Evergreen Intranets: How Often Should Your Intranet Be Updated?

There’s no numerical answer to the question of how often you should update your intranet. Ideally, your intranet should be constantly updated, although this might difficult if you have a custom solution. Allowing your intranet to become outdated is one of the biggest reasons for intranet failure. To make your intranet a success, you must ensure that both content and features are updated regularly.

Here are three things you must do to keep your intranet up-to-date:

1. Allow Feedback

The first step in working out when to update your intranet is to find out what your users think of the current system. Your intranet should have a built-in feedback application that allows users to explain the problems they are experiencing when using the intranet. Evergreen intranet as a service systems have feedback features built in, allowing users to provide feedback directly to the intranet provider.

2. Find Out What’s Working — And What Isn’t

To know which parts of your intranet need updating, find out which features are working and which aren’t. Use your analytics and reporting features to see how users interact with the intranet. Are there some features that they ignore? These features may be broken or difficult to use, making them prime candidates for updating.

3. Roll Out New Features Constantly

Intranet technology is constantly evolving. New features used to come out every two or three years, but now they are being released rapidly every quarter if not every month. That means you need to roll out a constant stream of new features to prevent your intranet becoming outdated.

If you use a custom intranet, it can be difficult to keep up, as you need an in-house team that can work constantly on new features for the intranet in addition to their regular maintenance duties. An evergreen intranet, which is updated by the intranet provider so you don’t have to develop upgrades in-house, could be a better solution.

A New Approach: Evergreen Intranet

Now that technology is evolving rapidly, you need to stop thinking of your intranet as a thing you set and forget and start seeing it as a work in progress. The more content you add to any intranet system, the more difficult it becomes for your users to find the resources they need. Therefore, you need your intranet to continuously evolve so it can cope with the ever-growing amount of content it stores.

The Advantages of OneWindow

Evergreen intranet is the future. Under the intranet as a service model, your intranet provider continuously improves the intranet according to feedback gathered from your users and hundreds of others. Microsoft uses this information to update the back end of your intranet, while OneWindow updates the front end to keep the user experience as convenient and efficient as possible. This service gives your intranet the flexibility you need.

Final Thought

The best way to drive adoption of your intranet and make it helpful for your users is to update it as often as possible. If you have a custom intranet, your update frequency will be limited by the resources you have in house, so you might want to consider using an evergreen intranet instead.

Intranet as a service providers keep your intranet constantly updated, giving you access to the latest technological advances.

Topics: Corporate Intranet Tips, Intranet
Daniel Cohen-Dumani

Daniel Cohen-Dumani a Partner and Market Leader of Microsoft Solutions and Services at Withum. He has more than 20 years of experience in the field of computer science and software development. He is a frequent speaker at SharePoint conferences and user groups, and a recognized SharePoint and Office 365 subject matter expert.