Company Intranet/CMS..... help! :o

[0iD]

The boss wants me to produce a company Intranet/CMS for him, only I know sod all about web design. Are there any good pacakeges out there that offer a pre-formatted system I can just doctor to my needs? Someone suggested Joomla!

I'm a technical manager at an engineering company, not a web wizz kid, so basic is good. And he wants me to do it, as it's cheaper.

[Moby-Dick]

What do you need on the Intranet ?

Windows Sharepoint Services should do the trick if you want to stick with windows.

[b0redom]

I use:

drupal.org | Community plumbing

Install apache, install mysql, unzip/untar drupal into the document root - job done.

There's a load of pre-built themes, so you just have to choose one and away you go.

[0iD]

What do you need on the Intranet ?

Why, because the boss thinks it would be 'trendy', ho yes. As for content, well that's anybody's guess tbh.

[Moby-Dick]

oh dear - not knowing why you need an intranet isn't a great foundation to be working on for it.

The only reason I mention sharepoint is that a) it integrates quite well with exchange , should you use it. b) its templates are generally put together form an office intranet point of view rather than an external website view.

[TiG]

Don't go with sharepoint for one reason, Putting content up there will be pretty much become a burden. Go with a wiki type cms. It will let people fill the content up themselves and remove the need for you to constantly look after it.

TiG

[Moby-Dick]

You used the Wiki in Sharepoint 3 ?

[TiG]

Nope, but i guarentee sharepoint is more work than a standard wiki

TiG

[LWA]

I'm going to actually vote for Windows Sharepoint Services.

I helped deploy it in several businesses within the company I work for. The out of the box functionallity is very impressive.

Regarding Tig's point about "putting content up will be a burden", surely this is similar for any site? The way we handled this was to build sites for all of the applicable departments (e.g. HR, Supply Chain etc) and then hand the sites over to them. They are now responsible for keeping their information up to date in order to keep the business aware of their progress.

Commonly the departments just have document library web parts (i.e. folders on a website) and just upload their latest documentation (e.g. a word file, pdf) to publicise it to the business. Very minimal work.

[Moby-Dick]

Nope, but i guarentee sharepoint is more work than a standard wiki

TiG

It may well be to set up , but its got a much better feature base than a bog standard wiki

[LWA]

It may well be to set up , but its got a much better feature base than a bog standard wiki

As long as you are not upgrading from WSS 2.0 -> 3.0 (grr templates etc), I've found WSS 3.0 to be an absolute doddle to set up. Intuitive and with a large user base out there in case you get stuck and for when you need to do something slightly out of the ordinary.

[tiggerai]

The main issue I see here is that they want an Intranet "because it's trendy"

It's the ONE thing that will mess it up big time, you need a structure to build to, otherwise content will end up all over the place and people won't use it because they can't find anything thus making it a waste of time and money.

[Moby-Dick]

The main issue I see here is that they want an Intranet "because it's trendy"

It's the ONE thing that will mess it up big time, you need a structure to build to, otherwise content will end up all over the place and people won't use it because they can't find anything thus making it a waste of time and money.

Very very true - the technical aspects of an intranet pale into insignificance compared with the logical aspect. You may need to spend lots of time putting pen to paper and coming up with a plan of how you'd like it to function before installing anything.

The mantra I was always told is put yourself in the position of a temp working on recpetion. You've been given the intranet url and have to answer various questions over the phone - make the intranet easy for her to find the info she needs to answer those questions.

[burble]

oh dear - not knowing why you need an intranet isn't a great foundation to be working on for it.

I keep having to tell my boss this sort of thing. He does seem to be learning though. Shame it's taken me years to educate him!

[0iD]

Well I've told him that content is upto him to sort as I don't have the time. Once he has that, if he ever gets round to it, I'll have some researched solutions ready.
I know what I'd want it to look like & what I think he needs, as there was a very good one at my last company. It's going to be a learning experience for us both.