August 2017 - Content Formula

Robust policy management with Wizdom’s handbook feature

Posted on 17 August 201729 June 2022 by John Scott

Providing access to company policies and procedures is an important feature for intranets. The majority of companies recognise that the intranet is the perfect way to deliver this information to employees. Companies that have a streamlined approach to policy management reduce their compliance risk and improve their productivity.

Wizdom has a feature called Handbook that allows you to maintain and access policies, procedures, guidelines, handbooks or manuals on your intranet. Its a powerful business app that lets you keep policies in a hierarchical and searchable menu structure.

The app allows your employees to easily find and access business critical information either by search or by navigating the menu. But, just as importantly, it allows editors to easily manage and edit the documents too. Editors and content owners are given a dashboard that advises them about the status of the policies that they are responsible for. The system notifies them, and employees, when the policies are due for renewal or re-approval.

The Handbook app includes the following:

Mandatory Read. Policies can be targeted at groups of people and alert them that they are required to read the information
Relevant Read. Policies can be suggested to certain groups of people that they may be of interest to
Employees can mark policies as read or save them to read later
Page templates makes it easy for editors to manage and edit documents.
Revision history and version control make it clear what changes have been made to policies over time and when
Revision dates ensure that outdated content or content that is being edited is clearly marked
Wizdom forms can quickly and easily be embedded directly within the pages allowing employees to start a process – like booking a maternity leave, for example.

You can even add a simple test that appears at the end of policies, to ensure that employees have read and fully understood the information.

To learn more about Wisdom, read our article about Wizdom intranets most popular feature: news engine

Wizdom intranet’s most popular feature: “news engine”

Posted on 14 August 201729 June 2022 by John Scott

Wizdom intranet features a unique relevance engine that revolutionises news and information management distribution across the whole intranet. The engine includes both Corporate News (for official, corporate comms) and Noticeboard (for more informal comms and messaging).

At the core of the news engine is an information classification engine that automatically makes the content more relevant to employees depending on their job roles and subscription preferences.

Corporate News

Wizdom Corporate News allows content creators to easily broadcast engaging corporate messages.
News includes modern page templates and can be managed through approval workflows and scheduled publishing.
The news is visually engaging and supports rich media such as images and embeded video (Office 365 video, YouTube, Vimeo etc.)
An easy-to-use picture editor makes it quick for editors to add pictures and ensure they are scaled to the right size.
Editors can choose to highlight corporate news on the homepage in a variety of formats including a carousel, cards, thumbnails etc.
A news archive makes it easy to find older news through search.
The corporate news templates allow you to include any of the SharePoint and Wizdom webparts and embed them in an article. For example, you can add a form or an FAQ to a news article.
Editor can choose to have likes and comments on news articles.
The news articles can be filtered by tags that you define and are relevant to your organisation.
Next to the article you can see related news, related documents, related people and related pages based on tags.
The author of the articles is displayed which allows staff to contact the right person about the content.

Noticeboard

Make sure that information is shared with all relevant employees and eliminate mass distribution email messages. Wizdom Noticeboard offers editors as well as end users an intuitive experience that makes writing, commenting and reading announcements available to everyone in your organisation.

postmessage-1 — Before posting a message the user must choose a channel to post to

postmessage-2-1 — The post message pop-up window on Noticeboard is super-easy to use

Wizdom Noticeboard personalises the information flow, only showing news that is relevant for the user.
Noticeboard is easy to use and allows you to open news publishing and messaging to a broad user-base without the need for training.
Noticeboard is made up of different channels. Channels can be made mandatory for all or for a selected groups. Or they can be made subscription or a mixture of both. It’s even possible to have hidden channels that are only visible to certain employee groups.
See an overview of the most widely read messages, most commented messages and most heavily subscribed news channel.
Noticeboard offers a variety of intuitive options to control the visual look of messages including support for images, videos and links.
Choose between a selection of Noticeboard webpart templates and display news in various ways. If you want your own customised look and feel, you can easily create your own Noticeboard template in the Wizdom Configuration Center.
Employees will receive new items in their notification panel every time a relevant new message or comment is published. This will draw their attention to new information that is relevant to them personally.
Social features – likes, comments, @mentions and notifications ensures that more people are involved in producing and reading intranet news.
The sender of a Noticeboard news message can choose to enable social comments and likes on their message.
Noticeboard also allows you to show news from external sources as part of the intranet news stream.
Video can be integrated into news by embedding Office 365, YouTube and Vimeo videos – allowing for employee generated video.
Manage news through approval workflows and scheduled publishing.
The Wizdom news archive offers filtered search to find older news.

Running an Intranet RFP – an agency view

Posted on 14 August 201729 June 2022 by Dan Hawtrey

We love working with new clients (as well as old ones!). Obviously, we like to win new business, but the most rewarding aspect is meeting new people and working on exciting projects. The Content Formula team love implementing new things. Making clients happy is what were all about!

Usually winning a new client means going through an RFP process. The Request for proposal is an established and structured way for organisations to invite, evaluate and ultimately select an agency or partner to work with it. For us, an RFP could be anything from an invitation to develop a three-year relationship to just providing a product, such as a turnkey intranet.

Usually the RFP is a natural step after the formulation of an intranet strategy and making an intranet business case. You may also have done some preliminary work to get the support of your senior management.

RFPs are a big commitment

RFPs are a way of life for digital agencies and software vendors, but they can also be extremely time-consuming for both the organisation and the agency involved.

Its a significant time and resource commitment for both parties. It can involve multiple individuals from both side. An RFP process can also last for months, delaying important projects.

From an agency point of view, we always carefully consider whether we want to respond to an RFP. We weigh up the time commitment, the value of the work and the likelihood of winning and the associated risk of not-winning.

This means that occasionally we will have to turn down the RFP invitation when:

We just do not have the resources to respond adequately, perhaps due to current work commitments
We dont feel were the best agency to respond to the RFP or dont believe we can help the potential client
The work on offer is not of high enough value because it is a small project, although if this is the precursor to a longer working relationship it may be attractive
Where the information requested appears to be over-the-top and it will take us too long to respond
Where the deadline for responses is unrealistic
When we assess we have very little chance of winning the work
Where were not sure the client knows what they want and they are perhaps using the RFP process to find out (intentionally or unintentionally) the information they need rather than select an agency. It is likely they could benefit from consultancy services.

Tips for running a successful RFP process

The danger for an organisation which ends up having agencies and vendors not responding to their RFP is that they will not be able to find the best partner for their needs. The team will also be wasting more time, resources and energy on the RFP process.

Here are a few tips which can lead to a better RFP process for everybody.

Find out more information first

Youll save a lot of time by properly researching your list of potential agencies to invite. A lot of information can be gleaned by looking agency websites, and by getting recommendations from your peers.

However, the best thing is to arrange a call first. Were delighted to speak to clients about their needs. If youre researching products, then arrange a demo. This can usually be done virtually and its a great way to get a feel for a product such as an intranet-in-a-box solution.

Some organisations run an RFI process (Request for Information) prior to an RFP where they ask for information from a wider set of agencies, although this can be a time-consuming process too.

Meet the agency before the RFP

The chemistry between the teams from agency and client is important and is often a key input for any final decision. Ideally meet an agency in person before you invite them to tender. Perhaps ask them to come in for an hour and present to you. We love to meet potential clients. Please get in touch!

Work on an intranet strategy before the RFP

It really helps to know what you want from your agency. The best way to achieve that is by working on an intranet strategy which is based on a thorough understanding of your users. The strategy will help you to craft a more accurate RFP document for your needs.

It can be very difficult for agencies to give you a proper response if you are too vague about your needs. Some potential great implementation partners for you may not feel they are able to help if youre at too early a stage in your thinking to adequately run the RFP process.

Ideally, you should also have business commitment for your project too. An RFP where the work then gets cancelled because there wasnt approval is very frustrating for all.

Dont run an RFP to validate a decision already made

If youve already more or less decided on a supplier and youre running an RFP because your procurement function says you must, or you need to validate your decision with senior stakeholders, then please try to consider alternatives to the RFP process.

Of course meet other agencies to make a decision, but when carrying out an RFP go into it with a genuinely open mind otherwise you are potentially wasting a lot of your own time and those within your organisation.

Project manage the RFP

RFPs need to be tightly run as projects to keep them on course. Ensure you:

Have realistic timelines allowing responses from agencies and proper internal consideration of the suppliers
Stick to deadlines
Dont invite too many suppliers, otherwise this may prove too difficult and time consuming for you and your colleagues
Assemble the right team dont leave out stakeholders who will insist on a retrospective review of any decision!
Are transparent about the process and keep everyone involved in the loop.
Stick to the rules. In some industries and the public sector, there may be strict rules to the RFP process which must be adhered to.
Let the agencies who didnt win know the reasons why this feedback is very useful.

Be prepared!

The key secret of running a successful RFP is to be properly prepared. Do your research on the agencies, derive your intranet strategy, and plan the process. Dont go into an RPF lightly, otherwise it can be overwhelming.

Follow some of the tips in this post and were convinced youll get more out of the process and find the right implementation partner for your organisation. Youll end up with a willing supplier and related product. Youre far more likely to develop a successful relationship, delivering great solutions with excellent results.

Month: August 2017