Did that Microsoft has a wealthy assortment of best-practice steerage and recommendation for intranet planning? Just this week, it launched a brand new “intelligent intranet” web site with movies, templates, buyer interviews, and extra to assist customers discover inspiration and planning assist for his or her clever intranet journey.There’s a number of nice content material linked within the new web site – and much more on two platforms: assist.workplace.com and docs.microsoft.com. Though I’m unsure that is persistently the case, the content material on assist.workplace.com is essentially centered on finish customers and varieties the spine of the coaching content material delivered with Microsoft 365 Learning Pathways. The content material on docs.microsoft.com tends to be aimed extra at directors and covers superior matters. Both collections present a wealth of useful data, with articles written by a stellar staff of technical writers who typically attain out to practitioners to assist add to the content material.I’ve labored with the Microsoft documentation staff to edit and writer a number of the content material for the clever intranet journey; it has been my favourite “quarantine project.” I hope one can find worth on this abstract of what I labored on over the previous few months. I solely created one utterly new article (plan your SharePoint communication web site) as a part of this initiative, although I used to be the writer of one of many articles that received a significant replace (planning navigation). (As you evaluate the content material, make sure to observe the inline hyperlinks to associated content material.)If you wish to discover at a excessive degree, begin on the new clever intranet web site. Then, when you’re able to dig into the small print, listed here are my suggestions for articles that will help you get began. Once you click on into any of those articles, check out the left facet of the web page to search out much more content material that could be related.Plan an clever SharePoint intranet. This article is the fifth hyperlink within the SharePoint / Get Started sequence – however I feel it ought to most likely be the very first thing you learn. The major audiences for this text are the enterprise and technical leaders planning a brand new intranet. The article offers a high-level overview of what you will want to consider – and the right way to construction a profitable undertaking.
Modern intranet roadmap. This article is aligned with the intranet planning article and offers details about planning the undertaking staff and method. It features a description of the duties and roles for the members of the intranet staff – from intranet and web site homeowners to IT execs and admins. There are two little gems that I hope will get a extra visible therapy in order that nobody misses the hyperlinks: the 2 infographic hyperlinks within the introduction to roles, duties and timelines part. One of the infographics showcases the intranet lifecycle. The different offers a visible abstract of the SharePoint intranet constructing blocks: websites, hubs, and pages. Clicking the hyperlinks downloads these PDFs to your machine. (I’ve requested the staff whether or not these paperwork can open as net pages.)
Guide to the trendy expertise in SharePoint. This article is the primary in a sequence for anybody who desires to know extra in regards to the detailed actions in planning a contemporary SharePoint intranet. It consists of useful guides for shifting to to trendy in case your group remains to be utilizing basic SharePoint websites. If you might be nonetheless in basic mode, check out second article within the sequence – How to consider your trendy intranet – which covers the first end result targets for intranets and the variations between conventional versus “modern” approaches.
Information structure. There was some older content material on this article, nevertheless it was very basic. I used to be glad to get an opportunity to attempt to distill a number of the most essential IA concerns on this up to date model. I train a full-day workshop on IA for SharePoint intranets, so making an attempt to distill eight hours of content material right into a high-level 7-minute learn was not simple! Reading the article ought to offer you a great begin at planning your intranet IA – however contemplate it the beginning, not the tip, of your data structure studying journey.
Planning navigation for the trendy SharePoint expertise. Navigation is a crucial a part of your data structure. I first wrote this text nearly two years in the past. In precept, navigation finest practices haven’t modified a lot – however what you are able to do in SharePoint has. This article received a refresh in each content material and imagery and in case you haven’t saved up with all the brand new navigation capabilities in trendy SharePoint (or in case you initially learn this text greater than three months in the past), it’s time for one more look!
Moving from publishing websites to communication websites. If you might be at the moment utilizing publishing websites in your intranet, this text will assist information you thru the first variations between basic publishing websites and trendy communication websites.
Plan your SharePoint communication web site. This article offers tips for planning every of the communication websites in your intranet. It consists of photographs and examples to assist information web site homeowners to make optimum design decisions for his or her websites. In basic, it’s a good suggestion to have a constant sample to your intranet websites – so that you don’t have to begin from scratch every time. However, even when a web site follows a standard web site template or design, you continue to must fastidiously plan the content material for the location to align with the subject and the viewers. This article will assist the proprietor of every intranet web site make sure that it delivers worth to the readers. It’s model new and one thing I’ve needed to work on for a very long time! Ever since they first got here out, I’ve shared a communication web site planning information on my web site. The information can function a companion to the Microsoft article and offers a structured doc that can be utilized by web site homeowners to get suggestions on the essential goals and construction of their websites previous to configuring the location in SharePoint.
In the subsequent few weeks, there might be a complete replace to the governance documentation for Microsoft 365, together with SharePoint, intranets, and Microsoft Teams. The different a part of my quarantine undertaking included authoring two articles for that sequence – one about planning “governance first” when implementing Microsoft 365 and the opposite detailing the right way to plan for intranet governance. Look for details about these articles in a future weblog put up!
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