From IT Program to Overall
Corporate Strategy
Westminster Canterbury Intranet
“As an IT Manager, I can say administering SharePoint and all the services it uses is incredibly time
consuming. Switching to Intranet Connections from
SharePoint, simplified intranet administration saving me countless hours a year. ”
ROBERT MANN, IT MANAGER, WESTMINSTER CANTERBURY
Robert Mann, Information Technology (IT) Manager at Westminster Canterbury, began his intranet
journey in 2010 with a SharePoint intranet. Six months later, SharePoint deployed with required
assistance from a third-party SharePoint Developer. Initially, Mann was happy with the new intranet,
but after only a year he realized SharePoint was difficult to use and maintaining it was time consuming.
“SharePoint was nice for a year. After that, our SharePoint consultant went out of business and
making changes to the intranet ourselves became too resource intensive and costly. One particular
pain point was getting our Company Branding on the SharePoint intranet – it was difficult to alter the
design and match our brand guidelines. It was time, resource and cost intensive to accomplish this,
and we were never quite happy with how it turned out,” Mann explained.
During the course of Westminster Canterbury’s short tenure with SharePoint, Mann recognized that
any changes made on the SharePoint intranet must be administered by IT or by a third-party resource, no part of their SharePoint intranet administration could be handed off to non-IT employees.
Mann knew they needed to start fresh with a new intranet that all employees could work with,
without the bulk of the management residing in with the IT Department. After only evaluating one
alternative intranet solution, Mann immediately took the initiative to purchase Intranet Connections in
2011 because of its simplicity and ease-of-use that go unmatched.
Overview
Country or Region: United States
Industry: Healthcare
Customer Profile
Westminster Canterbury is a
retirement community located in
Virginia, USA. Founded in 1971,
Westminster Canterbury was the
first retirement community in the
area to receive accreditation by
the Continuing Care Accreditation
Commission.
Business Situation
Westminster Canterbury was
frustrated with the exorbitant costs
associated with their SharePoint
intranet and lack of ability to
administer simple changes.
After only one year, Westminster
Canterbury went back to the
drawing board in search of a simpler
intranet solution.
Solution
Intranet Connections provided the
ease-of-use Westminster Canterbury
required at an affordable cost.
Non-IT employees could administer
and maintain the new intranet
themselves soaring intranet adoption
and employee engagement, not
to mention improving workflow
processes.
Benefits
•Eliminated 3rd Party Consultants
•75% Paper Waste Reduction
•50% Increase in Intranet Adoption
•Non-IT Intranet Administration
The Search for an All Employee Intranet
Most companies purchase intranet software to make their employees’ lives easier.
However, when Robert Mann, IT Manager
at Westminster Canterbury, purchased
SharePoint in 2010, it only made his life more
difficult.
When Mann realized SharePoint was too
difficult to set up in-house himself, he hired
a third-party SharePoint Consultant, which
became quite expensive. After only one year,
the SharePoint Consultant went out of business, leaving Mann and his IT Department
out to dry with an intranet that was difficult to
maintain and update.
SharePoint was far too complicated for nonIT employees to administer. This quickly became a problem for the resource constrained
Westminster Canterbury IT Department, as
this was just one of the many systems they
must administer. They simply didn’t have the
capacity to facilitate every document upload,
add each company announcement, onboard
every new employee and publish each new
piece of content on the intranet along with all
their other IT obligations.
“I knew we badly needed a new intranet
platform that was more user-friendly and
easier to administer than SharePoint,” Mann
explained, “Immediately, I thought of Intranet
Connections”.
Mann had heard about the simplicity and
ease-of-use of Intranet Connections from
other healthcare organizations. They wanted
an intranet that didn’t require third-party
consultants and that would be easy for all
employees to use. Intranet Connections
delivered just that and at a reasonable price
point.
In 2011, just one year after purchasing
SharePoint, Mann made the executive decision to purchase Intranet Connections. It was
important for Mann to switch everything over
to the new intranet as fast as possible so
non-IT employees could start updating and
maintaining their new intranet.
With some help from the Intranet Connections Technical Support Team, Mann was
able to quickly migrate from SharePoint to
Intranet Connections in an instant.
“After we switched to Intranet Connections
we breathed a sigh of relief, other departments and non-IT staff members were able
to take over most of the day-to-day tasks,”
Mann informed.
Employees were quickly trained on Intranet
Connections. The administration and maintenance of the new intranet was a shared
responsibility, each department maintaining
and managing their own areas of the intranet.
Mann’s IT Department no longer had fullcustody of everything on the intranet.
An Employee-Based Intranet
Immediately after installing the new Intranet
Connections intranet, Mann received positive
feedback from employees.
“The implementation went smoothly and
everyone liked the look and feel of the new
intranet. It flowed really well and it is easier
to read and navigate than SharePoint. Our
intranet now reminds me of the public websites I use in my own personal time,” Mann
explained.
To ensure the new intranet would be more
widely used, Mann wanted to go from what
was an IT program and focus more on making it an employee program. He began working closely with the HR and Public Relations
Departments to include applications and
features that would help employees get their
jobs done faster, as well as increase intranet
adoption and employee engagement.
In doing this, Mann created several applications that were previously offline, inefficient
processes, moving them onto the intranet.
One of the most popular tools Mann created
was Westminster Canterbury’s Learning Calendar. The Learning Calendar enables staff
to sign up for classes, webinars or seminars,
whether it’s for corporate, management or
clinical skills training. It also allows employees to sign up for mandatory regulatory
classes and other types of corporate training.
Before Intranet Connections, sign-ups were
difficult to maintain and administrate. With
the success and popularity of this application alone, Mann has future plans of creating
a Westminster Canterbury University on the
intranet.
Sustainability Practices
Since the Learning Calendar was so highlyused and appreciated, Mann thought of
more ways Westminster Canterbury could
be utilizing their new Intranet Connections’
intranet. That’s when he thought of moving
the company newsletter, InTouch, online.
Each month, the Public Relations team creates and distributes an employee newsletter,
which would have to be printed and manually
distributed to all employees. Realizing how
costly and time inefficient this was, Mann
had the Public Relations Team create an
electronic version of this newsletter on the
intranet.
Moving this paper-based process online
now provides easy-access for all employees
to publications, even historical issues, that
only previously existed for employees in the
paper-based format.
“This one application alone as reduced our
paper printing by 50%. Now we only have to
print the newsletter for employees who don’t
have a computer, which is nominal. We have
saved thousands on paper, ink costs and
printer maintenance just this year alone. It
also allows us to distribute the newsletter to
employees more quickly. By the end of the
year, we expect that 90% of all of paperbased tasks will be digital on our intranet,”
Mann informed.
To ensure they stay on track with this goal,
“SharePoint used to be an
IT program. Now Intranet
Connections is a full Corporate
Strategy for us.”
ROBERT MANN
IT MANAGER
WESTMINSTER CANTERBURY
Mann is looking to set-up computer kiosks in
the employee dining room which will provide
access to the intranet so all employees,
computer or not, can get it on the intranet.
Another way Mann has reduced paper waste
and the associated costs is with the Corporate Compliance tool. Corporate Compliance
on the Westminster Canterbury intranet
contains all the organization’s policies and
procedures. Previously, these documents
were kept in a handbook that was manually
distributed to each employee. Whenever a
change in policy occurred, they would have
to reprint the handbook for all staff members. Now, it simply gets updated on the
intranet and an announcement is set on the
intranet home page notifying employees of
the change.
“We tried using a lot of these features on our
SharePoint intranet, but it took a lot more
effort to administrate. Public Relations and
HR used to get frustrated and email content
to IT and IT would have to make changes,
whereas now Public Relations can update
their own publications without help from
IT,” Mann explained. “I personally enjoy not
getting emails from staff asking me to update
the intranet anymore,” Mann added.
Mann appreciates the sizable time-savings
he has reaped with Intranet Connections
allowing more parties to be involved in the
day-to-day operations of their intranet.
“As an IT Manager, switching to Intranet
Connections from SharePoint has simplified
intranet administration for me, saving me at
least 100 hours a year. Not to mention, the
ease-of-use and intuitive nature built into the
product that allows our HR Department to
take over onboarding new employees, which
previously could only be done by our IT staff
on our SharePoint intranet,” Mann declared.
Simplified Training & Onboarding
A priority Mann worked hard to achieve with
the new intranet was ensuring HR could
take over areas of the intranet themselves,
specifically, new employee onboarding.
“Completely new to our Intranet Connections
intranet are our Department Sites. It’s so
easy to create a site on Intranet Connections,
the team can have a new site up and running
in less than an hour,” Mann detailed.
“We were using Active Directory Synchronization on SharePoint, but it didn’t have the
look and feel of a true Employee Directory.
We had to pay for customization to get
SharePoint to do what we wanted it to do.
With Intranet Connections, it came with a
built-in professional, visual Employee Directory. It has been completely embraced and
taken over by our HR Department,” Mann
reported pleased.
“Not only has HR taken over adding new
employees to the intranet, they’ve taken
it to the next level and included new hire
orientation right on the intranet. This gives
new hires a quick demonstration of how to
use the intranet, what’s on it, where to find
key resources and how to get around,” Mann
further explained.
Before this initiative, Mann noticed a lot of
new employees didn’t know much about the
intranet. There is now instructional overview
on using the Intranet incorporated in our New
Employee Training.
In addition, the HR Department has created a
Managers Tool Box feature that contains information regarding team meetings, management documents, job descriptions and more.
It has proven to be popular at Westminster
Canterbury and has become the place where
managers go to collaborate.
“SharePoint used to be an IT program. Now
Intranet Connections is a full corporate
strategy for us. People don’t see it as an IT
program or an IT department initiative anymore, they see how HR uses it to communicate, Executives use it, the entire company
uses it to connect and employees now get
information in an expedient manner through
it,” Mann shared.
Reliable Product & Support
With intranet adoption and employee engagement on the rise, it was important for
Mann to keep their new intranet fresh, not
dated like their SharePoint intranet.
After a short three years using Intranet Connections, Mann felt like he needed to shake
things up again and decided to undertake an
intranet redesign to ensure the Westminster
Canterbury intranet stayed relevant.
Mann wanted to deliver the best user experience and the resources employees wanted
most in the new design so he surveyed employees through the intranet to acquire the
feedback he needed and provide employees
further buy-in into their intranet.
Beginning with the intranet home page,
Mann included company announcements for
important company-wide information, such
as mandatory flu shot announcements. And
as per employee requests, he included an
Employee Birthday Feed and a Weather
Feed. In addition, he reorganized the Global
Menu Navigation and also included a Left
Sidebar Navigation with collapsible menu
items to popular features and quick links.
For Mann, the redesign was all about focusing on the number of clicks it took for employees to locate desired resources. “Moving
to Intranet Connections from SharePoint,
our intranet adoption rate increased by more
than 50%. Our employees love the design
and usability of Intranet Connections – plus,
the navigation is intuitive and the product is
unbelievably user friendly. It’s more than just
a data and document center, it engages our
employees and promotes our culture,” Mann
shared.
Another important feature for Mann to
include on the intranet home page was their
United Way Campaign. He incorporated intranet games and contests into the campaign
such as intranet bingo and had employees
who wanted to play donate to the United
Way cause to receive their bingo board and
they could play directly from their desk. This
alone has increased employee donations,
participation and engagement.
During the whole intranet redesign process,
Mann was able to connect with the Intranet
Connections’ Stellar Technical Support
Team to get his inquires answered quickly
and efficiently as he was exploring new
areas of the intranet software. Being able
to work closely with Intranet Connections
Technical Support Staff was a relief for Mann
after working in isolation on the SharePoint
intranet.
“Formerly on SharePoint, if my application
team had an issue and I was out of the office, they would have to engage an external
consultant which could take days, even a
week to respond. Now if there are any questions that pop up about our intranet, they
are answered quickly by the responsive and
friendly Intranet Connections Technical Support Staff. When we were on SharePoint, we
didn’t have anyone to call,” Mann explained.
Now, when Mann has a question, he is able
to email and even schedule a remote session
to speak with a Support Technician directly
at Intranet Connections. A radical change
from the limited and costly support they
received with their SharePoint intranet.
Aside from the support, Mann and the rest of
the Westminster Canterbury team have been
thoroughly impressed with their new intranet
platform. “I’ve been really impressed with the
product enhancements and upgrades available on Intranet Connections over the years.
The Intranet Connections’ infrastructure is
rock solid. We have had zero downtime on
Intranet Connections and if there is ever an
issue the Intranet Connections Team is quick
to get us a resolution,” Mann touted.
Mann continues to play around with the
Westminster Canterbury intranet. Right now,
intranet usage is at an all-time high and he
has no plans of stopping there. With several
more ideas and strategies in place, Mann is
hoping to eliminate paper waste completely
and move almost all their company procedures online.
BNA
Established in 1999, Intranet Connections has a rich history in the intranet software industry. With
over 1,600 clients and counting, we have intranet software that serves a wide variety of industries:
Healthcare Intranet
Financial Intranet
Corporate Intranet
Our three product offerings are based on the implementations and evolutions of our customers’
intranet successes, including: hospitals, medical center, hospices, long-term care facilities, banks,
credit unions, government agencies, financial firms, technology companies and manufacturers/
distributors; some of which have been with us from the beginning.
A FEW OF OUR HAPPY CLIENTS
Intranet Connections: A Company with Values
We have thrived in the competitive industry of business intranet software because of the core principles
our company was founded upon: SIMPLICITY, POSITIVITY, INTEGRITY, CREATIVITY and EMPATHY.
Woven into the fabric of our company and software, we strive to embody these values in every avenue
of our customer’s experience with Intranet Connections.
Simplicity
Positivity
Integrity
Creativity
Empathy
The core concept that drove
the creation of Intranet
Connections software was
KISS (Keep It Simple Silly).
As our company grows,
the concept of simplicity
has evolved into a more
customer-centric version
where we ask “How can we
make life simpler?”
We bring energy and
enthusiasm to our work, so
our customers can have a
positive experience doing
their work. We believe that
as a team, we can tackle
hurdles and achieve great
things, and that our software
can inspire a positive
We have survived this
many years because of
our continued product
innovation, integrity and
authenticity. We have
inspired intranet champions
and advocates, and are
proud to have customers
that have been with us for
over a decade, still going
How an intranet makes an
employee feel, and they
ways in which they interact
with it, are very important
to us. We build innovative
and creative interfaces that
are easy-to-use with robust
functionality to support
them. It is a very creative
process.
The relationships we build
with our customers, and the
connections we make, is
what sets us apart. It’s not
just about selling software
– you can’t make an impact
with just technology. We put
ourselves in our customer’s
shoes and truly listen to
their needs.
workplace.
strong!
Connect with us
+1 604-924-9770
www.intranetconnections.com