Explore Fund is a global network created by The North Face with a mission to help kids discover nature’s playground.

It’s a global initiative by launching 7 sites in 7 countries simultaneously across Europe (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, UK) and North America (Canada, US)

Their goal is to inspire and enable the next generation of explorers by funding non-profit organisations that are working to re-connect children with nature. We believe in the physical, emotional and social benefits of a healthy, active outdoor lifestyle, and that a strong connection with the outdoors will lead to greater support and protection of our natural landscapes.

The Explore Fund will support organisations that encourage youth outdoor participation, focusing primarily on creating more connections of children to nature, increasing access to both front & backcountry recreation, as well as providing education for both personal & environmental health.

Find out more from these sites below:

ExploreFund.eu (Europe)
ExploreFund.ca (Canada)
ExploreFund.org (USA)

Custom Development, Services bespoke development, Case Study, Design, environmental, Social Networking, web 2.0

“Some things are just better together”

For quite sometime now Claromentis supports Microsoft Active Directory and LDAP to provide seamless Single Sign On to the Intranet. With the rise of Google Apps for enterprises and many organisations are migrating to Google Apps, it is about time that we shake hands with Google.

How we did it?, We start by giving a technical team less than 2 days to complete the challenge and we are now proudly announce that we do have single-sign-on solution for Google Apps.

“it is about time that we shake hands with Google.”

Claromentis Intranet users will be able to connect their intranet account with Google Apps account and login seamlessly between two systems.  For instance, checking email in Google Mail, jump in to read News in the Intranet, navigate away to Google Docs to work on documents and back to check latest status updates in Claromentis with no login interruption.

For the external partners who aren’t part of Google Apps users can simply log-in as normal by using username and password.

It is a first step for more exciting future enhancements, we have start investigating how user details and group can be sync between two system and pushing and pulling information between Claromentis and Google.

We view this partnership with Google as a major step toward the future of enterprise software. Our vision is to build seamless integration of cloud services into your corporate Intranet, making it a truly central hub for information and apps!

Google Single-sign on will be available in Claromentis 6.2

Intranet-Extranet 6.2, Google, intranet development, online collaboration, technology, web 2.0

Background

The United Bible Societies is a fellowship of 146 national Bible Societies (NBS).  This fellowship is served by the UBS Service Organisation (UBSSO) that operates from the World Service Centre in Reading, UK and has four area offices across the world.  From time to time the fellowship meets as a World Assembly.  At the last one of these in 2004, it was felt that it would be helpful to have a worldwide picture of the combined resources and work of the whole fellowship.  The Global Stewardship Report (GSR) was developed to meet this need.

Report History

A small trial of collecting the report data started in 2008, followed by the first full exercise in 2009, in which all Bible Societies were asked to participate. Almost all have now sent in their return.

Data collection was in an excel spreadsheet that could print on one A4 page. The form used is included as Appendix 1 and the accompanying notes to explain the data required are in Appendix 2.  Experience from the first round of collection is that not all Bible Societies read the notes carefully and that some information is still missing or obviously incorrect.

The Way Forward

Working together with UBS Service Organisation, Claromentis develop a bespoke Global Stewardship Web-Application within UBS Intranet/Extranet allowing member of the National Bible Societies to fill in the information online on the web.

Using a wizard-style approach, built-in checking, and dynamic currency conversion, users can simply guided through the forms, minimize mistakes and no training is required

All the details are kept in a secure central database from which, at any time, the most updated consolidated stewardship report can be easily be generated online and a hard copy can be printed from a print-friendly view of the report.

Solutions bespoke development, intranet 2.0, online collaboration, web 2.0

Recently we’ve been busy working on revamping the free live demo experience. Using the same username and password generated when you are signing up you can now experience 3 different products:

• Intranet – The most versatile business Intranet
• Quality – Quality Management System & Compliance
• InfoCapture – Business Process & e-Forms Software

All of these products are created based on Claromentis Framework.

This demo also a sneak preview what’s coming in the Claromentis 6.0 Framework.

Universal Tagging
Modular Applications
SOAP Interface
And many other improvements…

As well as our branding exercise which will be reflected on our main site very soon

Stay tuned….

Products, Services Claromentis, demo, Design, user interface, web 2.0

Within many global 2000 companies, the journey to create Social Enterprises (also referred to as Enterprise 2.0) is underway, set against a backdrop of hopelessly outdated methods for employee collaboration & communications.

There’s a lot at stake. Companies that make a smooth transition to a social enterprise can unlock innovation more quickly, capture & share knowledge more effectively and harness their global networks of talent to outwit the competition. But the transition is complicated, requiring not just adoption of new technologies but significant changes in culture and working behaviour.

So how do you set about achieving a smooth transition, preferably before your competition? This is where Microsoft’s Sharepoint looms large, as the intranet collaboration platform of choice across many large enterprises today.

Read more at Knowledge Board

Intranet-Extranet intranet, intranet 2.0, intranet consultancy, intranet roadmap, sharepoint, web 2.0

Every organisation understands the value of instant feedback. It promotes continuous improvements and creative discussion. Some say it is what makes a business ‘tick’.

Working on a communication software platform, we want to facilitate this positive feedback culture.

Pages or web pages is one of the largest type of content of an Intranet along side with Documents and News. In Claromentis we already have comments for News as well as Document and to complete the whole picture we are now introducing comments for publish page.

Here is the anatomy of commenting:

Intranet-Extranet, Solutions collaboration, comments, Design, intranet 2.0, online collaboration, web 2.0

Old and New Intranet

About UBS

The United Bible Societies (UBS), a collective name for 145 Bible Societies working in over 200 countries and territories is launching a new Intranet using Claromentis Intranet Manager.

New Intranet

After sending out questionnaire and running a focus group to improve Intranet, Claromentis and UBS Communication team working together to make the new intranet richer but easier to use and faster to find the information.

UBS also introduced several new application built within their Intranet such as contact directory for all members, document management and multimedia such as online videos.

The new intranet is also multi-lingual, The system is designed to detect user’s language preference and display the right information and interface in their native language.

User’s Feedback

User’s feedback so far has been really positive.

“I love the new look website. God bless you for the good job. Its much easier to navigate and its also easy to find the past stories. Absolutely love it. Will definately send more stories this year. God bless you all.”

“A big thank you to you and your team for their work so far on the UBS intranet site.”

“I’ve just given a detailed presentation to our global senior management team and it went down extremely well. They were particularly impressed by the design (‘clean, easy to use, familiar for people using sites such as Facebook’) and by the layers of permissions that are now possible and will enable us to do so much more with the site.”

Hamish Bruce – Communication Manager at UBS.

Intranet-Extranet, Partners, Prod-Intranet, Prod-Project, Products Claromentis, extranet, intranet 2.0, intranets, multi-lingual, online collaboration, web 2.0

Claromentis delivers a Corporate Social Networking site

We have just completed one of the most interesting project in the corporate social networking space. “PlanetExplore.com” A social media platform released for the outdoor clothing company The North Face. The community connects people, especially younger people, to the outdoors and in particular outdoor activities and events in their local communities.

Social Media Platform

PlanetExplore.com is a bespoke Social Media Platform leveraging Facebook platform and Mash-Ups, delivered from concept to idea in less than 3 months and already attracting more than 100 partners across the United States.  The initial launch is for the Bay Area with Denver and new York City to follow soon.

Some screenshots below:

Intranet-Extranet, Solutions Case Study, intranet 2.0, online collaboration, Social Networking, web 2.0

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

Over the past few years there has been tremendous noise about the benefits of cloud computing, but in reality many businesses are still struggling with the idea.  From what I heard there are 3 main concerns:

Where is my data?

It’s a human nature that we still pretty much need physical contact. The idea that our data will be located among millions of others somewhere which we don’t know exactly is scary.  Some might still think our data is equivalent of piece of paper stored in unknown place with millions of other papers.

Security

We all heard the benefit that could computing in a managed infrastructure will guarantee security, from the latest patches of the OS up to cross-continental back-ups. Most organisations are still concern about security of cloud computing even though it is a safer than leaving it in your office and you find out the next day the office was flooded.

Change

One issue related to cloud computing is the concern of IT Downsizing. As more and more services related to IT become outsourced and centralized many IT jobs will become obsolete. Some says cloud computing will flourish in current economic situation but in the other hand businesses are facing difficult decisions.

Share your thoughts
Do you think cloud computing is suitable for your organisation? Share your thoughts and read more about claromentis model of software deployment.

Solutions cloud computing, development vision, intranet, intranet consultancy, software, technology, web 2.0