Replacing the newsletter

If you have ever worked for a large company, you likely have had experience with an intranet or internal Web.

However, many people do not realize that intranets aren't restricted to multinational corporations. Small to mid-sized businesses can benefit from an intranet as well, and they often can deploy one with little investment.

Although many companies have central file servers and other shared information resources, the term intranet is usually reserved for Web-based applications and document publishing. As with World Wide Web sites, these internal Webs use an HTTP server to handle requests from client browsers. Unlike Internet sites, the corporate intranet is restricted to users within the company, although it may be configured to allow remote access with proper authentication.

Communication is key to collaboration and business management. In the not so distant past, printed newsletters were the communications tools of choice. Unfortunately, these were static documents that only allowed one-way information flow, quickly became irrelevant, and presented waste management issues.

With the widespread adoption of e-mail, these problems have disappeared, but they have been replaced by a new set of issues. Inboxes become overrun with irrelevant information, messages become difficult to sort and manage, and mass mailing lists get misused. E-mail is a "push" technology, meaning the sender pushes the information, and the recipient receives it whether or not they actually wanted it.

In contrast to these other communication media, an intranet provides instant, on-demand information at the click of a mouse:

n Human resources departments can publish employee handbooks and policies.

n Customer service units can access and update troubleshooting databases.

n Information technology teams can provide user education programs.

n Management can publish news items and event calendars.

The possibilities are endless.

Server considerations

For most small to mid-sized companies, server requirements are minimal and often do not require investment in server versions of the operating system. While robust servers, such as Windows Server 2008 or Mac OS X Leopard Server, might be considered for external Web sites and high-availability applications, most client operating systems work fine for a small intranet.

The actual server software used should depend upon the applications development platform being considered and the existing server management environment. Microsoft Internet Information Server, available only on Windows machines, can be used if the system will use Active Directory authentication or if applications require ASP or ASP.NET scripting.

The other major server application, Apache web server, is available for all platforms and is usually preinstalled on Mac and Linux systems. When combined with PHP (php.net), Apache becomes a flexible, scalable, and robust platform for practically any Web application — and it's free.

Content management

Not everyone is proficient with HTML coding and scripting. Fortunately, there are a number of free open-source content management systems (CMS) available for download. These range in complexity from very simple blog engines to extensible and modular development systems. Most require a back-end database, such as MySQL, to store documents and handle administration tasks.

Some of the more popular CMSes available include Drupal, Joomla, and PHPnuke. With these, users can be assigned various roles restricting what they can and cannot do in the system. To post a story or news item, the user merely logs into the administration utility, types or pastes text into a word processor-like field, and submits the form.

Although one person might serve as the administrator or Webmaster for the intranet site, the use of a CMS creates a distributed authoring environment. Each organizational unit might chose one or two people to serve as content authors for that unit. This division of labor prevents bottlenecks, allows more timely publishing of critical data, and creates a sense of ownership throughout the company.

Interactive applications

Companies that have experienced programmers and database developers may want to deploy custom Web-based applications. However, custom development isn't the only option. A variety of both commercial and open-source applications and scripts are available that require little only a modest amount of technical expertise.

A casual survey of popular software sites, such as SourceForge.net and HotScripts.com, reveals thousands of pre-built scripts and applications. These range from calendars and equipment schedulers to project management applications and collaborative work environments. While most of the open-source packages are developed in PHP, other options such as ASP and Java are available.

Information security

Because the company intranet may store confidential or sensitive information, security must be a prime consideration. In general, the internal Web server should be located within the corporate network --- that is, behind a firewall. If the intranet needs to be made available to remote workers, then a VPN gateway should be deployed to provide authentication and encrypted communication between the server and the remote host.

As with any technology decision, the reasons for creating an intranet must support the business objectives. If those objectives include better communication, more efficient collaboration, and creation of an empowered work force, then an intranet may be the ideal solution.

With very little up-front investment, even a small business can discover the power of a distributed authoring environment and recognize the potential of a central information hub.

Monte Kendrick is the president of and principal consultant for Pixelogiq Data Systems LLC, a Madison-based company that offers information security and technology consulting services.