An intranet improves communication, integrates and gives a sense of belonging. Apart from purely practical advantages, it has a number of assets of a social nature (“social intranet” is also one of the keywords searched in Google). If you are looking for an intranet/extranet that will be functional, intuitive, advanced in terms of functionality and friendly from a visual point of view, we recommend a combination of the Confluence system by Atlassian and Linchpin by Seibert Media.
Whether or not to implement an intranet/extranet solution (in short: an intranet is a closed portal, functioning within an organisation, while an extranet is a portal for the exchange of information between business partners; one system can perform both roles) does not require much to think about. There are two possible solutions: stay in the e-mail loop, call a lot of meetings and store all the necessary files on disk or move the lion’s share of communication and materials to a shared system. Confluence + Linchpin is one of the best tools of its kind available.
Social intranet for companies
Confluence by Atlassian is a solution that makes it easy for millions of users around the world to work every day. The system has a lot of functionalities, thanks to which it is possible to create specific spaces, pages and content. You can read more about it in the following text: Confluence – opinions and most important functionalities from a user’s perspective.
Linchpin, on the other hand, is an application full of additional functionalities, which makes an existing intranet able to offer a lot more possibilities. Combining both applications creates a competitive intranet for the most rooted giants, such as Microsoft SharePoint, while meeting the expectations and needs of users accustomed to functioning on social media.
Confluence’s rich functionality related to storing documentation and files and creating diverse content, combined with Linchpin’s enhancements, is a set that will satisfy even the most demanding corporations.
Piotr Tokarski, Practice Area Director, Transition Technologies PSC
Corporate design
A style compatible with a company’s brand book
Linchpin, in contrast to the basic version of Confluence, offers more possibilities when it comes to the appearance of the intranet itself. A company can set its own logo and adjust the colour scheme to its own visual identity. This allows employees to immediately know that they are navigating within a company space. The application’s interface is friendly, clear and modern. An example is presented below:
Elements that can be added or edited
- Heading (name, logo, colour, font, height)
- Subheader
- Menu structure
- Footer
- Sidebar
- Button and link styles
- Appearance of the content of individual pages
- Space layouts
- Macro template (Linchpin Teaser Macro, Layout Box Macro)
- Custom Landing Spaces
User profile – more possibilities
Linchpin developers have put a lot of emphasis on personalisation, in terms of the main message board (news feed), the ability to create and share content within the system, as well as the configuration of the user profile itself.
Linchpin gives administrators the ability to enter custom fields into user profiles. In addition to the basics, such as first name, last name, job title and contact information, these can also include date of birth, interests, favorite movies or even unfulfilled dreams and goals. It just depends on your imagination and needs. On top of that, we get the option to automatically synchronize data with Active Directory and hide information for selected groups. This significantly increases the importance of the user profile. Each user also has a place where their published content is displayed (the so-called Wall). This, in turn, effectively improves collaboration.
Mirosław Żyszczyński, Service Delivery Manager, Transition Technologies PSC
An intranet that engages
Newsfeed
Users can see two types of content: company news displayed according to the employee’s profile settings (e.g. based on data such as language, location, office, department, supervisor, teams and groups to which they belong, etc.) and individual newsfeeds from other users (as well as their own) – similarly to social networking sites.
Microblogging
Creating individual news feeds inevitably involves the need to comment, share your achievements or inform about any important or interesting events. Employee engagement ensures that the intranet functions dynamically and becomes a place of discussion, plans and company life. Content exchange takes place in real time.
Events
An important, interesting and useful function is the creation of events with the possibility of inviting selected users to participate in them. Access and visibility can be adjusted with restrictions.
Mobile App
A space that engages and integrates the community must be easily accessible. Linchpin enables mobile intranets so employees can use them anytime, anywhere, even behind a firewall within their own company network.
Linchpin, additional advantages:
Some people complain about Confluence’s crude appearance and lack of interface modification options. Linchpin fills these gaps while providing, at the same time, new, community-based functionality. With this solution, the intranet becomes even more “human”, friendly and dynamic. Employees gain a shared database of documentation and all necessary files, as well as a business community portal, through which they can organize their own initiatives (well, previous creation of events), share personal experiences (by writing and publishing articles), as well as opinions (by commenting on other people’s publications).
Mirosław Żyszczyński, Service Delivery Manager, Transition Technologies PSC
A modern intranet – what does the company gain?
- Efficient internal communication.
- A great tool for communication with business partners.
- No more e-mail chains.
- A single place for all necessary files and documents.
- A portal for employee integration.
- Appearance-consistent with the visual identification of the company.
Confluence + Linchpin is a highly functional solution, visually refined and offering possibilities in line with the latest trends and habits in social networking. Investment in Linchpin has a business (process improvement) and image justification. In the above text we presented the most distinctive features of the Linchpin application. We would be happy to tell you and show you more – feel free to contact us!