Evolving your website to better support your organisation

An Intranet is a private network housed within your website which allow employees within an organisation to access information. Here at Olamalu, we saw an increase in briefs to build intranets during lockdown and with the majority of organisations now working to an ongoing hybrid model, intranets continue to be in demand.

An intranet can provide internal users the information they need to stay up to speed with what’s going on in the organisation from latest news, policies and procedures to the menu in the staff canteen!

Intranets can also provide a wealth of internal process documentation and even facilitate the process for example: HR functions (such as booking holiday, reporting sickness, preparing for a performance review, applying for an internal job) or IT requirements (such as issues or raising requests for software or equipment).

An intranet can be a brilliant tool for onboarding people into your organisation. If you are an educational organisation, then your intranet could help to enrol your students before they arrive, provide them with useful information and getting them organised before they even arrive on campus.

New employees about to join your business can complete necessary admin via online forms and read useful policies, procedures and new starter information before they start.

Similarly, if your organisation is membership based, members could join remotely and be privy to member only information via an intranet.

The two main considerations are:

1. To design a user flow which ensures your intranet is quick and easy to use

2. To establish the correct levels of user access so that only the right people see the information you assign to them or to their role within your organisation.

A subsite is basically a website within a website. It shares the domain of the main website but will be an extension, so will usually look something like this www.example.org/subsite

Subsites provide a great opportunity to focus on something in particular such as a research project or a sub brand. The subsite (or mini site as they are sometimes called) can have its own branding, menu and its own administrators - so can feel as standalone from your main website or as close to it as you want. You could have a number of subsites housed within your main website and is a great way to logically communicate businesses who have different subsidiaries.

1. As with intranets, user flow is a key consideration in the development of a subsite, particularly if it looks very different from the main site. Signposting between multiple subsites and the main site requires well thought through messaging.
2. Raising awareness of the subsite (including SEO) is also something to consider as this may require an alternative marketing and communications strategy to the main site if the audience is different.

Need help? If you are thinking about an intranet or subsite for your business and don’t know where to start, we could help you.

We are Olamalu, Drupal experts and experienced web developers. We’re a friendly and down to earth team based in West Oxfordshire, who work together to achieve brilliant outcomes. We’ve been building websites and designing tailormade tech solutions including apps for a huge range of different challenges for over 10 years. We work alongside clients and really get under the skin of the business, understanding not just what is needed now, but also how to plan ahead and consider the business needs in the future.