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Open intranet – how it works in practice

Transparency, availability and democracy are usually keywords for open intranets. But what does having an open intranet mean in purely practical terms? And what are the pros and cons? Johan Nilsson, Digital Workplace Advisor at Sitevision, had a chat with the Royal College of Music and Södertörn University.

18 March 2022

Johan Nilsson

Digital Workplace Advisor at Sitevision

A few weeks ago, we saw that Tomelilla Municipality launched an open intranet. It made me wonder why an open intranet was chosen and how it affects the user experience. So I contacted two of Sitevision’s customers, the Royal College of Music and Södertörn University, and asked them to tell us about their solutions.

Why an open intranet?

The Royal College of Music launched its intranet in the spring of 2017 for the company’s approximately 300 employees. The intranet is service-focused with news, shortcuts, calendar and procedures. There is no logged-in mode and the intranet is available to everyone – all in line with their ambition for transparency and accessibility.

– Open intranets are quite common in the world of higher education, as we share a lot of information and knowledge between higher education institutions," explains Marie Halling and Jenny Nordlöf at the Royal College of Music.

– This was the major reason why we chose an open intranet as well," explains Therese Andersson, who works at Södertörn University.

Södertörn University launched its intranet in the spring of 2021 for the company’s approximately 1,000 employees and is a semi-open intranet that also has a logged-in location. This way, the intranet content can be accessible – while the user gets a personalised experience with news, calendar bookings, Teams surfaces and emails from Outlook.

For Södertörn University, an open intranet was not an obvious choice. They previously had a more traditional intranet where the user had to log in. For the intranet project, they therefore conducted a survey to find out whether employees visited other companies’ open intranets. The results showed that this was common among several employee groups.

Both the Royal College of Music and Södertörn University highlight the aspect that all published content is in the public domain — and that the open intranet makes it easier for the public to access the material.

En skärmdump på startsidan av Södertörns högskolas intranät.

Så här ser Södertörns högskolas intranät ut – eller medarbetarwebb, som de också kallar den.

Editorial challenges

Working with an open intranet places other demands on editorial work, as you mix internal and external communication. It is important to develop guidelines and tonality that make it clear and easy for editors to create content for both employees and external visitors.

Södertörn University has decided that content aimed at the majority of employees is published on the intranet, while content aimed at a team or individual employee is published in the Teams areas (behind login). The intranet is aimed at employees, but since it is open, others are welcome to take part in the content (especially other educational institutions). The Royal College of Music also focuses on the employee, while the content is also consumed by external visitors.

Collaboration and productivity

What the Royal College of Music and Södertörn University have in common is that there are no opportunities for employees and external visitors to the intranet to interact. All interaction and collaboration take place in other systems.

On the other hand, Södertörn University is planning to shortly launch a new case management system integrated on the intranet, where they can have direct dialogue with employees. When logged in, the employee will also receive notifications of unread emails in Outlook and a list of other digital tools. The Royal College of Music uses Microsoft 365 and other tools, but is separate from the intranet. And the focus for both intranets is mainly service content such as course syllabuses, guidelines and operational information.

Reflections

Transparency and accessibility are common to the Royal College of Music and Södertörn University – but also to other businesses that have chosen to have an open intranet. This is partly about reducing barriers so that others can access the company’s information, and partly about facilitating collaboration and knowledge sharing between businesses.

Both businesses have chosen to move interaction and collaboration to platforms other than the intranet. Even though Södertörn University has a semi-open intranet, there are no opportunities for collaboration on the intranet – only links to external systems. These boundaries make it clear to employees and the organisation where to hold digital meetings and collaborations.

The Royal College of Music also points out that an open intranet contributes to Employer Branding by enabling potential employees to easily gain insight into guidelines, personnel handbooks and what the organisation stands for.

When it comes to editorial work, it has been clearly adapted to the target group. On the intranet, both companies choose to communicate primarily to employees and stakeholders from other educational institutions.

What are your thoughts about open intranets? Please comment!

Do you want to know more?

Johan Nilsson

Digital Workplace Advisor

Johan är digital workplace advisor och har jobbat med intranät och digitala arbetsplatser med kunder som bland annat Green Cargo, Swedol/Tools och FOREX Bank. Han har erfarenhet från över 100 införanden av intranät och digitala arbetsplatser.

johan.nilsson@sitevision.se

+46 70-569 02 88