Building Your Company Intranet: A Comprehensive 8-Step Guide
Company intranet, when set up right, is your best friend in achieving high employee engagement. Studies show that developing tech solutions for improving communication and collaboration can boost productivity of interaction workers by 20-25%
Building a company intranet is often considered expensive and complex. Traditionally, you’d have to invest in different tools and hire competent developers, and the whole process can take months to complete.
However, that is no longer the case. In this article, we will show you how to create an intranet with a no-code tool and organize a fun space for all internal employees.
How to create an intranet in 8 steps
You can make your own intranet solution for your team in about five hours and in just 8 steps, with no prior experience required. This might sound like a bold statement, but if you start now, you can onboard all your employees by the end of the day today.
Without further ado, let’s get your company intranet set up.
Step1 - Create a free Bettermode account
At Bettermode, you can create and publish your hub without investing a penny. Simply sign up with your email or Google account.
To make the best of your experience, answer a short questionnaire and explore our free templates. The process only takes a few seconds.
Step 2 - Pick a template
You can build your intranet solution from scratch or use one of our user-friendly designs to get things started. Any template can be customized to become your next intranet. Preview them all and select your favorite.
On each template page, simply hit C on your keyboard, and the builder will open, offering vast possibilities to personalize your space.
When it comes to organizing an intranet project, we recommend the Earth Guardian template. In its design, we have envisaged a community space with pre-made profile sections, member boards, discussions, and resources. In short, adapting the template to your own needs would require minimal customization.
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Step 3 - Customize your intranet space
Once you create your intranet platform, you will discover all customization options in the administration section, or you can simply hit C and instantly open the web builder.
Name your intranet
Start by giving your community a name. Go to Settings and discover the options for tailoring your community platform according to your preferences:
- Add your intranet name, and describe the core policies to foster the best company culture for your employees.
- Mark the box to ensure only internal employees can access your private network.
- Set a different homepage for new users to help them navigate your company's intranet.
- Manage which file types your members are allowed to share through the platform. To avoid cluttering your space, you can limit the size of videos, PDFs, etc.
Don’t forget to check the Update button after making all the changes.
Claim your domain name
Now that your intranet site has a name, you should give it a custom domain. For your convenience, Bettermode checks if your desired subdomain is available and migrates your site for you.
Moderate interpersonal settings
Under main settings, you can also decide if members can message each other and what kind of moderation process you want to implement. You can flag specific keywords or members and test Bettermode’s AI spam detector to filter unwanted bot-generated content.
Set up a multilingual community
If you employ remote workers from different parts of the world, you can set a list of available and default languages. You can also opt for automatic translations of content to member’s local language. This functionality is handy to make all your employees feel welcome regardless of where they come from.
Step 4 - Brand your digital workplace
Add logo, fonts, and brand colors, and integrate your visual identity into the intranet software to make it feel more like a community. While perfecting your appearance, you can see the app's preview for all screen types - mobile, tablet, or desktop. Spend a few minutes to design a user-friendly space for better engagement and a successful intranet.
Step 5 - Organize your intranet space
The core of a well-functioning company intranet is good organization and moderation. With Bettermode, you can add different sections to your space and design them easily using our pre-made building blocks.
The key components of intranet platforms are:
- Home page for important announcements
- Employee directory for members to find and meet each other
- A resource hub for crucial business processes
- Open space for discussions (on company strategy or Superbowl)
- A moderated events management section
- Personal profile for each member
Set up collections and spaces
All these sections are already set up in your Design studio, under Collections and Spaces.
You can craft all the sections you need, designing every detail, including whether you want the header and sidebar to be visible or whether some pages should be full-width.
Create new spaces
Our templates include everything you need to start building your own community portal. However, you might want to design another type of space or collection.
For example, you want to add a space to share essential company information and business processes with key stakeholders and senior management. In that case, you can set up a new collection and select one of the layouts that suits your needs.
Click the Use template button at the top right corner to get started. Then, you can name the space and decide which members you want in it.
Optimize each new space
Hidden space enables you to prepare everything before inviting other members to check out what you are up to. There are different types of formats you can include when designing a new space:
- Announcement banners
- Html script
- List menu
- Leaderboard
- Tags
- Posts
- iFrame
And so much more.
Update members permissions
You can also decide whether to allow other members to contribute to the space via articles, events, or discussions. These options are in the settings button next to your space title.
Explore Bettermode CMS
An advantage when building a company intranet with Bettermode, compared to Webflow and alternatives, is that Bettermode has its own CMS. This means you won’t have to invest in a CMS separately and deal with complex integrations.
Furthermore, you can set up the relevant tags under Content > Tags, and make it easier for all members to follow relevant posts.
Step 6 - Prepare member onboarding process
Once you have organized several key components of your company intranet, it is time to design the personal space for your employees. First, go to the People section and set up the Profile fields each member will use.
For your HR benefit, you can add fields such as their birthday and the country or city they live in. Adding their job title will probably make it easier for other members to find relevant personnel across the digital workspace when they need to contact someone professionally.
To make the space more inclusive, you can add the Pronoun field and allow the employees to briefly present themselves by adding a Bio. For other non-work purposes, members can choose to connect with each other on social media (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and others).
Below the Profile fields, you can access the Badges section. This feature also helps distinguish your company community from simple intranet technology. Add Employee of the Month and other incentive badges to praise your best-performing team members.
Step 7 - Familiarize yourself with intranet analytics
Intranet solutions built with Bettermode have access to comprehensive analytics and reporting.
In the analytics section, you will find stats on employee engagement within the company intranet. These can help your HR or intranet manager conduct a needs analysis and develop new strategies for including in important documents such as annual reports.
Your HR and relevant managers will need admin access to the intranet platform, which you can navigate through the People section in the settings bar.
Step 8 - Send out invitations
The implementation process for your newly built intranet is simple.
Go to the People section and copy the invitation link, or invite each member manually by adding their email addresses. You can also send bulk invites to your whole crew and specify which spaces all new members will be added to.
After you complete the onboarding, select which members will be intranet staff and assign their tasks and credentials to monitor and moderate your inner circle.
Et voila! You’re all set and ready to start a new era of company intranets your employees will love.
3 examples of team intranets
Now that you know the technical details of setting up a no-code web app for your team intranet, let us show you examples of different intranet styles to inspire your new platform.
- A knowledge base team intranet
First, your intranet is a closed space for your employees, and all new hires can be automatically onboarded. This means that company intranets are a great opportunity to collect all your internal policies, how-to guides, and crucial data and make them accessible to the relevant staff.
Allow other members to add their expertise and create an ultimate know-how-sharing community for your employees to learn from each other. Such a knowledge base can be optimized by adding discussions and challenges for new team members.
- Project collaboration team intranet
Allow each team to have their own tribe within the intranet platform. They can use this space to exchange files, discuss project roadmaps, share progress updates, and work closely together.
At the same time, they will have access to all-members areas, important company notifications, events, and dialogues where they can contribute and share their thoughts.
An intranet can also connect your teams when they need to collaborate on a bigger project. One of the best use cases for intranets is creating a space for each project, enabling you to keep everything on track and easily navigate.
Key benefits of this structure are the ease of use, ensuring everything is kept in one place, and the safety of your data that is shared directly within your platform without involving any third-party apps.
- Training center for new employees
Intranet platforms can be a great place to host educational workshops for senior and new employees.
A company manager can share all the training materials with the employees and train, for example, a people ops team to use new software or CMR. If the educational articles and videos are all kept in one place, everyone can access them again if needed.
Moreover, the intranet platform's analytics and reporting make tracking participants' engagement and success rates easy.
Furthermore, you can use the intranet to successfully onboard and teach new employees the essential skills they need to contribute more effectively to your company.
Best practices when building an intranet
Crafting an intranet involves more than technology; it requires strategic best practices to create a dynamic and engaging digital workplace. Here are the approaches that are proven to be most efficient in teams.
- Choose cloud options for your intranet solutions
The intranet aims to be a centralized hub for file sharing and internal communication. Since developing such technology from scratch can be demanding and heavy on your company server, you should consider hosting your network on the cloud.
An ideal solution might not exist, but a strong cloud-based intranet software with different features is much more practical and budget-friendly.
- Use a secure network for internal communications
When setting up your internal space, remember that confidential and private data will be shared across channels. To protect your company’s best interest, ensure your network is safe.
- Spice things up to entertain your employees
Modern intranets are more than just a way to automate business processes. In a digital workplace, your employees use the intranet daily. This makes it a great opportunity to keep your employees updated—not only with the company's goals but also with success stories, industry events, and much more.
- Foster a healthy and inclusive company culture
Intranet software can support your HR team in creating and fostering a thriving work environment. Here are a few ideas on how to make the most out of your virtual workplace:
- Clearly outline the inclusive policies and the rights of each employee.
- Hire a community manager to create engaging content and inspire your teams to collaborate both in the office and online.
- Promote self-care, and share relevant information and support for your workers both personally and professionally.
- Encourage your employees to connect with other users. Create an intuitive member zone where they can easily search for their teammates and meet them in person.
- Create online and offline events and distribute invitations to attendees using your intranet platform. Follow up on these events with an online discussion within the intranet space.
- Gamify user experience by using challenges or savage hunting events. Offer a prize for the best solutions or best photography of the day.
- Allow your employees to express themselves in their profiles. Welcome new members, introduce them to their teammates, and celebrate their birthdays and national holidays.
The bottom line is to ask for feedback and listen to the members' ideas on improving your intranet solution. Let the creative juices flow and you will have an original space that everyone is invested in.
Conclusion
Creating a new intranet doesn’t have to be a headache for your management. With a reliable partner, you can set up a practical and fun space without coding a single line.
With Bettermode, you won’t start from scratch. Explore our templates and customize your intranet in just one day.
FAQs
How to create a simple intranet?
There are various intranet providers available. The simplest way to create an intranet is to sign up for a free account on Bettermode and customize a developed template to kickstart your own intranet in only a few hours.
How intranet is created?
An intranet can be developed from scratch, requiring many hours of coding, or it can be crafted using no-code tools such as Bettermode, which provides simple blocks for setting up the intranet you want.
How to structure an intranet?
A good company intranet should have a landing page, a members hub for communication, a collection of resources for employees, and a personal space for each employee. These sections should be intuitive to navigate for every new hire you onboard.
Why is an intranet important?
Intranet is a platform with access restricted to your employees only. It can maintain all internal communications, train employees, share files vital to the firm, and engage employees in company development processes.
