- Get Started!
- Sales line: 415.963.4369
Use PBworks to Make Your Intranet Social
While intranets have been around for well over a decade, and Web 2.0 for over five years, both have been relative disappointments within the enterprise. While nearly every company now offers an intranet to its employees, most of these intranets are difficult to navigate, difficult to update, and as a result, are seldom used and little loved. Similarly, while the rise of social networking and other Web 2.0 concepts have revolutionized the consumer space, these concepts have made little headway within the enterprise.
However, the recent development of combining intranets and Web 2.0 to create a social intranet holds the promise of finally harnessing Web 2.0 for the enterprise and unlocking the potential of intranets.
PBworks gives organizations of all sizes, from boutique to Fortune 500, the ability to deploy a social intranet that will increase connections between people and knowledge within the enterprise by providing a personalized dashboard and communications center for every employee.
- An Easier-to-use Intranet
- A Personalized Lens Into Company Information
- Integrating Social Software into your Intranet
- Real-Time Communications
An Easier-to-use Intranet
Even before you integrate Web 2.0 into your intranet, wouldn't you like to make it easier to use? PBworks' legendary focus on usability (all our products have to pass the elementary school test, since our educational products are used by millions of schoolchildren) can make your intranet much easier to use (and more popular).
Universal search
PBworks lets you search across all the information in your enterprise, including the full text of all uploaded files, making it easier to find what you're looking for. Yet this search is personalized to respect all security settings; each user can only search the content he or she has permission to see.
Easy to update
Unlike traditional intranet solutions that require an IT request to update, PBworks makes it easy to keep information up to date. Our easy-to-use editor lets anyone get up to speed quickly, you can import existing stores of information from Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents, and you can even forward emails to your workspace for inclusion.
Robust permissions and access controls
Sometimes, you want everyone in the company to be able to view and contribute. Other times, you may want to publish read-only policies. And occasionally, you may want a smaller team to work on something in private. PBworks offers a robust permissioning system with the ability to grant or restrict access as you see fit. Want all official HR policies to be read-only for the rest of the company? Set up an "Official HR Policies" folder and restrict write permission to HR staff.
Share documents and files
Upload important documents and files to make sharing easy. A PBworks social intranet combines enterprise-grade security with universal accessibility (no VPNs or firewall configuration necessary, and you can access all content from iPhone and Blackberry). And our service comes with 100GB of file storage. (Need more? Call us!)
Accessible via iPhone and Blackberry
Dealing with mobile workers and telecommuters? PBworks Mobile Edition makes your social intranet securely accessible via all leading smartphones, as well as the Kindle and iPad.
A Personalized Lens Into Company Information
One of the biggest complaints about traditional intranets is that employees have a hard time finding what they need. A PBworks social intranet inverts this issue by providing every employee with a personalized lens into company information.
Employee dashboard
Every employee gets their own personalized dashboard that shows them what they've done and what information they can access. But a PBworks dashboard goes beyond simple information. It also includes a complete list of all the tasks you're working on and when they're due. By acting as a central hub for your work, the dashboard makes the social intranet a continual part of the workday.
Activity stream filtering
Not only will a PBworks social intranet give each employee a better idea of their own activity, it also provides awareness of what the rest of the company is doing. The activity stream (a la Facebook) provides a real-time look at what's happening, from "tweets" to edits to file uploads to checking off tasks. And PBworks lets each employee filter that stream to see as much or as little as the employee wants. You can even "follow" the people you work with most to subscribe to their updates.
Company-wide messaging
Amidst all this personalization, there are still times when a social intranet needs to provide company-wide messaging. PBworks lets you place whatever content you wish on every employee's dashboard, whether that content is a message from the CEO, and inspiration video, or even the latest things your customers are saying about you on Twitter.
Integrating Social Software into your Intranet
Work-centric Social Networking
Set up employee profiles that facilitate social networking. Each profile includes static Linked In-style information, as well as the employee's activities and tasks. As the administrator, you can select the fields to include, and allow your employees to filter on things such as department or office location. Your employees can find the people they need to get the job done, and choose which other users to follow.
Twitter-style Microblogging
Encourage informal collaboration and awareness with microblogging. Your employees can post quick status updates to share with teammates or initiate conversations. And everything takes place in a secure, private environment that integrates with your Active Director or LDAP.
Easy Workspace Collaboration
Tap into the power of Wikipedia-style collaboration by incorporating workspaces into your social intranet. Your employees can easily create informal workspaces within the social intranet to collect team feedback or collaboratively author documents. You can also set up more formal workspaces for distributing formal information and policies, or shift between the two modes by allowing open comment and editing, then locking down pages once a policy is settled.
Real-Time Communications
Make your social intranet an integral part of your employees' daily lives by allowing them to use it as a central hub for communications with their colleagues.
Integrated Presence/IM/Chat
See who else in your organization is logged into PBworks, and send them instant messages from within the product. 1:1 and group chat sessions provide real-time communications.
Voice Collaboration
Start an instant conference call by having PBworks dial the desired participants. You can add new participants at any time, and each conference call is recorded and stored for later review. There are no dial-in numbers or meeting codes to remember, and it works with regular phones.
Live Editing
Whenever a user is editing a workspace page, the other users viewing that page can see the edits appear in real-time. Use Live Editing with Voice Collaboration, and eliminate the need for web conferencing tools like WebEx.
Live Notifications
Find out about edits, file uploads, and other activity within your organization in real-time, rather waiting for email notifications. You'll always know what's happening.