Intranets within companies are not novel, and they have been in use for over a decade. However, if you're unfamiliar with the term, an intranet is essentially a company's private website restricted to its existing employees. They have existed since the widespread use of computer networking to facilitate the sharing of data and information between personnel. Intranet for startups: Do small companies need an intranet?

Besides serving as a means of internal communication, intranets have many other benefits to offer. In addition, they provide a wealth of resources for staff members to use, which boosts productivity and efficiency.

However, the opposite is true when employees have to use cumbersome intranets to handle their everyday responsibilities. This might be due to a lack of functionality or a crowded user interface.

A content management system (CMS) is a intranet solution for quickly and easily building websites. Aimed at providing users with accessible tools for creating, editing, organizing and publishing personal or organizational content to the web, this type of software can be used to produce blogs, intranets, brochure sites, corporate intranets and much more. 

Content management systems rely heavily on database driven engines to collect and manage information, delivering an array of options that allow users to generate website content without extensive web development knowledge. 

By using templates and easy-to-use graphical interfaces these systems represent the next step in intranet technology making webpage design no longer exclusive to web developers.

However, not all intranets are the same, and some may not have as many advantages as others, which are more streamlined. That's why this article delves further into intranets and reveals the essential features of the best CMS for intranet.

There are four main types of content management systems (CMS): 

• Intranet
• Web publishing
• Enterprise
• Media

Intranets allow businesses and organizations to share information internally with their employees, customers and members.

What is an Intranet Content Management System?

 A CMS for intranet or Content Management System (CMS) is software that helps organizations manage their digital content quickly and efficiently. Think of it as a digital toolbox that allows teams to create, edit, organize, and publish content in one place without using separate tools for each task.

For an intranet—a private network organisations use to communicate and share information internally—a CMS is the backbone of managing and displaying content. It dictates how you:

• Index: Organize content so it's easy to navigate.
• Search: Quickly find documents or information.
• Retrieve: Access the content you need when you need it.
• Format and Revise: Make updates or changes to content without hassle.
• Publish: Share new announcements, resources, or updates across the intranet.

Without a CMS, these tasks require multiple tools or programs, creating inefficiencies and confusion. For example, you might need one tool for document storage, another for creating content, and another for publishing updates. This piecemeal approach can be time-consuming and frustrating.

Using an intranet CMS like AgilityPortal's "AppManager," all these functions are centralized under one system. Employees can easily manage communications, updates, and workflows from a single interface, saving time and improving productivity.

How Does a CMS Improve Employee Intranet Performance?

Using a CMS like Unily CMS enhances intranet efficiency, making your intranet software more dynamic and user-friendly. Here's how:

• Seamless Communication: Tools like the CMS intranet app allow HR or leadership teams to share updates instantly. For example, an HR announcement about updated health benefits can be created, scheduled, and posted within minutes.
• Collaboration Across Teams: Employees can access shared resources or contribute to updates through a unified platform.
• AI Integration: An AI intranet ensures personalization by learning employee preferences, improving the visibility of relevant content like project updates or Yahoo Mail integrations.
• Customizable Workflows: A CMS email system allows targeted communication, ensuring messages reach specific teams or the entire organization.

The Value of a Unified CMS in Action

Imagine an HR team using Unily CMS to update employees on new health benefits:

1. Draft: The announcement is quickly drafted and formatted using the CMS interface.
2. Publish: It's set to appear prominently on the intranet home page and relevant department pages.
3. Searchable Content: The CMS ensures employees can find the announcement in the intranet directory using keywords.
4. Notify via Email: A CMS email notification is automatically sent to alert employees about the update.

Without a CMS, these steps could require separate tools, leading to delays and inconsistencies. 

Best CMS for intranet and its importance 

The purpose of your company's employee intranet is to facilitate internal communication, collaboration, and information management. Eventually, the amount of content needed to convey this information will grow to a point where it will be challenging to publish and maintain.

All of these tasks—from content creation and publication to access, modification, and archiving—can be simplified with the aid of an intranet content management system (CMS).

Because it facilitates rapid and widespread dissemination of information, a content management system intranet is crucial to a company's capacity to enhance productivity. Additionally, the potential for private information to be disclosed externally via email or other open channels is removed. Finally, an intranet offers a forum for employee participation through tools like internal social media networking, blogs, and message systems.   

When it comes to selecting a CMS for a enterprise point of view  there are two broad options: buy or build, which means open sources or SaaS.

Open source CMS:

• An open source content management system (CMS) is a solution that provides organizations with the ability to effectively manage digital information and documents through intranet applications. 
• With an open-source CMS, businesses can customize and build intranet systems to suit their particular requirements, while still accessing the collective knowledge and resources of the community which provides support and advice as needed, generally open sources are free and sometimes require customization

Software as a Service (SaaS) CMS:

• This intranet facilitates secure communication among staff members and departments, allowing important documents or other material to be distributed quickly and efficiently. Additionally, these intranets can be customized according to their purpose, whether it is for team collaboration, engaging content management, or knowledge sharing. The resources on an intranet secured by SaaS CMS technology also enable businesses streamline processes like document approval and other common tasks. 
• Finally, intranets also enable more effective tracking of transactions between staff members, ensuring that employees stay compliant with any applicable regulations or paperwork. 
• This type is normally managed by the provider in terms of updates, security updates, customization to fit your use case which makes it a better option.

Top 5 Best CMS for intranet  

AgilityPortal 

AgilityPortal is unparalleled intranet software for teamwork and information sharing. AgilityPortal's employee experience platform aims to centralize several applications that facilitate collaboration, education, and information-sharing among workers.

AgilityPortal was developed via centralized online training to enhance your frontline staff, field workers, remote users, and external workers' knowledge, performance, productivity, and loyalty. Ensure all of your employees' mobile devices have easy access to the relevant information they need whenever they need it. A ecosystem for small business in the cloud that empowers companies to store, access, share, and manage documented information from all device.

Bitrix24

Bitrix24 is an on-premise and cloud-hosted social knowledge platform management and collaboration solution. Bitrix24 unifies features such as instant chat, workgroups, and activity streams for improved teamwork. Bitrix allows you up to 12 users completely for free. It packed with many features and options.

Simpplr 

I've had a great experience using the Simpplr platform in my role as an internal communicator. Having worked in broadcasting, I can attest to the clumsiness and instability of both externally contracted and internally developed web publishing platforms. Simpplr is easy to use and understand since it is, as the name implies, "simple".

SharePoint  

SharePoint, Microsoft's intranet product, is a wonderful option for groups who rely heavily on Office Suite applications.

SharePoint uses intranets to store content pages and team data. It's a comprehensive content management system that works well for big businesses but could be too much for a startup.

eXo 

With eXo, groups of people may get together to share a common experience. Better coordination and colleague interaction are only two of the many benefits of using eXo. The intranet software platform acts as a social networking platform, complete with wikis and project management tools. eXo also allows users to customize their experience, make their own places, and connect with other services.

Important components of an intranet CMS 

Easy to customize 

What one organization may require from its intranet, another may find unnecessary. You don't have to start from scratch when creating a content management system, but having complete command over all of its settings and configurations is essential.

Guarantee that you can make changes to branding, modify templates, and set governance rules. You shouldn't have to change your demands to accommodate your CMS intranet. 

Improve governance management with your intranet content management system

Having an intranet content management system in place is helpful, but it shouldn't be used as a substitute for intranet governance. 

Material management systems have advanced to the point where they can automatically update content to the most recent versions, identify and flag duplication, and even automate basic procedures like file naming. 

These details will significantly impact how your content structure appears one, two, or five years from now.  

Performance indicators and analytics

Your CMS intranet, like all the other technologies in your company, should always be evolving and improving. Using analytics, you can examine how your staff consumes material, which sorts perform best, which are most frequently shared, and much more. 

Data collection, such as survey answers from staff, is simplified with integrated analytics.

Better visuals

 We are immersed in visual culture. The days of publishing just text-based content are over. A study by Venngage found that adding images to material increased engagement by 80%.

Employees should be able to produce content for your intranet without needing to know how to code by embedding video, audio, polls, infographics, social media postings, and other content forms.

Better visuals effectively helps to communicate complex messages, reinforce key points, provide an effective way to analyze data.

For instance, if you are a professional photographer, you can leverage the power of photography studio management software to organize images by adding tags to them. It will make it easier for your clients to select the most suitable pictures for their articles, blog posts, and stories.

Advanced search options 

A smart and advanced search option is needed to save time and get faster access to information. 

Time is saved, frustration is reduced, productivity is increased, and the appropriate results are found quicker and easier with the best content management system. 

It's important that your desired CMS allows you to search across your organization's indexes of files and apps, not just those used by the company itself.  

Regular updates

Even after your CMS internal website has been launched; you still have some finishing touches to put in place. Maintaining compatibility with emerging standards, new technologies, and the latest security risks requires continuous upgrades to your CMS. 

Ensure that updates are consistently distributed in a method that doesn't force you to take your complete system down for extended periods of time.

Mobile-friendly design  

Many workers nowadays utilize personal devices like smartphones and tablets for work-related tasks. To accommodate what is likely to be a growing demand, it is essential that your CMS be accessible from devices other than desktop computers.

Similarly, check that your intranet CMS supports responsive design for mobile devices before publishing any new material.

Easy to navigate interface

Because of differences in technical expertise inside a company, any widely deployed tools must be simple enough that anyone can pick them up and start using them immediately.

Adoption and productivity may be increased by creating a user interface that is similar to other tools and platforms that employees are already familiar with, such as social media.

While this may seem inconsequential, it contributes significantly to improving the digital employee experience, which improves employee satisfaction, staff engagement, business outcomes, and even customer service.

Easy integration

The most important feature of a content management system for an intranet is its ability to work in tandem with your existing intranet and the other digital resources your staff uses regularly.

Verify that your content management system integrates smoothly with commonly used tools like project management, HR, and data analytics without requiring any extra manual processes. 

Security

Obviously, the CMS must have a secure environment for all papers and other sensitive information stored inside it. Employees need to be able to log in securely from anywhere using their own credentials, and HTTPS access is the only way to guarantee this.

Two-factor authentication should also be used to further secure the intranet by asking employees to authenticate their identity with a one-time passcode delivered through SMS or email.

Intranet CMS and its use case 

Intranet CMS for internal communication

An organization can only function as well as its internal communication. The only way to ensure that workers always have access to the information they need is to conduct their jobs properly. Open lines of communication between upper management and lower-level staff are another benefit of effective internal communication.

To what end does this information serve? When members of your team are free to share their thoughts and suggestions, they get invested in the project at hand and are more likely to bring their A-game each day.

With an intranet, it's simple to set up a discussion like this. It provides a medium for employees to quickly and easily communicate ideas and interact from different locations, making it possible to forgo the need for lengthy meetings.

Intranet CMS for knowledge sharing

Every week, workers lose a whole workday chasing down necessary information. But if you have an internal knowledge-sharing system, you may save anywhere from $2 million to $200 million.

Lost productivity due to knowledge gaps reduces the overall efficiency, and the fundamental cause of knowledge gaps is that people hoard knowledge.

Intranet content management systems serve as a central archive for records of procedures, news about developments in the field, and new ideas. It's not a huge deal for managers to bring on new staff members because the information they need to hit the ground running has already been compiled.

AgilityPortal, like many other modern intranet CMS solutions, also includes tools for staff to provide feedback on current process documentation or ask questions about a job they are unsure of. Your organization's experts will be notified to give input.

Management and executive portal

Create a management and executive Intranet CMS in addition to using one for regular staff members. Managers and executives require a bird's-eye perspective of all the work being done in the company at any one time. Multiple procedures, such as approvals on a customized feed, may be combined and consolidated in modern intranet software, saving managers time by keeping everything in one location. In addition, management portals consolidate data retrieval from several sources into a single interface.

Intranet CMS for employee onboarding

New hires are "onboarded" through a process in which they learn the norms and practices of the company and develop the expertise they'll need to contribute effectively.

Videos and written guides to new hire orientation are just two examples of the kind of engaging information that should be available on a suitable platform for onboarding new employees. It will also serve as a roadmap for the new hire to follow to attain predetermined goals, such as a specific number of months or years of employment. 

Intranet CMS for employee portal

The development of an employee portal is one of the most common applications of a content management system for intranets. Sometimes referred to as an "enterprise portal," an employee portal is a private website that facilitates internal communication and collaboration. Staff members can maintain relationships with one another and receive up-to-the-minute information thanks to this.

Employee portals allow workers to view their own individual data, such as income and perks. They can see when employees work, what they're paid, and any other relevant details.

Intranet CMS can enhance your digital workplace experience

While intranets were originally designed to boost productivity in a brick-and-mortar office setting, COVID-19 demonstrated the flexibility of today's modern workplace. Now more than ever, the office is an idea rather than a physical space.

However, a centralized hub is still required so that employees have access to firm information and can better communicate with one another. Without a centralized location where employees can quickly obtain the information they need, productivity drops, and the business suffers. To add insult to injury, a lack of an intranet might cause workers to resort to utilizing their own tools, leading to data silos and incompatible systems.

These are some of the features you need to look for in a modern intranet in 2022. For example:

• Easy to use interface
• The design of an intranet shouldn't stand out from the design of other apps and software.
• Compatibility with external programs
• Intranets nowadays must be compatible with a wide range of business and consumer software.
• Available as a downloadable mobile app
• To effectively communicate with today's workforce, intranets must be made available as native applications.
• Work with cloud office solutions.
• An intranet should be compatible with any office software your business employs, be it Microsoft 365 or Google G-Suite.
• Personalization-ready.
• Messages on today's intranets must be specific enough to be tailored to certain departments and users.

How can your business benefit from using an intranet CMS?

Faster access to information

Getting an email might take you away from what you're doing. The typical workday includes 37 email checks. It takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to regain one's concentration after being interrupted.

Distractions in the workplace can be reduced if the information is shared in the same places where people currently spend their time working. There will be more time for productive work and less for non-income-producing activities.

Improves employee engagement

Sixty-three percent of businesses report that retaining current workers is more challenging than recruiting new ones. An unsatisfactory working environment and a lack of intrinsic motivation to do one's best work are two of the most common causes of employee turnover.

When compared, businesses with highly engaged workers see a 21% increase in their bottom line. Maintaining employee interest leads to increased output and contentment.

Increases employee performance

Your intranet content management system should serve as an integrated part of your existing business processes. Employee participation, resource discovery, communication, feedback, and teamwork are all bolstered by a well-designed intranet.

Look for a CMS for your intranet that puts security first, has AI-powered search, can be readily updated, is simple to trust, and is easy to use. Before committing to a subscription plan, be sure it can expand with your company by requesting a demo or starting a free team.

Wrapping up 

If your company has a digital workplace, an intranet CMS effectively manages the many vital information exchanges among employees. The intranet CMS is a great tool for increasing efficiency in the workplace since it simplifies knowledge management and naturally promotes employee participation. We have highlighted the features that should be in the best CMS for intranet. You can use this as a guide to get the right intranet CMS for your business.