Building a task based intranet using SharePoint (AGL case study)

What is a task based intranet?

One of the key business drivers behind an effective intranet is using it to improve business processes. If an intranet can be integrated into employees everyday work life by making it easier to get things done, it then becomes more relevant, useful and business critical to an organisation.

This article describes how AGL used SharePoint 2007 to build a task based intranet. AGL is Australia's largest gas and electricity retailer, with over 3.2 million customer accounts and approximately 2,200 employees. It has recently invested in renewable energy businesses such as wind farms and a hydroelectric power station.

  

Intranet redesign strategy

In early 2008, AGL made the decision to implement MOSS 2007 and redesign their intranet. At the core of the intranet redesign strategy was the requirement to build an intranet that helped employees complete business tasks on a daily basis. 'Energy in Action' is AGL's brand promise and it was also the guiding principle behind the new intranet strategy - to build an intranet that facilitated action.

To address this need, the concept of 'I would like to' pages was developed - a template based approach for quickly creating high quality web based quick reference cards that allows all employees across the organisation to share valuable information  and complete common business tasks over the intranet.

 

Example of an 'I would like to' page

The following screen shot shows an ‘I would like to’ page for nominating an employee for an award as part of AGL's reward and recognition program  (click the image for a bigger screen shot).

 
The above screen includes brief instructions for how to complete the task (one of the guidelines is to keep pages above the fold – ie. No vertical scrolling). Links are provided if additional information is required - for example to the relevant application, web site, example document, template, policy or procedure document. A list of properties (or metadata) is provided to enable categorization and searching of ‘I would like to’ pages.

There are also two feedback mechanisms to facilitate continuous improvement:

• A "Suggest a change" to this page link
• A rate this function

 

How do employees locate the 'I would like to' pages

Employees can locate relevant ‘I would like to’ pages in a number of ways:

• A tab on the home page that provides a one-stop-shop to all ‘I would like to topics’,
• A list of popular and recently added ‘I would like to’ pages is also listed on the home page,
• ‘I would like to’ pages are accessible from the relevant business unit page (eg. All people related ‘I would like to’ may be found on the People and Culture Business Unit page), and 
• The search.

AGL Intranet Home Page (click image for a bigger picture)

 

'I would like to' landing page

The screen shot below shows the ‘I would like to’ landing page. From here, employees are able to:

• Browse I would like to topics by a range of categories,
• Search for a specific topic,
• View recently added or updated topics, and 
• View the most popular topics.

I would like to landing page (click image for a bigger picture)

 

 

Creating an 'I would like to' page

Anyone within the organisation can create an ‘I would like to’ page. They simply complete an online form and click 'Submit'. This initiates a work flow process of quality checks and approvals before the final page is published.

Creating an I would like to page (click image for a bigger picture)

Some ‘I would like to’ topics are actually online forms. So not only are instructions provided but there may also be fields that need to be completed. The above screen shot is an example.

Are the 'I would like to' pages being used?

The following table shows the number of page views over an eight week period (there are 150 IWLT pages available).

 

Summary

Implementing a task based intranet empowers employees and enables them to complete tasks more effectively. A task based intranet can significantly improve employee productivity through:

• Sharing of best practices across an organisation, instead of being hidden in silos,
• Less time spent contacting the internal service desk or employees for the answers to common questions,
• Greater consistency in completing tasks,
• Tasks more likely to be completed without errors, and 
• Tasks completed more quickly.

Comments

[James Robertson]

This is very nice!

You should convince AGL to submit this to next year's Intranet Innovation Awards... :-)

[Kim Babcock]

This is great and something we are working towards at our organization. How are you managing the content without duplicating the content on other pages?

[Andrew]

Hi Kim - thanks for your comment.

Most of the content is new so there is not much duplication. Also all the IWLT pages are on the one site which makes it easy to scan and then identify if there is a duplication of content.

We also have a feedback mechanism that allows anyone to let the team know if there is duplicate content. Each IWLT has an owner and they are responsible for ensuring their content is up-to-date and accurate.

[Andrew]

That's a good idea James - I'll see if AGL are interested.

regards
Andrew

[David Spriggs]

Hi,

I would be interested to know the amount of research and planning that was necessary to understand the tasks that AGL's users needed to perform in order to develop the solution. Was it in the order of weeks or months?

Cheers

David

[Andrew Wright]

Thanks for your comment David

All up it was around 2-3 months duration, with 10-15 employees contributing on a part time basis. 150 topics were documented wtih many of the topics identified from the help desk database - this is a good starting point.

regards
Andrew

[Cheryle]

How did you identify the resources with the skills needed to include in this project?

[forum widget]

Can you also use it for task management? I run a small business and looking for a platform that will help us with task managing and file sharing.

[ריהוט משרדי]

Intranet can be integrated into the daily lives of employees by making it easier to get things done, it becomes more relevant, useful and business-critical of an organization.