The basic functionality of intranets was traditionally limited to allowing users access and communicate information. Modern intranets have grown to facilitate individuals to create and publish their own content, thereby allowing the entire organization to contribute to the shared repository of knowledge.

As intranet users expect to share content, modern digital workspaces require an Intranet Document Sharing repository in place for easy creation, management, and retrieval of content. In this guide, let us discuss some of the requirements for an intranet document repository and the best software organizations can use to achieve desired features. 

Intranet Document Repository – A Complete Guide

The future of documentation is turning towards an electronic world and the ways organizations store documents are also changing. Today's document management challenges are more complex than ever. Companies must ensure privacy and security of data and accessibility from multiple devices, manage access for users, prevent corruption of data, and do a lot more for the effective collaboration a digital workspace demands.

You get flexible options with a digital document repository for your intranet. The most effective way is to incorporate a document management system that offers multiple benefits and features as explained below:

Space

Having all the documents at a single location is easy to manage as compared to physical storage and saves a lot of space. A repository that could spread across rooms of document backlogs can be accommodated in a laptop that holds generations of data. Digital documents can also sometimes be poorly managed and occupy a lot of disk space. This is where a dedicated document management system on the intranet proves to be helpful. When you have better managed documents, the extra space occupied due to poor management is freed up.

Security

Unlike physical documents and digital files stored in folders, an intranet document repository handled by a document management system has better security. It allows controlling the access to critical information at the folder level and adds detail to document access, keeping track of who accessed at what time and who made changes.

Intranet document repository allows backing up your data to cloud, making it safe against hazards. If your documents are lost, you can restore the backup quickly and save the time and effort needed to recreate them. It is even possible to recover older versions of the documents if you are not satisfied with the latest changes you made to them.

Time-Saving

If a document is not well-organized, it can take a lot of time to find it. Depending on the amount of documentation you have, it can take anywhere from hours to days. Having an intranet document repository ensures your documents are organized in a way that allows quickly finding the exact file you want. Apart from the general organization, you can save time with search functionality.

Regulation

Most documents have some form of regulatory requirements. A document management system can make it easy to follow the compliance rules. It makes this possible with features like automation, templates, presets, and scheduling.

Convenience

Such a system for document management also promotes convenience which boosts the morale in the organization. It allows users to remain in sync with others and contribute to revisions before the document is completed. It not only makes it easy to manage through changing requirements but also increases consistency and convenience in the digital workplace.

Synced Workplace

A document management system simplifies sharing and collaboration across the organization. The documentation within the system is in sync for everybody, allowing real-time sharing and contribution between individuals and teams. Employees can enjoy convenience from the ability to share content with anybody at any time from anywhere and the facility to work on them at the same time.

Logical Hierarchy

A document management system offers you a logical hierarchy of folders so that you have the flexibility to organize the documents based on how you work with them and what is the most important to you and the organization structure. Intranet document repository makes it easy to organize files on the basis of relevancy, allowing you to see the context for your content.

Your intranet document software also offers a web-based intuitive interface to view interactions within the document library, thereby making it easy to access and search for documents. You can quickly organize files within folders and perform complex searches as your workflow demands.

Easy Uploads

Intranet document repository should also simplify document uploading for easy file management. Some of the best document management software come with features to upload via drag and drop, file sync, and multiple file uploads. Such features not only save time and make the work easier for intranet users but also boost consistency and accuracy through automation. 

Best Intranet Document Management Software

A powerful document management software can help organize digital documents on your intranet and digitize existing physical data with ease. There are several options in the market with unique features and offerings. Here are some of the best intranet document management software you can consider for your organization.

Microsoft SharePoint

A leading software in the document management space, SharePoint offers a comprehensive set of features including the ability to organize archives and establish content hubs. It provides a scalable, flexible platform to organize and manage documents and is particularly convenient for organizations that use other Microsoft products like Office 365.

M-Files

Another comprehensive document management software for intranets, M-Files offers several useful features for effective organization of documents, automation of workflow processes, and digitalization of physical papers. It allows cloud-based storage to facilitate seamless collaboration within the digital workspace.

FirmRoom

A secure cloud-based platform for document storage and management, FirmRoom comes with powerful features like bulk upload, drag and drop, and smart search for effective collaboration. It is also equipped with additional features like audit trails, data tracking, data analytics, user activity tracker, and custom notifications to provide a nice user experience. 

Intranet Document Sharing & Library

A modern digital workspace uses multiple systems to accomplish business needs. A large number of sites including intranet and wiki are used all the time across the organization. Such websites have duplicate information that you should maintain and it can become difficult to keep up with the latest versions of the documents on different sites.

This is where a document library proves to be useful. With a centrally controlled library, the intranet can provide easy access to all the official documents including forms, policies, and procedures in their most accurate and latest condition.

An intranet document library keeps sensitive content free of the chaos of sharing. The document management software features versioning to ensure that the right people enjoy secure access to the up-to-date versions of these documents including onboarding videos, sales materials, and other critical data. With powerful permission features, the ownership and access rights of these documents are always clear.

The intranet document library comes with simple search functionality to let users find teams, people, conversations, and documents easily. These files can be filtered by location, access permissions, and other criteria for easy viewing. The best thing about these libraries is that you can integrate them with third-party applications to work conveniently with different file formats. 

SharePoint Document Repository – How It Works?

SharePoint is one of the best tools available for intranet document repository and is used by some of the largest businesses in the world. It is owned by Microsoft, available as a part of Microsoft Office Suite, and compatible with other applications owned by Microsoft. This makes collaboration easier as employees can quickly share their work with one another. The compatibility extends to mobile devices as well.

SharePoint provides you a secured system to store, organize, share and search your important documents. With this tool, you can easily create a central repository for files in different formats within the organization. It allows storing the documents in different categories and searching precisely based on metadata, phrases, and file names.

Users can request documents based on the permissions they have been assigned. Once the document has been uploaded, the approver receives an email notification. He reviews the document and can approve, reject, restrict or delete the document depending on the content. He can also edit the keywords.

The uploader receives an email notification containing the status of the document, whether it is approved or rejected. The person can edit the document and submit it again if it was rejected. All the intranet users can browse the approved documents and download them to their systems, depending on the permissions associated with the document.

Documents are organized within categories and can be searched with the help of filters. Users can also search the documents with phrases within the content and the associated metadata. The administrators can archive documents if they are not frequently used. SharePoint offers a separate archive library for every department site where the documents can be moved. The software also keeps activity logs that the admin can filter for different documents and users. 

Conclusion

A well-designed system for document storage and management can transform your intranet to a great extent. It is important that you have a comprehensive structure of folders and subfolders for efficient organization of documents on your intranet and an intuitive way to categorize the content. A document repository for the intranet should also ensure that employees know which documents they should share with whom and what content they should make public. An intranet document repository takes care of the organization, security, integrity and accessibility of documents to support collaboration within the digital workspace.