Intranet Case Study
Onside’s Transformational Intranet Journey
Onside’s Transformational
Intranet Journey
Onside is an independent not-for-profit organisation that works across Worcestershire and Herefordshire.
It provides a wide range of support services to ensure fairness and equality for all members of the community who may be vulnerable, disadvantaged or discriminated against.
Location:
Worcestershire and Herefordshire
Industry:
Not-for-profit organisation
Employees:
170
Location:
Worcestershire and Herefordshire
Industry:
Not-for-profit organisation
Employees:
170
Background
After trebling in size over the past three years and with 170 members of staff and 150 volunteers, Onside recognised that it needed a robust central repository for all its information, as well as a quick and easy way for everyone to communicate and collaborate.
“We had been using a server-based IT system, but when the pandemic hit and everyone was forced to work from home, we started to store documents in the cloud. Although this helped with accessing information remotely, we were still without a central place for staff and volunteers to easily locate everything they needed. Plus, communications were fragmented with a lot of company-wide emails asking the same questions, such as whether certain grants were available or whether we had Polish translators. This made managing email inboxes really time-consuming!”
Emma Thompson,
Director of People
To more effectively support staff and volunteers in their roles, Onside decided that a SharePoint intranet was required. With there being insufficient technical knowledge in-house to build and roll-out an intranet by itself, Onside started searching for an intranet specialist and chose Sorce after being impressed by the company’s SharePoint knowledge and expertise.
“If we’d been left to our own devices, an intranet may never have even launched as we would have got bogged down with it all. Thankfully we made the right decision by partnering with Sorce.”
Emma Thompson,
Director of People
The Journey
Onside’s intranet team was quickly created with three members of staff comprising the core team together with representatives from key areas of the organisation.
The team then set about doing a content audit and working out the intranet design and layout in close partnership with the Sorce team.
Onside was careful to get staff engaged in the build process, working alongside individual content contributors who helped to populate the intranet pages. The intranet team also felt confident that they knew exactly what needed to happen and at which points, thanks to Sorce’s partnership approach.
“It never felt like anything was too much trouble”, says Emma. “The Sorce team was always open to trying to make whatever we wanted work.”
Onside’s intranet went live to all 170 staff and 150 volunteers in July 2022.
“Sorce was brilliant in leading us through what we needed to do – the whole process was really well organised. The tools, processes and workshops we were taken through allowed us to create the best intranet we could, while feeling confident that we could shape it exactly as we wanted.”
Emma Thompson,
Director of People
The ideal platform
Onside now has a cloud-based SharePoint intranet named ‘Oracle’, which all staff and volunteers can access from laptops and mobile devices, regardless of their location.
The intranet is the first thing everyone sees when they first log onto their computers, and it’s become a central hub for organisational updates, key information and knowledge sharing. And although it’s accessible to all, volunteers can only view the pages relevant to them – the home page and volunteering pages.
“Everyone is now supported with everything they need. There are no longer group-wide emails clogging-up in-boxes, and news and information are available at a touch of a button. I can truly say the intranet has transformed how we work, making us far more efficient and far less frustrated.”
Emma Thompson,
Director of People
Benefitting from the right partnership
Onside is mindful that the outcome could have been much different had they chosen the wrong intranet partner, as Emma highlights, Emma adds, “It’s not often we commission a piece of work and feel that we’ve had really good value for money and got exactly what we wanted at the end of it. I would absolutely recommend Sorce to anyone embarking on an intranet project.”
“Our intranet journey has been excellent. In fact, the robust process we went through with Sorce highlighted the poor process we were going through with another IT provider we were using at the time. We’re so relieved that we chose Sorce, as the team was professional and friendly and made us feel very well supported, every step of the way.”
“It’s not often we commission a piece of work and feel that we’ve had really good value for money and got exactly what we wanted at the end of it. I would absolutely recommend Sorce to anyone embarking on an intranet project.”
Emma Thompson,
Director of People
