Falun Municipality combines Sitevision and Office 365

The previous intranet was old and hard to work with. Users found it difficult to determine whether the information was up-to-date, and they might have to email a colleague to ask.

– "The intranet was also not responsive and didn't have a good search function, and this didn't help us to be more efficient," says Niclas Söderberg, communications officer at Falu Municipality, who has been involved in the intranet project since its inception.

Relevant intranet based on users’ needs

In autumn 2017, a project team was set up with the goal of creating an intranet that was easy to use, simply displayed what you were looking for and was a cultural vehicle that promoted a sense of belonging within the municipality. From the impact assessment, it also became clear that the intranet would be a relevant starting point for the working day: a place that empowered employees with reliable information and effective services.

They wanted to take advantage of the opportunities for personalisation, and much of the flow on the home page is tailored to the individual user and what their work group, role and interests are. This makes the organisation’s communication more effective and easier for both the person providing the information and the person receiving it. Nowadays, users can also collaborate with colleagues in other departments in different interest groups, which makes it easier for employees to continue developing and creates a sense of belonging in the organisation.

– "Through reliable information and effective ways of finding what is important, we'll save a lot of time. "This also enables new ways of working, in that we can strengthen cooperation between people or between departments," says Nina Eriksson, also a communications officer at Falun Municipality and a driving force in the intranet project.

Digital workplace with powerful solutions

As an intranet platform, the choice was made to combine Sitevision and Office 365. In purely aesthetic terms, this will be a relatively large change for users, but, on the other hand, the tool gathers all the programs and systems that users need to access in a simple way.

When you work in a municipality, you need to check your email every working day or make sure someone else does. If you have received an email, you can now see it directly on the intranet, as well as various calendar events.

– What’s so amazing is how easy it has been to integrate Sitevision with Office 365 and other systems. It’s lightning-fast from the time the emails arrive in your Outlook inbox until Sitevision displays it on the intranet! "For those who receive very few emails, it can be a good reason to visit the intranet every day and see if there are any new emails," says Niclas Söderberg.

In December 2018, the reference group was shown a demo of the intranet, and after the New Year, the first training session was held for its editors.

Intranet integrated into daily work

The new intranet is both a new platform and a new way of working. This is a journey of change that the entire organisation needs to be involved in, so workshops have been held to define what a digital workplace is and what role the intranet should play. In the final phase of the project, a guide was handed out on the internal communication tools and changes in working practices needed to achieve a truly digital workplace.

The entire project has received support from the management, and at the end of the project Niclas and Nina were able to present the new intranet to the CEO's management team. Now everyone is expected to use the new tool.

– We believe that an important part is to get management and all executives on board. "Without this support, no one else will access the intranet or the digital workplace," says Nina Eriksson.