Case Study: Toward Building a New Intranet

Case Study: Toward Building a New IntranetTeach for All

August 1, 2012

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Agenda

I. Introductions

II. Project Lessons Learned

III. Intranet Walkthrough

IV. Q&A

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About Us

Andy Ho, Senior Director, Information Technology– Leads the IT team at Teach For All– Background in IT management and consulting

with Crestron Electronics, Deloitte Consulting, and American Management Systems

Amy Grandov, Director, Business Analysis– Manages enterprise application projects – Previously with McKinsey, focusing on knowledge

management, collaboration and business intelligence systems

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About Teach for All

“Teach for All is a global network of independent social enterprises that are working

to expand educational opportunity in their nations by enlisting their most promising future leaders in the effort. We aspire to the vision that one day, all children will have the opportunity to

attain an excellent education”

About Teach for All

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Case Study Overview

• In May 2012, we released a new Intranet for all internal staff at Teach for All

• This project was the first step in a larger initiative to consolidate our web portals on a common platform

• This case study will present lessons learned from the process of selecting Drupal as our portal platform and implementing the Intranet

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Intranet Components and Vendors

Components• Drupal 6.25 (http://www.drupal.org)

• Document/content tools– Box.com – GoogleDocs – Vimeo

Vendors• Acquia (http://www.acquia.com)• Appnovation (http://www.appnovation.com)

http://www.drupal.org/

http://www.acquia.com/

http://www.appnovation.com/

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Agenda

I. Introductions and Overview



IV. Q&A

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Project Lessons Learned

Define business objectives before discussing technology

Understand your unique requirements when selecting a platform

Get user feedback early and often





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Defining the Problem

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.

"I don’t much care where--" said Alice.

"Then it doesn’t matter which way you go," said the Cat."--so long as I get SOMEWHERE," Alice added as an explanation.

"Oh, you’re sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough.”(Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)

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Pain points with the current portals lead to an initiative to consolidate on an upgraded platform

Key challenges: Dated design Poor navigation Low usage Lack of ownership

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A PMO (Project Management Office) committee helped align the project with organization-wide business objectives

• Played the essential role of executive champion or business sponsor • Included representatives from each department/function, and varying

levels in the organization• Asked for a commitment of 2-4 hours per month• Recommended direction to Senior Leadership Team for approval• Ensured all staff were informed

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“The Intranet is a centralized resource and cross-team collaboration hub serving all Teach for All employees worldwide.

It provides organized, efficient access to shared documents and tools; facilitates timely information flows and knowledge sharing across teams; and maintains a vibrant and connectedmission-driven culture.”

A new Vision clarified our Intranet aspirations and direction

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Key Takeaways

• Know where you’re going and why

• Reach out broadly across teams and levels

• Involve business users in problem solving so they own the solution

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The strategy phase identified several priorities for the portal platform

• Flexible user interface with strong support for content organization and ‘web 2.0’ interactivity

• Support for open standards. Integrates with diverse technologies

• Easy for business users to maintain content with minimal IT involvement

• Allow staff to collaborate effectively with people outside the organization

• Maintainable with limited in-house expertise and infrastructure

Core requirements filtered down the vast array of options for “Intranets” and “Portals”

Best fit for our high level requirementsBest fit for our high level requirements

Support: Best fit for our internal skills and capabilitiesSupport: Best fit for our internal skills and capabilities

Content Management Systems (CMS), Document Management Systems , Enterprise Portals, Wikis, Collaboration Platforms, Other

Drupal, Sharepoint, Liferay

Drupal, Sharepoint

Cost, Ease of use *Cost, Ease of use *

Drupal

* Template for deep dive analysis: https://teachforall.box.com/shared/static/3281fae1270fbfdb95f7.xlsx

https://teachforall.box.com/shared/static/3281fae1270fbfdb95f7.xlsx



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Drupal addresses our priority requirements

Our Needs

• Flexible user interface with strong support for content organization and ‘web 2.0’ interactivity

• Support for open standards. Integrates with diverse technologies

• Easy for business users to maintain content with minimal IT involvement

• Allows staff to collaborate effectively with people outside the organization

• Maintainable with limited in-house expertise

Flexible UI ‘themes’ with community features and extensive library of free add-on modules

Open source

Integration modules available for popular tools

Granular permissions

Robust hosting and support from Acquia and other vendors

Drupal Advantages

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We were able to work around key challenges

Document management is limited in Drupal

• Use Box.com as our primary document repository

• Consider Alfresco in the future

Challenge Our approach

• Use GoogleDocs for collaborative spreadsheets and files

Collaboration and project management would require more customization

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Key Takeaways

r another organization may not be right for you• Analyze specifics and try out solutions to get beyond vendor marketing

messages.

• What works well for another organization may not be right for you

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Project Timeline

FEB MAR APR MAY

Scoping

Design and Build

2012

JAN

Pilot

Milestone: Site in production

Content Migration

Release and training for all staff

DECOCT NOV

2011

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Our PMO committee was involved throughout the project lifecycle, and became advocates and ‘experts’

Scoping

• Reviewed and approved the scope of the release

Design

• Participated in card sorting to reorganize content• Reviewed wireframes and design mockups

Pilot

• Tested and provided feedback on the live pilot site• Communicated project status to their teams

Release

• Coordinated content migration and helped team members during rollout• Took on the role of Team Administrator in production

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Online tools helped engage remote staff

Card sorting: www.websort.net Wireframes: www.balsamiq.com

http://www.websort.net/

http://www.websort.net/

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Key Takeaways

• Prototype and pilot to get meaningful feedback as early as possible

• User research does not need to be extensive or time consuming. Even a limited amount of feedback is useful

• Keeping users involved throughout the project helped us ensure that each team had an informed, trained Intranet champion upon release

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Agenda




IV. Q&A

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The new Intranet delivered several key benefits

• Updated design reflects our culture and ‘brand’ identity • Organized access to diverse tools and information sources• Easier to find and share information across teams• Opportunities to connect with colleagues • Human Assets team became the official Business Owner

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Search and navigation

Quick links

Newsfeeds

Presence awareness (Who’s online)

Content actions

Homepage provides navigation and updates

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Drupal’s Organic Groups, roles and permissions govern access and content rights

• All staff members have a role:

• Authenticated user: can access the site

• Team Member: can add team content

• Team Admin: can manage team content

• There are two site-wide admin roles:

• Site Moderator: can add Announcements and edit all profiles

• System Admin: IT team only

Team/ Group Admin

Team/Group member

Authenticated user

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Team Spaces provide dedicated space for sharing

Team menu

Team resources

Team membership

Embedded content

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Wiki-style pages collect shared knowledge across teams

Tags link related content

All staff may edit

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Topic pages consolidate resources owned by multiple teams

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All users can create resources and control visibility

Due to feedback received during pilot, we re-enabled Private team resources

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Resources can be tagged, and may contain one or more attached files

Tags

File upload

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“Faceted” search results improve findability

Search options:• Sort by common metadata• Filter by:

– Author– Content type– Partner

location/country• Click the Users tab if

searching for a person’s name

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Events and conferences keep staff informed

Events from our community portal (via RSS)

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A Staff Directory connects remote colleagues

Click a name to view full text profile

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Webforms are starting to replace some paper forms

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Modules are available to support important Intranet features

Some functionality you may want to consider adding for an internal enterprise site:• User management

– Organic Groups• Security

– Secure Pages / Secure Pages Hijack Prevention (SSL)– Password Policy– Filtered HTML

• Usability– Pathauto– Path redirect– WYSIWYG (“what you see is what you get”)

• Reporting– GoogleAnalytics

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Key Challenges

• User Adoption: Getting people to post/contribute to the intranet is still a challenge. Features and design are only part of the solution.

• Usability: Contributing resources and creating pages is still not as simple as it should be for casual users

• Integration: Users want a more seamless, ‘one-stop-shop’ experience for internal tools and resources

• Alignment and stewardship: Intranet will need to adapt and evolve along with organizational strategy, not IT priorities

Next steps

Phase 2: Extranet

• Redesign the Extranet on Drupal

• Enhance the Intranet

• Address user adoption and content governance

Phase 1: Intranet

Phase 3 and beyond:• Integration with

enterprise systems

• Integration with shared content stores

• Replatform other sites

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Agenda




IV. Q&A