
Why Customer Experience? Why Now?

Applications
Provide links to applications for easy access to employees. It cuts down the time spent in hunting for applications on the intranet.

Remote Access
Remote access to information is the cornerstone of collaboration portals. Users should have the freedom to access content while away from the office from any network.

Document Repository
A collaboration portal must have the ability to store and retrieve document information and maintain regular backups to prevent data loss.

Security
Security features are essential to safeguard documents and sites throughout the intranet portal. Collaboration portals should have user or group-based security solutions to secure data flow and repositories.

Integration
It is the ability of the portal to unify with existing tools or the possibility of adding new tools. For example, most organizations have calendar and email integrated within intranet, allowing better time management by sharing schedules between employees.

Automation
Workflows and document template automation can reduce the workload of employees, allowing them to enhance productivity. Alerts can be created to help learn of changes and new additions to the intranet.

Customization
Flexible software that caters to organizational needs is essential for development of collaboration portals. Web Parts can be used to create custom modules that make interactions with the site easier, and allow users to customize tools and resources.

User Friendly
The learning curve of the collaboration portal should accommodate a wide range of technical abilities and aptitudes. It must be easy to understand and use for a vast majority of the workforce.

Internal Communications
Internal communications are integral to promoting corporate culture. It allows organizations to present and share information in a more interactive way with employees and reduces the time taken in reaching out to global workforces.

Blog
As part of the internal communications discipline, use blogs as a tool to provide timely information to employees. These blogs need not be restricted for internal consumption and should be used to communicate with customers, and business partners in a judicious manner.

People Search
Collaboration depends on the ability to locate collaborators based on expertise and specialties. Enterprise wide search for employee information such as contact information, specialty areas, group membership, personal interest, etc. is an essential capability for a portal.
Intranet Portals can be a huge business cost if not managed properly. Maintenance adds to that cost by being time consuming and expensive. Cost to keep the portal running can be easily accounted for, but the cost incurred when the system goes offline is probably not that easy to explain. Most intranets put an organization’s resources into one place, having that go offline can force operations to a halt.Putting everything in one place is good only if it is organized. Disorganized information can lower the productivity of the workforce drastically rendering the point of collaboration portals moot for organizations.