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Category Archive: Maximizing iD
Qantas subsidiary, budget airline, our client and all round crowd pleaser – Jetstar – know a thing or two about the challenges of catering to a dispersed workforce. At any given time, they could have anywhere up to three quarters of their 3000 strong team on the move and in the skies.
To combat the difficulties, and subsequent inefficiencies associated with having an office that spans the Asia Pacific region, Jetstar purchased Intranet DASHBOARD (iD) in 2007 – signaling the birth of JEN (Jetstar Employee Network).
Since then, they have worked with the iD team to improve their intranet and ensure its ongoing success. It now forms an integral part of their business, with employees depending on JEN to make their often hectic lives easier. With limited time to access information critical to their job, ease of use is critical in keeping users coming back to the intranet. Jetstar needs to ensure employees can rely on JEN as the central hub of activity within the business – the place to go to get things done.
Jetstar recently worked with the iD Team to set up Single Sign On (SSO) capabilities for their users. Employees logging on externally to any of Jetstar’s internal systems are now required to login through JEN to do so – effectively establishing the intranet as the front door to the organization. Once employees have been correctly authenticated against Jetstar’s systems, they must pass a 2 factor authentication process developed specifically for them by the iD team. SSO ensures external access to Jetstar’s internal systems is a simple and secure process for employees – perfect for a workforce on the move.
SSO’s secondary function at Jetstar is to enable login credentials to be shared with their other internal HR systems. Once a user has logged into JEN, credentials are passed on to connected systems so that when a user clicks a link within the intranet, they are automatically authenticated and can move seamlessly into the new system without being required to login again. With SSO, users move seamlessly between applications without ever appearing to leave the intranet.
For more information on Jetstar’s intranet, see our Case Studies page.
Living in the age of the increasingly mobile workforce, secure external access is becoming an integral element in the success of any intranet. Employees need your intranet and the business-critical information it contains to move with them in order to do their job – wherever it might take them.
The main concern for organizations looking to set up external access to internal systems is security. Considering the sensitive and strictly internal nature of the information contained within your intranet, you need to be sure only valid users are accessing it.
If you have iD set up to be externally accessible over the internet, you can restrict access to the Admin interface to your specific internal IP Range. This adds an extra level of security, not to mention peace of mind, by preventing any ‘outsiders’ from accessing the Admin interface and trying to guess your password. This is especially useful when you know you’ve been a little less than creative when selecting one.
All you’ll need is access to the webserver, and someone with a basic knowledge of IIS. The steps below will be different if you’re using IIS6 or IIS7, but let’s start with 7…
Click here to read more »
Murphy’s Law… Huài yùnqì…Mala Suerte – whoever you are, however you say it, bad luck spells bad news for your intranet and the broader business. The safety of such a valuable and business-critical resource should never be left to chance, or even worse – in the pessimistic hands of the mysterious Murphy, who ominously promises us ‘anything bad that can happen, will happen’.
This is exactly why it is so important, nay imperative, to ensure that a copy of the data stored on your intranet is readily available should your server(s) decide on an impromptu vacation. Not only is there the potential for your intranet to be offline for an extended period of time (which if you’ve played your cards right, should send your employees into a frenzy), there is also the chance you could lose all your data, not to mention the countless hours of hard work invested.
For those of us fortunate enough to have never experienced the gut-wrenching sensation brought on by the senseless loss of data you have neglected to backup, despite being regularly prompted to do so by your nay saying computer – lucky you. The majority of us who have would agree that in order to guarantee your future sanity, retention of hair and maintenance of happy working relationships – backing up data is a must.
There are a number of different ways you can keep backup copies of your intranet, with the two most popular and frequently implemented ones being:
- Remote server backups of your databases and web files
- Separate Disaster Recovery/Failover Server(s)
Server backups can be taken by following our basic ‘Backup and Restore Guide’. Server Administrators may also wish to automate their backups regularly with one of a number of various different tools available.
Disaster recovery is generally setup with a primary and secondary server. In the case the primary server fails, traffic is redirected through to the secondary (or failover) server, usually through the use of a load balancer. If setting up a disaster recovery server is something you’re interested in (rightly so!), the process can be a little complex so feel free to contact our Support Team for more information.
In addition to all of the above, a good ‘Disaster Plan’ should always outline the measures, steps and processes you have in place to either prevent disaster, or how to recover quickly from one should you have a brush with the (Murphy’s) Law.
Is your company one of the millions around the world that use Microsoft Exchange with Outlook Web Access (OWA)?
If so, chances are that at some point, your staff will suffer from SOA – or Sudden Onset Amnesia, a phenomenon associated with users desperately trying, and all-too-often failing to remember their company’s OWA URL. This crippling e-illness has a number of symptoms, including user-frustration, lack of uptake and increased calls to your Help Desk.
To try and remedy this confusing issue, there is always the quick fix of including the link somewhere within your intranet to direct users externally to OWA. However, to guarantee the long-term sanity of everyone involved, a better solution would be to seamlessly integrate Outlook Web Access into your intranet.
Keep all your users in the one place, cut out the confusion and establish your intranet as the epicenter of your organization – the place to go to get things done. The less you take users outside your intranet to other applications, the more accustomed they get to your system being the key source of information within your organization – and the more valuable it becomes to both users and administrators.
How to integrate OWA with iD CMS
- Create a new page
- Drag a Webpage Frame Component onto the page
- Set the URL of the Frame to the OWA web address
- Edit the ‘Component Properties’ to adjust the size of the frame
Displaying other sections of OWA by Default
You can easily change the default OWA interface, or even access shared mailboxes using OWA Web Parts.
For example:
- Loading a shared calendar:
https:// Outlook Web Access URL /owa/ SMTP address of the other mailbox /?cmd=contents&module=calendar
- Loading the logged in users calender
https:// Outlook Web Access URL /owa/?cmd=contents&module=calendar
For more details, click here.
Further Reading
Twitter is everywhere these days . As new words such as Tweeting, Twitterati, Twits and Trending (scarily) make their way into casual conversation, the microblogging giant is carving itself out a place in the business world as an invaluable marketing and communications tool – all this in 140 characters or less.
Now using iD CMS, you can easily embed a Twitter feed into your intranet. Other popular web based content such as Google Maps or Youtube for example, can also be dragged onto a page using the HTML Component.
We have created a more detailed instructional page to step you through the process on the iD Help Site, but in brief – edit an iD CMS page, drag and drop the HTML component onto your web page, add some HTML/Javascript (we use JQuery here) and voila! You have a Twitter feed in your intranet.
Australia’s largest superannuation administrator and our client, Superpartners, was recently invited to participate in the exclusive IBF 24 – a 24 hour online broadcast from the Intranet Benchmarking Forum showcasing live intranet tours and the latest from industry thought leaders.
IBF 24 took place on 2-3 June 2010 and truly proved to be a landmark day for the global intranet and digital workplace industry, featuring more than 20 live tours of the world’s most innovative intranets.
Superpartners showcased their fabulous intranet to an extremely positive reception. Employee uptake and engagement has been exceptional, and everyone was interested (rightly so!) in just how Superpartners managed to get employees to not just adopt, but engage proactively with the system.
Special attention was paid to their use of the iD Forum tool as part of an offline employee engagement initiative called Spot On – designed to create a culture of ideas sharing and story telling in the business. The Forum tool gave them an easy way to capture employee’s ideas and empower them to take control and drive change within the business. It has been a huge hit and really showcases the versatility of iD’s suite of applications.
Superpartner’s Intranet Manager Sarah Goddard, who hosted the event, had this to say:
“iD had everything we needed to make a really good intranet. It’s all down to how you use it. If you try to over-complicate it, you’ll fail immediately.”
The modern workforce is more mobile than ever before. If your employees aren’t limited to the four walls of your office, why should your intranet be? IP Based Security enables your intranet to operate as an extranet simultaneously, with users logging in securely from locations all over the world.
This functionality works by assigning one or more IP addresses or IP address ranges to a given iD Database Website User Account. Essentially, it comes down to secure external access to your internal systems.
IP Based Security verifies user’s credentials by their IP Address, logging them in automatically if they are in the office or directing them to a login form if they are accessing from an external location. It allows you to grant quick and easy access to those who need it, and keep your business critical information safe from those who don’t. With IP Based Security your intranet is never out of reach.
If not, it’s time to get acquainted…
The iD Desktop Assistant acts as a centralized point for instant access to the latest items requiring administrator approval before being published. Rather than searching on a per-tool basis and risk missing valuable input from employees, the iD Desktop Assistant automatically locates and lists all outstanding front end submissions and alerts administrators.
It also includes a multi-file upload option also enables administrators to quickly and easily upload any number of files simultaneously to the intranet. This includes the replication of entire folder structures to applications such as Document Manager, Image Library, Content Publisher and Digital Assets Library.
iD Desktop Assistant makes maintaining your governance strategy easy, saves you time and enhances collaboration, helping you get the most out of iD. It is available as a free added extra with your installation of Intranet DASHBOARD 2.2 and above. For more information, see the iD Extras on the iD Help Site.
We’re very excited to announce the official launch of the ALL NEW iD Client Portal.
Exclusive to clients, the iD Client Portal will improve the way you are able to interact with us, making it easier than ever to manage every aspect of your account from a single, centralized location.
The iD Client Portal brings together all the information and resources you need. A one stop shop for all things ‘iD’, the iD Client Portal offers a host of new functionality to put you in control of your account.
Click here to read more »
To coincide with the launch of iD 3, we have released the iD Help site, a comprehensive online resource aimed at empowering you to get the most out of iD.
iD Help is freely and readily available – simply visit http://help.intranetdashboard.com
Explore this extensive resource at your own pace and discover all there is to know about:
- iD Tools and Applications
- System Administration
- iD Extras
Improve the knowledge base of all your intranet users and in turn, the overall standard of your intranet.
Make the iD Help site your first stop for all support queries. Click here to Explore Now.
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