What is Intranet?

An intranet is a secure and private enterprise network that shares data o application resources via
Internet Protocol (IP). An Intranet differs from the internet, which is a public network.

Intranet, which refers to an enterprise’s internal website or partial IT infrastructure, may host more than
one private website and is a critical component for internal communication and collaboration.

Features of Intranet
It’s good when organizations decide to explore the path of greater efficiency and productivity with an
Intranet system. Whether you want to build a new intranet or modify an existing one, providing features
that attract the attention and actually excite your employees is a difficult task. The following is a small
guide to the 8 most effective features of a good intranet.

Document & Content Management

This is the main feature/function of any Intranet system. An Intranet system should store and manage
company documents in the form of files, pdfs, spreadsheets, etc. It acts as a gateway of knowledge
allowing employees to store, access and share the content and documents securely and easily with just
a few clicks.

Search Capability
A good Intranet system should have an enterprise search feature. The search feature helps employees
pull the information related to content or people by searching through specific keywords or phrases,
categories, filtering the tagged content, etc. A good Search feature also enables employees to find items
stored on the intranet even when they don’t know what exactly they are looking for using ‘suggested
search results’.

Information Generator
An Intranet system should allow members to generate and view information as and when required.
Timely request processing and form processing are important tasks to be performed every now and
then. An Intranet with good information generation capabilities allows employees to access business
information such as forms, workflows, employee details, reports, etc. as and respond to business tasks
more rapidly and efficiently.

Security
Every company has some sort of confidential data such as company plans & policies, personnel
information and financial data, which is shared only on a need-to-know-basis. A good Intranet should
have tight password protected security layers that blocks unauthorized access and relieves you from the
worries of data misuse and theft.

Integration
An intranet system must integrate business critical information and KRAs such as total sales, revenue
generated, expenses incurred, traffic generated, etc. This will help employees get up-to-date
information about their company in order to make wise decisions. It will also help in responding to many
business needs at a time and in generating real time reports by refreshing and integrating company
information whenever any essential data changes.

Sharing & Collaboration

Where there are great employees, there are great ideas and opinions which should be shared with other
members. A good Intranet should not miss the great feature of sharing and collaboration since Intranet
is the only platform where communication flows in different ways i.e. top to bottom, bottom to top,
peer to peer, etc. Moreover, to make sharing a non-stop process, organizations should incorporate a
blogging feature in their Intranet since it will help employees to share, view and comment on the posts
of internal as well as external participants.

Social Networking
Companies are recognizing the value of social networking and social sharing over the internet.
Moreover, with the increasing demand of bringing the social networking inside the corporate walls in
order to create awareness about the company online as well as to include it in the marketing strategy,
companies should look for an Intranet suite that supports social networking. With appropriate widgets
of each social site in the Intranet, employees can connect with people, create a sense of community and
build a brand image at no cost.

Available On-Cloud 24x7

A good Intranet should not limit its access within the corporate boundaries. Rather, it should be
deployed On-Cloud to make it available to employees 24x7 so that they do not lose the connectivity
with their organization when they are away from the office. This will help them in responding and acting
on information and reports on time through their laptop, mobile phone, home PC, or any other network.

The above mentioned 8 features are the must-haves from your prospective Intranet. For those out there
who are already using Intranet in their organization, check out where your Intranet stands and how
much it scores.
What is Intranet Used For?
Following are some general examples of information or processes that might be available on an intranet
to serve various departments.

Human Resources
From employee training materials to the employee handbook, an intranet can offer quick easy access to
fundamental publications to all employees.

Benefits, 401 k tracking, job applications, and an employee directory are just a few examples. A
company newsletter and employee newsgroups or chat boards are other opportunities an intranet
affords.

Sales Department
One of the most productive uses of an intranet is interactive multimedia training. Sales reports,
forecasts and goals, marketing strategies and geographic saturation are all tools the intranet can keep
available at the click of a mouse.

Profiles of potential new markets or clients, and information on potential competing markets can also
be helpful to sales staff in designing better sales models.

Accounting Department
Requisition requests on an intranet will save time, resources and money. Pages within an intranet can be
password protected to limit employee access, or administratively controlled. Payroll,
receivables/payables, and budget reports are all processes that can reside on the intranet.

Information Systems
Data warehousing access, departmental software development applications, and network support can
be invaluable uses of an intranet.

Intranet support itself with FAQs and interactive tutorials for virtually any purpose or department, allow
employees to teach themselves, minimizing training investment. Security information and technical
resources are also common uses of an intranet.

Executive Branch
Bottom line information like quarterly profit/loss reports, stock market analysis, tax and legal
information, and merger or partnership information can all be neatly provided on an intranet.
Meeting minutes, appointment calendars and key profiles (employees, companies or clients) can also
reside here.

How The Intranet Works

A secure and reliable intranet requires a web server that is responsible for managing all requests for files
hosted on the server, finding the requested file and delivering it to the appropriate computer. A content
management system (CMS) should also be set up to control the creation, publication and management
of content on the intranet.

An intranet may also consist of many interlinked local area networks (LANs) as well as leased lines in the
wide area network (WAN). It uses TCP/IP, HTTP, and other Internet protocols (IP). Typically, an intranet
includes connections through one or more gateway computers to the outside Internet.

An employee who wants to access the intranet must have a special network password and be connected
to the LAN. However, an employee working remotely can gain access to the intranet through a virtual
private network (VPN). The VPN allows users who are not actually connected to the required LAN to sign
into the intranet and access all the same information and functions that would be available had they
been connected to the LAN.

Firewall software is essential to the security of an organization's intranet; it stands between the outside
Internet and the private intranet. The firewall will monitor all incoming and outgoing data packets to
confirm they do not contain unauthorized or suspicious requests, ensuring malware and other malicious
attacks do not leak into the intranet. When a segment of an intranet is made accessible to customers,
partners, suppliers, or others outside the company, that segment becomes part of an extranet. The
firewall is especially important for intranet networks that include extranet extensions.

The intranet generally looks like a private version of the Internet. With tunneling, companies can send
private messages through the public network while using special encryption/decryption and other
security safeguards to connect one part of their intranet to another.