template
Remote Work Resources Template - We curated the best remote work templates to support your team.
Internal Team Update Template - See how Noom shares information virtually with the whole team.
What features should intranet software have?
Notification
Choose an intranet system with responsive notification alerts. It should notify your employees when a teammate shares information that’s relevant to their job. Examples include department or company news, daily tasks sent through a workflow, or answers to a question they asked.
Commenting abilities
One of the main reasons for implementing intranets is to work and communicate faster as a team. An intranet software tool allows for threaded communication such as commenting on wikis or company forums.
The intranet should be designed to encourage participation and sharing of ideas which lead to faster solutions.
Comments should be marked as resolved so knowledge articles are kept tidy and readers won’t be confused with comments that have already been addressed.
Chat integration
Messaging is one the best ways for employees to discuss ideas, projects and get the information they need quickly. Chat integration saves time spent on waiting for emails and provides a central platform for employees to reach out when they need help
Including chat integration with intranet software makes problem-solving quicker. No need to jump on a meeting when you can communicate in Slack.
Bonus points if your intranet lets you carry out Slack actions like capturing knowledge or sharing answers from the knowledge base. Other messaging functions to look for include group chats, robust search options, and file-sharing.
Intuitive search
As your company grows, it becomes difficult to get information. An intuitive search makes it easier and faster to find everything from staff information to documents and past articles.
When you use an intranet with poor search functions, employees spend more time looking for resources which leads to frustration and dissatisfaction with your company’s intranet.
The search function should save time and help employees to navigate the intranet to find what they need.
A single source of truth
Your business intranet must function as the single source of truth for employees to trust and accept it. Most traditional intranets fail because they became a dumping ground for outdated documents.
Guru mitigates this problem by suggesting experts in the department who can verify information on your intranet. Guru also sends out notifications to update information at specified intervals to ensure that the content on your intranet is always relevant and accurate.
Mobile app
Nearly five billion people own a smartphone. Choose an intranet with a mobile app so employees can stay connected irrespective of the device they’re using.
A mobile app allows employees to receive important updates which makes them more responsive to situations as they come up.
When the intranet is easily accessible, it keeps team members productive which translates to higher revenue for your organization.
Responsive design
Digital Strategy Consulting reports that 60% of employees use apps on their mobile devices for work-related activity. Fierce Mobile IT adds that 71% of employees spend over 2 hours a week accessing company information on mobile.
Implementing mobile responsive designs ensures that employees have a great user experience regardless of the device they’re using. Whether they’re home or away from their desktop, employees can log in to their workplace to consume information and interact seamlessly.
Great user experience
Engagement suffers without a good digital experience. Digital experience includes intuitive layout, the usability of the intranet platform, third-party integrations, incorporating internal branding, and balancing social interactions with work-related content. A great digital experience makes employees excited to use the intranet and put their stamp on it.
Document management
Document management is one feature that must be a staple in every intranet platform. Since you’re cultivating a culture of knowledge sharing, it’s important to have an integrated platform that makes it easy to create, edit, share, and delete documents within an organization.
Company wiki and file management
An internal wiki is a core function of an intranet because it allows employees to collaboratively add, edit and maintain content that is relevant to your business. Where traditional intranets are unintuitive and overly complex, internal wikis like Guru make it easy to search, edit and navigate within a content hierarchy.
When you implement a company wiki, your team spends less time looking for information and more time being productive.
It’s important to choose an intranet that integrates with other knowledge management tools, allows interlinking between wiki pages, and provides permissions and access management.
Analytics to improve performance
Your intranet solution should provide insight into how and where knowledge is used and the impact of company knowledge on employee performance.
You can use analytics to track which content is viewed the most, what undocumented topics employees are searching for, and if your team finds published content helpful or not.
Organizational chart
To facilitate long-term planning, organizational charts must be accessible so everyone knows who is in charge of specific functions and who does what. Organizational charts come in handy when multiple departments need to collaborate on large projects.