We’re looking for a staff intranet solution currently we’re using a Squarespace site but it’s flat and isn’t very dynamic. We want to pull in data from service-u and at some point from Ministry Platform once we migrate over to there. I’ve been looking at Igloo https://www.igloosoftware.com they have some non profit pricing for building intranets with them so we’re exploring that. I’m curious what you are using for an intranet for helping your staff interact better. We’re a Microsoft shop with on prem Exchange and AD, i’d love to see SSO for this, something we dont have with Squarespace.
We’re using our ChMS itself (RockRMS in our case) as the Intranet. It makes the most sense for us as Rock is a great CMS so makes storing content, files, forms, and whatever other “intranetty” things we need very easy. It’s a place most staff have to go daily to get work done anyway, and is a single point of authentication, etc In our case the Intranet is just another main menu item with it’s own set of subpages and workflows, etc.
I’m not familiar with MP’s CMS capabilities but if they have anything decent I’d put it all in there.
Good idea, I haven’t explored Ministry Platform yet, my previous church job we were using CCB and it lacked any customization for doing an Intranet from it. I’ll hold off and see what MP can do for us for our intranet.
When I came on to LC a few years ago, we had a chaotic network of WordPress sites for our staff intranet. We ditched that for a custom built Drupal multi-site. One main site and then each major team has a sub-site. This has been far better but I question if our next iteration of our staff intranet will be custom built. We looked at igloo and some others. I would do an ROI analysis and compare that with what you are using it for.
If you are on Rock or looking to get on Rock, that solution sounds pretty interesting as well.
Jason, we are in the same boat as you. Years ago we had a custom built intranet but the staff member who developed it left staff and the server crashed on top of that.
We haven’t really had one for years. We’ve posted a few links on the default page of F1, but that’s not really the functionality we are looking for.
I’m interested to see what others are doing.
We’re exploring SharePoint as we are on O365 but want to wait to see where Microsoft lands with it.
It seems to be changing weekly if not sooner.
I’m resurrecting this post a bit to explore it further. I spoke with the developer of Ministry Platform and he was saying that this software isn’t really made to be an intranet and that it would most likely not be the best solution for doing an intranet with.
I’m looking for something that is more purpose built, allows our HR staff to manage it and if needed I can assist in it as well.
So far Jostle and Igloo seem to be the top contenders, Igloo seems expensive they quoted us $4500-5500 yearly. @jpuddle whats the cost related to Jostle and how are you justifying it?
Our cost is annual per user. I’m not sure what their base rate is, I know we’re receiving special pricing because we were a very early adopter. They may very well give you a discount if you mentioned that we referred you and that you’re a charity. They’re good people.
As for justification, it made perfect sense for us to use something like Jostle. We have over 250 staff in 10 nations, and we were pretty desperate for something to help us keep connected, keep relationship strong, share testimonies of what’s happening in our churches, etc. We love it. Happy to chat on the phone or via email if you want to go deeper.
Thanks, my main thing about this is that I want to make sure our staff had a solid place to get the info they need. I also hate using systems that aren’t purpose built and shoehorning in something like HR docs into a ChMS. Glad you like it and it’s working well, I’ll need to talk with them and explore further.
Rock is clearly not a fit you, but I wanted to respond to the “purpose built” comment for others that might come along later. There is nothing special or magical about “intranet” specific products, other than their names. They serve up info and documents and have good access control. Some ChMS products excel at precisely that. It’s not a hack or “shoehorning” at all… they are built from the ground up for this kind of thing. For Rock shops in particular, there’s no better place to have an Intranet than in the ChMS. Clearly all (most?) ChMS’s are not like that, but some are.
We are on Office 365 and SharePoint is included in the license cost. Therefore, we are headed towards SharePoint for our intranet and team sites. We have about 40 staff to give an idea of our size. We are starting out pretty simple, just using Document Libraries and some simple list apps to get going. Our SharePoint sites are running in the cloud, so we don’t have an on-premise SharePoint server to maintain. I agree with an earlier comment that Microsoft is changing the product regularly, so it is sometimes a challenge keeping up-to-date. That being said, from my viewpoint the changes are for the better. Finally, we are in a mixed environment with about 75% Macs and 25% PCs.
We are using 365Appz SharePoint intranet. It can be easily developed by anyone without coding or developer because it has a custom theme, ready to use SharePoint apps, multiple layouts with fresh color and design. This SharePoint toolkit will allow to design and develop your intranet within days. We have great experience about this intranet portal. It can be a great solution to every industry from small to large and large to big size enterprise.
