Did you understand that Microsoft has a wealthy assortment of best-practice steerage and recommendation for intranet planning? Just this week, it launched a new “clever intranet” website with movies, templates, buyer interviews, and extra to assist customers discover inspiration and planning help for their clever intranet journey.
There’s quite a lot of nice content material linked in the new website – and much more on two platforms: help.workplace.com and docs.microsoft.com. Though I’m unsure that is constantly the case, the content material on help.workplace.com is essentially centered on finish customers and types 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 crew of technical writers who typically attain out to practitioners to assist add to the content material.
I’ve labored with the Microsoft documentation crew to edit and writer a few of the content material for the clever intranet journey; it has been my favourite “quarantine challenge.” I hope you’ll discover worth in this abstract of what I labored on over the previous few months. I solely created one fully new article (plan your SharePoint communication website) as a part of this initiative, although I used to be the writer of one of many articles that obtained a significant replace (planning navigation). (As you overview the content material, be sure you comply with the inline hyperlinks to associated content material.)
If you need to discover at a excessive degree, begin on the new clever intranet website. Then, when you find yourself able to dig into the main points, listed below are my suggestions for articles that can assist you get began. Once you click on into any of those articles, check out the left facet of the web page to seek out much more content material that could be related.
- Plan an clever SharePoint intranet. This article is the fifth hyperlink in the SharePoint / Get Started collection – however I feel it ought to most likely be the very first thing you learn. The main audiences for this text are the enterprise and technical leaders planning a new intranet. The article gives a high-level overview of what you will want to consider – and learn how to construction a profitable challenge.
- Modern intranet roadmap. This article is aligned with the intranet planning article and gives details about planning the challenge crew and method. It features a description of the duties and roles for the members of the intranet crew – from intranet and website house owners to IT professionals and admins. There are two little gems that I hope will get a extra visible remedy in order that nobody misses the hyperlinks: the 2 infographic hyperlinks in the introduction to roles, duties and timelines part. One of the infographics showcases the intranet lifecycle. The different gives 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 crew whether or not these paperwork can open as internet pages.)
- Guide to the modern expertise in SharePoint. This article is the primary in a collection for anybody who needs to grasp extra concerning the detailed actions in planning a modern SharePoint intranet. It consists of useful guides for shifting to to modern in case your group continues to be utilizing basic SharePoint websites. If you’re nonetheless in basic mode, check out second article in the collection – How to consider your modern intranet – which covers the first consequence targets for intranets and the variations between conventional versus “modern” approaches.
- Information structure. There was some older content material in this text, however it was very basic. I used to be glad to get an opportunity to attempt to distill a few of the most necessary IA issues in this updated model. I train a full-day workshop on IA for SharePoint intranets, so attempting to distill eight hours of content material right into a high-level 7-minute learn was not simple! Reading the article ought to provide you with an excellent begin at planning your intranet IA – however contemplate it the beginning, not the tip, of your data structure studying journey.
- Planning navigation for the modern SharePoint expertise. Navigation is a vital a part of your data structure. I first wrote this text nearly two years in the past. In precept, navigation optimal practices haven’t modified a lot – however what you possibly can do in SharePoint has. This article obtained a refresh in each content material and imagery and should you haven’t saved up with all of the new navigation capabilities in modern SharePoint (or should you initially learn this text greater than three months in the past), it’s time for one other look!
- Moving from publishing websites to communication websites. If you’re at present utilizing publishing websites in your intranet, this text will assist information you thru the first variations between basic publishing websites and modern communication websites.
- Plan your SharePoint communication website. This article gives pointers for planning every of the communication websites in your intranet. It consists of photos and examples to assist information website house owners to make optimum design selections for their websites. In basic, it’s a good suggestion to have a constant sample for your intranet websites – so that you don’t have to begin from scratch every time. However, even when a website follows a typical website template or design, you continue to must fastidiously plan the content material for the positioning to align with the subject and the viewers. This article will assist the proprietor of every intranet website be sure that it delivers worth to the readers. It’s model new and one thing I’ve wished to work on for a very long time! Ever since they first got here out, I’ve shared a communication website planning information on my web site. The information can function a companion to the Microsoft article and gives a structured doc that can be utilized by website house owners to get suggestions on the fundamental targets and construction of their websites previous to configuring the positioning in SharePoint.
In the subsequent few weeks, there will probably 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 challenge included authoring two articles for that collection – one about planning “governance first” when implementing Microsoft 365 and the opposite detailing learn how to plan for intranet governance. Look for details about these articles in a future weblog put up!
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