Intranet Management Software Blog

A short video explaining how SME companies can use Claromentis InfoCapture to manage non conformancies that arise from internal and external audits.

For smaller companies the complexities of the powerful quality management applications from Claromentis are sometimes simply not necessary – the video shows how InfoCapture and of course version controlled document management for the actual policies can supply an ideal solution in these circumstances.

E-form Services, Home, Prod-Quality e-forms, quality management software

As a provider of intranet software we naturally offer a range of services – from training, support, configuration, interface designs and consultancy through to bespoke development.

While traveling this week to one of our clients in Malaysia I was reminded once again what great service really means.

Example 1 : An Airline

Traveling business class with Qatar airlines I experienced really excellent service from all of the cabin crew – individual attention with the exactly the personal touches and positive engagement that really makes such a difference. I didn’t even catch them out when I moved seats – I was still Mr. Davies and they remembered whether I preferred sparkling water or still, what wine I was drinking and which jacket they had hung up for me.

But what was clear to me was that the bedrock that puts this service in context is the standard of the plane – the seat, the food and the general environment.

Without that underlying solid quality at the foundation level the personal service would just become a hypocritical seeming attempt to paper over the cracks.

Example 2 : A Restaurant in Kuala Lumpur : The Mandarin Oriental

The menu listed an elegant kind of matrix of meat types, sizes and choices of sauces. Nice but nothing too remarkable. The interesting thing was that after choosing your steak a charming lady then arrived with a wooden box of knives for you to select just the right one – wooden handle, modern handle, heavy, light. These things were razor sharp, interesting and basically just the greatest knives to eat a steak with.

Steak knife sir?

What is the cost of this kind of exceptional service? Almost nothing basically – the knives are continuously reusable – but just like the service I experienced at Qatar airlines the rest of the experience – the basics of high food quality and an enjoyable environment – needed to be in place to prevent this additional service from looking very awkward.

As an aside this is a nice touch of innovation through continuous improvement – at the time it seemed remarkable to offer me a choice of amazing knives to eat a steak with, but looking back on it and remembering some very blunt and boring knives – it now seems like a perfectly sensible idea.

Example 3 : Our own intranet client meetings last week

We are really trying to emphasize a friendly approach to consultancy – now the Claromentis web based framework has got so significant we are often working through the best way to implement solutions for clients from a range of appropriate choices offered by different applications.

Last week we were working with a new client, a young company with a great idea for using our software in an innovative way within the talent assessment field. We had an enjoyable meeting, with designers, sales and application experts all up there white boarding away with the client – discussing options, finding the greatest way to exceed our clients expectations. Here is an email from that client which I received while staying in KL this week:

“We really enjoyed working with you and the rest of the team on Monday. It feels like we can do a lot of exciting things together.

It’s a joy to watch people collaborating on creating something the way you all were and to see you all working out how to solve problems for us.

Thanks again!”

What did that session cost us? Basically nothing – except our time – indeed a very valuable commodity at Claromentis these days, but a more conventional meeting would only have saved a couple of hours.

Again it was based on a firm footing, the framework really is powerful, and the applications work. The additional service is interesting for our staff too – as they bounce ideas off of each other. Creating the best solution is just more fun!

I will certainly be back at the Mandarin Hotel in KL, I am a new fan of Qatar Airlines business travel and I hope we can be as devoted to great service with our clients over the coming years.

Summary

Great service only creates an exceptional experience when the underlying product is already rock solid. A really good lesson to have learned.

Home, Services intranet services, service quality

Sharing a couple of really neat Project Management features in Claromentis 6.0 – copying a project and enhancements to the Gantt chart.

We will try to get out a few of these sneak preview blogs on the theme of Claromentis 6.0 and why it really matters. I am planning one more on the project application and then another series on People meta data – feel free to let us know what you think and request any other feature reviews here on our Blog!

Home, Prod-Project intranet project manager

Increasingly we are taking on clients whose search for a quality management system is not primarily from their own need, but rather dictated by their clients.

More and more companies are having to mandate that their suppliers adhere to a quality management system – because that helps them maintain their own certification.

I suppose that in many ways this is a good thing, but I worry about the cynical attitude it sometimes comes with.

Home, Prod-Quality ISO9001, QMS

Over the years we have seen many changes in the requirements of our new customers as we deploy Claromentis in a hugely varying client base.

These changes have been gradual and material, driven both by the significant increase in capabilities of web based frameworks, and by the changing nature of modern collaboration.

In just the last couple of years I have noticed the increasing importance of bespoke applications – customers looking for assistance from Claromentis are more and more focused on software to meet their particular needs – rather than anything that would normally fit under the increasingly flexible definition of “an intranet”.

We experienced this first with Process Manager which allows any customer to implement form based processes, and this interest continues to grow significantly, but now we have implementations of much more complex bespoke software within the Claromentis framework implemented by means of the API.

These projects are extremely varied in their nature –  recent examples include managing specific sales inquiries, retail store inspections, sustainability, donations, job scheduling, desk bookings and corporate audit management. It would be difficult to find any common ground between them – except that they are all web based, manage information for staff and require a strong permission system.

I have been asking myself why, and I think the answer is simply ‘ because we can’. By this I mean that when companies come to us asking if some new idea is possible, our answer is almost always ‘yes’. We have the experience, framework, code base and API – but more importantly the  consultative people that can listen to ideas and not only show how they can be implemented, but with a clarity on at what cost, with what alternatives and with what implications for our client.

For those clients that require it we are becoming more and more a true technology partner – the latest significant step in our 10 year history of providing web based software.

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As someone who helps set the vision for a leading intranet software company, I feel that the decisions we need to make are becoming increasingly fascinating and challenging due to 6 main factors:

1.    Intranet providers like Claromentis have pushed the boundaries of what is usefully deliverable as an intranet application into a space few would have believed possible just a few years ago. Companies, vendors and procurement processes are still trying to adjust.

2.    Modern web based technologies that Claromentis leverage have themselves leapt forwards, transforming what is possible within the constraints of a browser based system.

3.    User expectations have quite rightly moved inline with the ubiquitous availability of modern devices with clean, efficient and beautiful interfaces, an obvious example being the i-phone.

4.    Modern development practices are still evolving towards a reliable method for rapid deployment of web based applications that balance speed of deployment with the goal of exceeding client expectations.

5.    Client management teams are themselves trying to plan their route through information management, compliance, marcomms and innovation issues when planning software acquisitions in the corporate web space.

6.    Our software has become a true platform, rather than a set of products.

What a great place to be!

Home intranet priorities

We had a really interesting client meeting today. The discussions were all about leveraging the very considerable interaction and engagement they had achieved from the phase 1 launch of a Claromentis intranet. This has been very successful and has generated  considerable momentum to move on now to phase 2, building on the success achieved.

We discussed some of the Claromentis solutions for interaction and engagement – including of course the upcoming Innovate application – and one of the surprising comments was that they were initially worried that Innovate looked to complex. ‘We have to make it easy’.

The reason being that some of the users are outreaching social care workers who only received company computers a year or so ago.

How often have I heard that. Make it easy. Of course it is a focus of ours in terms of usability.

What occurred to me in the meeting today was that the most frightening thing of all for intranet users is a completely blank page. We have to guide them, give them confidence to express themselves – then they are off.

Staring at nothing is just paralyzing. The dreaded first page of a book. Micro blogging works because it is a simple, highly manageable, open space set within what is in fact a tightly constrained and structured application. It allows freedom without the capacity for procrastination. The small space for your input focuses you in a way that freedom without limits does not.

Many things will work for intranet users – giving them a blank page is absolutely not one of them.

Home intranet usability

As a web development company we still get involved in numerous projects where the likely engagement or traction of an idea is overestimated by our customer to a significant degree.

This is surprising given the economic climate we are fast becoming used to operating in, but perhaps it is just the nature of certain types of entrepreneurs to believe those columns of excel data which based on simple projections extend ever higher  over time – reaching total world dominance in just a couple of nimble tabs.

As a contrast those of us that work in intranet projects know how hard you have to work to capture and retain users, and how easy it is to disappoint them and lose them for long periods of time.

Both as users and as customers we are increasingly demanding and sensitive – if we cant find exactly what we want with minimum effort we will just go to where we can – without leaving a trace in a project that tried hard to work out what we might be looking for, but didn’t get it quite perfect.

My question is why some people are so optimistic about the external world but so realistic about the likely behaviour of our colleagues. Perhaps this is nothing more than replacing some idealized version of a dissatisfied and excited consumer with reality, having got to know our workmates over extended periods of time.

But perhaps the workplace constrains both our imagination and our behaviour – it places us in a routine where we will simply not respond and change only because we did not do that yesterday.

If that is the case then intranet project teams need to bring a dose of external optimism into their projects, work hard to deliver exactly what their colleagues need and not let old practices continue to constrain both behaviour and innovation.

Home intranet, intranet consultancy

Great to review and use the early releases of Discuss over the last few days.

Over the coming weeks we will be posting a series of blogs about this innovative intranet chat application to promote the ability for users to fire up real time 1 to 1 or conference chats with anyone online in the corporate intranet.

We have the first client review shortly and that is a great milestone – but both in its own right and as a platform for the upcoming major Innovate Application these are certainly exciting times!

Home chat, discuss, intranet software

We now support Flash Videos directly in Intranet Content Managed publish pages.

The player is built-in.

This is available with the current build of 5.7

Prod-Content content management, flash, flv