Audits

Creating a new intranet, whether as an upgrade to an existing intranet or as a new organisational platform, requires review and inspection of data used throughout the organisation. Auditing is required across 5 key areas:

Content
Staff Data and Active Directory
Directories and Associated Data
Processes and Workflows
Branding and Communications

Ensure that your content proposition is defined to provide guidelines when auditing your content.

Content

Possible areas to audit:

existing intranet content
shared drives with potential intranet content (often indicated by files which are frequently sent by email)
organisation website - API integration may be required
newsletters in hard copy or sent by email
other 'all staff' emails or communications
digital systems / applications
associated websites

Useful data to capture:

origin of content
if it requires updating, rewriting, changing format
content owners*
target audience
key objectives of page: what should users be able to do after visiting this page?

*Verifying content owners is critical for future steps in the project process

Sample content and data audit

Staff data and Active Directory (AD)

Staff data

A spreadsheet of profile data fields is needed to clarify:

where data will be coming from and when
how it will be managed after launch

To be considered:

Fields required for person profiles (to be confirmed in research phase)
Databases where the data currently resides (to identify if migration is required)
Which fields staff are allowed to update themselves
In the case of fields staff should not update, we must provide contact details for change requests
Which fields require a one-off import or ongoing integration

Active Directory

A review of AD is required to make sure it can populate intranet staff profiles. A key success factor for your intranet is ensuring users fill out as little as possible within their profiles. The more data we can take from AD the better. The review may highlight issues with existing AD data.

To be considered:

Is AD staff data complete?
Staff data is often kept in other systems, e.g. HR databases. Any user-relevant data must be in AD to sync with user profile fields
Is AD organisational data clean and consistent?
We recommend all organisational data (teams, departments, services, sites etc.) should come from AD, rather than users updating their profiles themselves. Requirements for this to happen:
- AD organisational fields must be complete for each user
- AD organisational data must be standardised (e.g. we cannot sync “Comms.” and “Communications” within the intranet’s organisational model)

Directories and Data

Some organisations have no fixed documentation on their organisation's structure and systems.

The following data must be collated and approved, and organised in a way to fit the more rigid heirarchy of an online database:

staff
departments
teams
locations
systems

Try to identify:

Official name PLUS any colloquial names / abbreviations / acronyms
Head / Manager
Related organisational areas (e.g. what department does the team sit within?)
For systems, the key contact, target audience and help documentation (or links) must also be collated

Processes & Workflows

A visit to the intranet is not a complete user journey or process, however it may be a touchpoint in a key task. The user may engage with the intranet at all or none of the points in the journey.

From the user research we can identify key tasks which staff need to complete, and where the intranet may be able to assist.

User journey for a key task:

Trigger - user has a need or want
Onboard - access intranet or other system
Engage - search, browse, interact, input data
Resolution - need or want is achieved
Advance (up-sell) - direct user's next action / allow for further info acquisition

Process transformation

Where budget allows, we can work with the project team to define ideal workflows, redeveloping any existing processes which are out-of-date or inefficient.

Processes must focus on people, not technology. Ideally we want to ensure offline processes are working the way they should; an intranet can’t solve broken processes.