Document Management System with Submission Wizard.

Maintaining consistency and integrity of the technical documents is a business critical issue for Crondall Energy Consultant. Crondall Energy is a Floating Production System consultant which helps their clients in many areas ranging from Strategic planning, Market analysts up to Project Delivery and Training.

Claromentis Document Manager

Utilising built-in Claromentis Document Management system, we recently develop bespoke document submission wizard based on specification and guideline from Crondall Energy.

The document submission wizard is not only helping users submitting document into the right storage path (folder), it also automatically creates documents with the right name convention and automatic numbering system.

The same wizard can also be used to make strict control on making revision to the existing documents.

Intranet-Extranet, Products Design, document management, intranet consultancy, user interface

Deploying an intranet within organisation can be a complex project. The fact is that a single system has to be created to cater for requirements from individuals with different needs and objectives.

During the Intranet project implementation we often have brainstorming session with representatives from each department and we ask them what is an ideal intranet according to them if they can ignore others and only focus on what they want to see and get from the system.

Here are some interesting examples of intranet design according to their brief.

Executives

Business performance and KPI is something that Directors and executives have inside their head all the time. This type of busy folks don’t have enough time to drill down the detail, they simply want to see everything at glance without hassle.

Designer/Marketing

The look and feel is something that this type of audience cares the most. Sometime they are a bit too creative for their own sake, ignoring the main purpose of the site.

Legal & HR

Distributing information efficiently, securely and compliant is more important than everything else. This is an example of intranet design according to them.

FootNote:

Claromentis supports multiple visual interfaces, enabling the creation of completely different intranet experiences according to the type of user. In most cases we always ended up with a compromise, not the extremes like the examples above.

Intranet-Extranet Design, humor, user interface

We are really sure now that we are making the whole process of selecting a design for  a new Claromentis Intranet just too difficult for the typical company that joins us. For a certain type of company, with the relevant skills and indeed ambitions the existing process is fine – but not for many!

Precisely because Claromentis can easily be given a design that can be completely bespoke – exactly what you would like it to be – we have  encouraged clients to think hard about what they would like the design to be.

But actually it seems that most new companies would prefer that we just tell them!

So we going now through an exciting process to develop questionnaires and models that will allow us to present the new intranet customer with a great design at the first pass – and then just let them comment on it and make minor changes.

What are the positives :

1.    The client gets an intranet with a great and relevant design, fit for purpose, in very little time.

2.    We know from experience most customers refresh their designs in year two or three anyway, after the experience of actually using it.

3.    The client can focus on content, functionality, training and deployment issues – which is probably the best use of their time.

The truth is that we now know this is the best for all concerned – but we still find it difficult to move away from a completely bespoke and individual design for each client – because that is such a strength of Claromentis.

I am reminded of the fact that in previous engagements with intranet clients over the years we should say that certain clients just did things “because we can” – perhaps this is seeing our own process in exactly the same way. Just because we can deploy a completely individual intranet design for every customer does not actually mean that we should!

Services Design, intranet software

Working on application design or creation of e-forms, we often make check boxes or drop down selector. In most cases you probably don’t pay much attention setting up the default value of each choice you created. Should a particular checkbox is checked by default or unchecked.  How many items to be displayed per page by default, or which country or age group should be selected by default for instance.

According to behavioural economist Dan Ariely, any value which is set by default will greatly influence decision that majority users is going to make when filling out the form or using a piece of functionality.

For example in Claromentis we have news application with option to set a particular news item as ‘sticky news’.  The idea the sticky news will always be displayed on the Intranet homepage until it’s expired. It is a useful feature allowing an important news item remain visible to the majority Intranet users, otherwise it might get buried down quickly by not-so-important news.

What we didn’t realise the default value for the expired date is set a year in advance by default. For example if you submit a news on the 22nd May 2009, it won’t be off the sticky until the same date next year !

The problem is simple majority users are not even bothered to change the expired date.

The result, intranet’s homepage is filled with sticky news which should have been expired long time ago. In order to fix this problem, an Intranet administrator has to go through each news article and correct the expiry date, which was set incorrectly by majority users.

This problem won’t happen in the first place if the developer put sensible value when he or she typing the code for the news submission form.  Interestingly enough in a much larger scale any default value which may sounds simple can have a huge impact.

Check out an interesting video below (open in new window).

Resources-Technical Design, e-forms, fun, user interface

There are not many example Intranet designs available for review, perhaps because of the nature of the Intranet which is for internal consumption only.  There is no reason why Intranet can’t be functional as well as  attractive & pleasing to use, after all who wants to work all day on a badly designed system?

In the show case below we present 5 Intranet designs powered by Claromentis Intranet & Extranet Manager.

MySunPower – SunPower Intranet (USA)

MySunPower hompage is filled with 4 most recent company news. Main navigation is located on the left, while sidebar on the right provides easy access to company calendar, worldtime  & corporate portals such as Competitive Intelligence & Community Portal.  These are also great examples of bespoke development with the Claromentis API to add value to the information layer. CEO blogs are fed through the lower right box.

The Matrix – Consultancy Intranet (UK)

The main area of  displays a greeting box, scrolling notice bar , latest news and what’s new box. On the right hand side there are shortcuts to various application, world time & calendar widgets. The design is clean, sharp and enhanced by glossy glass fx.

Eureka – CareUK Intranet (UK)

Clean and simple – Care UK intranet focuses on searching in the middle area. Users are encourage to search information while the most recent company news is displayed at the lower box. The sidebar provides a selection of jump links to other applications or areas within the intranet.

Basecamp – The North Face Intranet (USA)

Basecamp – Accessing The North Face Intranet you will be greeted by a welcome video. Latest blog posts  are displayed on the homepage and the illustration provides user with a shortcut to each individual departmental homepage.

Athena – Nominet Intranet (UK)

Athena – The nominet’s intranet uses “tile-design”, each individual tile is a window to further information. The design is very web 2.0-ish, it looks friendly and inviting. It is good example where an intranet can be beautful as well as functional. I am having too much fun navigating around beautiful icons and tile designs!

Intranet-Extranet Design, fun, intranet, intranet development, intranets, showcase, web 2.0

10. Run Survey / Poll

It’s quick and easy to do, launch regular survey to get user’s feedback on almost any subjects, for a change try to create survey outside corporate agenda, pick casual topic related to everyday life, political debate, sustainability issue, or entertainments here are some ideas:

• Cool movie of the month
• Casual Friday? (yes no)
• Choose company smart phone? (iPhone or Blackberry)
• How do you travel to work?
• How’s your weekend?
• What do you think of Gordon Brown?

9. RSS feed

Embedding relevant RSS feed to departmental page is one of the easiest ways to get fresh news delivered to your page. RSS news from HSE (Health & Safety Executive can be added to the corporate Health & Safety Page, or an RSS from popular design blog is perfectly suitable for Creative department homepage for instance. It’s not only help member of your department aware of what’s going on out there it also help staff from other department know more about what you’re doing.

8. Enable commenting

Everyone likes commenting. Sometime reading people’s comments in a blog is more interesting than the actual post itself. We want to hear what people say at the same we like to be heard. Staff’s comments can be invaluable to the improvement of the business and organisation as a whole. In Claromentis commenting can be enabled for documents, news, and publish pages.

7. Classifieds (Craigslist)

Have you ever noticing communal pin board next to the kitchen is full of classifieds, from selling used car, sharing apartments to cheap concert tickets. Having an electronic version of classifieds right in the corporate intranet can help users coming back to the system.  If you still like the pin board, you can print it out of your intranet and post it there!

6. Treasure Hunt

Yes a treasure hunt. Simply hide content within the corporate intranet and run a competition to find it. One of our clients had tried this and it was a success. It’s definitely a fun and exciting way to get users familiarising with the intranet without a boring training.

5. Business Dashboard

Businesses are surrounded with data; but they are sharing one common problem. They are not visual enough to draw our attention.  Claromentis dashboard application allows you to generate data visualisation in a form of graph / chart from any data source as long as they are accessible. This can be business statistics, KPI (Key Performance Index), weekly sales figures, real-time number of visitors, stock chart, and much more.

4. Up-to-date Content

The essence of a corporate Intranet is storing and finding information, if users can’t find information they want accurately & effortlessly, it almost guarantee that they won’t coming back. The reality is always harder than theory but you can’t underestimate the importance of having the most up-to-date information on the Intranet.

3. Develop Persona while improving usability

Check your stats & analytics, ask users and identify 3 main areas which are frequently visited on the Intranet. Create attractive shortcuts to access these areas and you are developing persona at the same time improving usability of your corporate intranet.

2. Implement built-in apps

Claromentis offers business-ready built-in applications which can be implemented straight within a corporate Intranet. These applications include room booking, image gallery, holiday & vacation planner, group calendars, forums and course planner.

1. Business processes

Having your business process built right into the corporate intranet is the number on the list. It transforms corporate intranet into something much more than just communication & collaboration platform. The intranet becomes an indispensible business application where day-to-day business processes sit on top of information layer in a single integrated system. Claromentis provides several products such as Process Manager, Sales Manager and Project Manager all can be implemented directly within your Intranet.

Have you tried one of these within your corporate Intranet ? Please share your experience.

Solutions Design, internal customer communications, intranet, intranet consultancy, intranet development, user interface

Inspirational talks from Don Norman found on TED. There are three ways in good design which makes people happy. Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about  our core values Design, Clarity, Risk Management & Fun to work with, which are going to be the main focus for the future big release of Claromentis.

Services core values, Design, user interface

As we are all know discover.claromentis.com is our customer support portal. We’re currently planning to redesign the site. The idea is focus on simplicity and ease of use.
These are some new features:

1.       New Logo (cleaner and simpler)
2.       Customer logo will be displayed
3.       Permission based menu system and with extensive publish template
4.       Emphasise on 3 main areas: HELPDESK | WIKI | FORUM (feel free to change this)
5.       Dashboard to show basic stats such as “Monthly status”
6.       Future homepage component to display : “No of ticket need attentions”.. etc
7.       Seamless experience when navigating on Claromentis WIKI pages

Feedback welcomed

Services Design, internal customer communications, internet intern program, user interface

As you might noticed, Claromentis Intranet Manager uses BBCode in some of its applications such as Forum Post and News.

BBCode was devised to provide a safer, easier and more limited way of allowing users to format their messages. Programmer convenience was certainly another factor, as BBCode is very simple to implement.

Some implementations of BBCode have suffered problems mainly user interface, Intranet users have already become accustomed using WYSIWYG editor.

Claromentis 5.6 introduces new way to handle with this situation from the programmer point of view there is no drawback, it is still an old BBCode but users get a WYSIWYG interface.

Check out our screenshot below:

Resources-Technical Claromentis 5.6, Design, intranet news, technology, user interface

It’s hard to imagine what those with colour blindness are seeing. As we all know colour blindness affects a significant amount of the population. It is mostly caused by genetic condition but there are certain circumstances such as brain or nerve damage which also potentialy cause colour blindness.

Designer uses colour to convey various messages, it is an efficient communication tool.
From colour-coded background, traffic lights, status indicator, icons. It is very important to pick the right colour to ensure these messages can be communicated clearly.

Claromentis Intranet Solutions page as seen using Colour Blind Web Filter

Want to see your website as seen by colour blind ? Visit Colour Blind Web Filter

Services Design