John joined CF in 2006 and worked his way up the ranks. He brings a deep knowledge of SharePoint intranets matched with a natural flair for user experience design.
He has worked across both design and technical disciplines - a rare combination that allow him to build a bridge between the user experience and technical teams. This means that feasibility, usability, delivery and ease of maintenance are baked-into all of our solutions.
Since the launch of Microsoft Viva in early 2021, Microsoft has continued to invest in its employee experience platform, by adding new features, connectors and capabilities to the existing four modules – Viva Connections, Viva Learning, Viva Insights and Viva Topics.
But in recent weeks the expansion of the platform and the Microsoft Viva brand has quickened with the announcement of three new modules: Viva Goals, Viva Results and Viva Engage.
In this post we’re going to explore the three new Viva modules, what they do and the value that they could bring to businesses.
What is Microsoft Viva?
Microsoft Viva as an employee experience platform that is delivered through Microsoft Teams. Initially four modules were announced, all of which have since launched. Even though Viva is positioned as a platform, it is arguably a series of separate apps within the Teams platform:
Viva Connections: A gateway to internal communications and company resources
Viva Insights: Personalised analytics and related insights for individuals, managers and leaders that support well-being, collaboration, productivity and more
Viva Learning: A learning hub that aggregates learning resources from a variety of different systems and sources
Viva Topics: A knowledge discovery platform that uses AI to source resources and experts on different topics.
Microsoft Viva has had huge interest from intranet, digital workplace and Microsoft 365 teams, who are actively deploying one or more of its modules across the digital workplace.
Let’s explore the opportunities the three recently announced modules bring.
Viva Goals
Although Viva Goals was only formally announced in May 2022, it’s been on the roadmap for considerably longer, and is a direct result of Microsoft’s acquisition of Ally.io, a leading provider of Objectives and Key Results (OKR) software. OKR software helps organisations, teams and individuals to set meaningful goals and then record progress towards meeting them; it is a good way to give strategic context to employee’s daily work, for example.
The Viva Goals module brings the core OKR functionality from the Ally.io solution into Microsoft Teams, and presents an interesting option for organisations either using existing OKR software, or wanting to introduce it. Using Viva Goals will bring OKRs more directly into the flow of work in organisations and departments that use Microsoft Teams.
Viva Goals has several different options including:
OKRs available at the individual, team and organisational level
The ability to align OKRs with projects and tasks, with some integrations with applications like Jira
The ability to build custom dashboards to show OKR progress that can then be shared to help discussions, for example about progress of projects
Embed OKRs into Teams discussion threads.
Viva Goals will be made fully available in Q3 2022, and will be added as an option for those who have subscribed to the full Viva suite. It will also likely be available on a separate subscription. We can see Viva Goals really adding value in some organisations, and complementing other Viva modules, including Viva Learning
Viva Sales
Viva Sales was announced in June and represents a slight departure from the rest of the suite, in that it is positioned as a “seller experience application” rather than being applicable for all employees.
Viva Sales provides a range of tools to help anyone involved in sales processes. These include using AI to facilitate the capture of client and sales data that might arise from interactions in Teams and Outlook which will automatically be entered into a CRM system, reducing or even eliminating manual entry.
Although this will undoubtedly include Microsoft Dynamics, the use of the generic CRM term in the announcement hints that there may well be connectors to other popular CRM systems.
Although the details are still vague, other features of Viva Sales will include:
Surfacing data from an organisation’s CRM system in Outlook and Teams, to provide context to communications and conversations with and about customers and prospects
Providing various insight and suggestions using AI, relating to sales conversations, interaction and activity
AI-driven analysis of sales calls and meetings providing actions lists, analysis of performance and even sentiment analysis.’
Although the full details of Viva Sales have still to come out and the module won’t be released until Q4 2022, we see lots of potential with Viva Sales.
CRM systems often do not get populated as much as they should do and can be disconnected from communication channels; we can see this working particularly well where non-sales staff are responsible for client relationships and even selling, and would benefit in having more visibility of CRM data. The AI-powered insights also sound intriguing.
Viva Engage
The latest module to be announced is Viva Engage, revealed in a recent post on the Microsoft Viva blog and announced at the Microsoft Inspire event. Viva Engage is positioned as being “designed to help people and teams to be their best..[and] give leaders a new way to shape culture at their organization by unlocking communication and engagement opportunities for everyone”.
However, Viva Engage is not actually new and is, to some extent, another re-branding exercise from Microsoft. It’s essentially a newly designed Yammer Communities app for Microsoft Teams that will replace the existing app and adds some new features on top of the existing Yammer platform. This brings the Yammer experience more directly into Teams, and again has real value in organisations where Teams adoption is high.
The key new element is a feature where people can create “storylines” using traditional posts, or photos and videos (now rebranded as “stories”), similar to some consumer social media platforms. Stories will appear in a carousel format at the top of a storylines tab..
Viva Engage will be free for anybody who has an existing license that covers Yammer. The Communities app will be rebranded in late August.”
The announcement of Viva Engage has led some to initial confusion. In the threads to the original announcement and articles, some have said that trying to differentiate between Viva Engage and Yammer is confusing to explain to users, essentially as Engage is essentially a Yammer app. Others have asked what it means for the future of Yammer.
Defending the announcement Steve Nguynen confirmed that there is no plan to rebrand Yammer and that the “best way to think about this announcement is that Yammer is going to power the Viva Engage experience… and the beginning of us bringing Yammer more closely to our Viva suite of products.”
While we like the new storylines features, we agree that the positioning of Viva Engage in relation to Yammer is a little confusing as they are essentially the same product. We’d also like to see the Storylines feature added to the general Yammer platform to keep everything in sync.
Keep on moving forward with Viva
Microsoft keeps on investing in Viva and the three new modules extend the scope of what it can do. We wouldn’t be surprised if more modules were announced through the year.
If you’d like to discuss how you can use Microsoft Viva in your organisation or want to explore the potential of the newly announced modules, then get in touch!
Driving adoption and change management (ACM) in Microsoft 365 and related channels such as a SharePoint intranet is a big-ticket item for every intranet and digital workplace team.
Teams want to increase the adoption of the platform and ensure it is being used in ways which deliver sustainable value; an intranet or digital workplace with limited adoption is not successful. But adoption and change management is not always straightforward.
Recently the Content Formula Team – consisting of Alex Yeomans, Manpreet Baghi and John Scott – hosted a webinar titled “Achieving adoption on your Microsoft 365 intranet”.
We were lucky to be joined by Si Steers, Head of Digital Product, Channels & Editorial, Internal Communications at Entain Group. Content Formula worked with Si and his team to help launch a new digital workplace at Entain, a large and growing brand in the gaming sector.
In this post we’re going to explore ten ACM takeaways from the session. You can also watch a recording below.
1 The ADKAR framework is great for embedding and sustaining change
Fundamentally change management is about people and changing behaviours. It’s also a mature discipline with a vast body of knowledge and range of frameworks and methodologies. One of the most popular of these is ADKAR – a robust methodology that Content Formula use and advocate for. One of the strengths of the ADKAR model is that helps to embed but then also sustain change but through a series of different steps.
In the webinar, Manpreet walked us through each step:
Awareness – driving awareness about the change and the need to change (“Have you heard of the proposed change”)
Desire – focusing and instilling a desire for people to change (“I am excited to get on board”)
Knowledge – providing knowledge about the change (“I have attended the training session and feel more confident”)
Ability – ensuring people are actually carry out the change required (“I am using the software daily nowH)
Reinforcement – reinforcing the change for the longer-term (“I am complemented for incorporating this change”).
2 ACM is critical for Microsoft 365
Many organisations are implementing Microsoft 365 across their digital workplace. Here, adoption and change management is integral for success. Achieving ROI on the platform is dependent on adoption at scale but this will involve people using new tools and working in new ways for widespread communication and collaboration; only then can you expected to get the widespread productivity and efficiency gains that Microsoft 365 promises.
Manpreet also explained how Microsoft 365 also enables remote and hybrid working – another area which requires extensive change management. Moreover, when changes in behaviour are truly embedded and users are confident with using new tools, it also means you can start to advance the digital workplace and explore new and more sophisticated ways of using the tools at hand.
3 ACM has some key challenges
ACM is not always straightforward and does come with some common challenges. When teams are aware of these, they can then plan ahead to make sure their ACM efforts have maximum impact. Common challenges cover a number of areas:
Change fatigue is a common issue in change management with employees exhausted from a continual series of initiatives, making it harder to embed any further change.
Resistance to change is also common and there will always be groups who feel either threatened by the change or refuse to break existing habits.
ACM is often about winning both hearts and minds, and frequently employees get how to work with new tools, but don’t get the “why” behind the change, making it harder to change behaviours.
Sometimes usage is not advanced enough – for example Teams adoption might be high, but it is not being used in the right way – so the required change has not gone far enough.
Microsoft 365 and Office 365 are constantly being updated with new tools and improvements to existing tools within the suite; while this has its benefits, it does mean it can be hard to keep up with all the changes, and therefore manage the change effectively.
In digital workplace projects, ACM activity is not always adequately budgeted for; the change management budget can also get eaten into as other priorities or issues emerge.
In the webinar the team explored some of the ways to tackle these challenges such as using personas to help design the change effort and getting the right messaging across in communications.
4 Think about the short, medium and long-term
In the second half of the webinar, we heard from Si Steers at Entain Group. Entain is a diverse company with 25,000 employees spread across different countries, and includes a 14,000-strong frontline workforce based in shops in the UK. Content Formula helped Entain to move to a new Microsoft 365-based digital workplace, introducing Yammer and a new intranet called Entain.Me.
Si explained that when it comes to ACM it is important to think in the short-, medium- and long-term. Over the course of the year-long project to launch Entain’s digital workplace and also after going live, managing change has been baked into everything the core team does; initially getting people excited about the change, making it “sticky” in the medium term, and then refreshing the platform to support the ongoing change.
5 Launch with a splash but support users
In the session, Si talked about some of the activities the team carried out to launch Entain.Me, helping to grab the attention of employees, but also supporting users:
The team designed a communication campaign that had the consistent message that Entain.Me was a unique and personalised experience built around every individual user
They created a hashtag called #PlayYourWay and other communications that strongly echoed this message.
The launched an Entain.Me “Playbook” designed to help users get the most out of the new platform.
A classy and well-received launch video was created which was more of a “lifestyle” video than being about technology.
They made a quick-fire video series walking users through different platform features.
They created a Yammer community where people could ask questions about Entain.Me
They held a global “masterclass” event held via Yammer, which was an introduction and walk-through of the new intranet.
6 Support your publishing community
An essential component of any new intranet is also having good content. Content Formula worked with Si’s team to also focus on change management for the content owner community too, ensuring they felt supported. A site for content owners called Entain.Me Guru with a variety of guides and resources was set up. Initial training was also provided with an ongoing set of weekly drop-in content clinics, each one focusing on a separate theme, as well as the ability to ask different questions. This helped content owners migrate and create content in time for the launch of Entain.Me.
7 Leverage champions for long-term success
One successful change management approach that the Entain team has used is to leverage local champions who can embed changes with their peers in meaningful ways that make sense for local teams; this also helps a small central team to drive ACM across a large and diverse workforce.
The “Tecchies” – part of a wider ambassador programme called the Entainers – are acting as change agents on the ground to drive adoption of both Yammer and Entain.Me. They attend team meetings, share updates and help colleagues on the ground. Currently there are about 40 champions, but Si explained that he is keen to expand this to support the wider digital workplace journey.
8 Be mindful of the schedule
One important element in change management is to consider other change initiatives that are landing around the same time, or the order with which initiatives are launched to the business. Si explained that Yammer was launched before Entain.Me for two main reasons; firstly, the team did not want to overwhelm employees with two platforms launching at the same time. Secondly, as many Entain.Me sites had embedded Yammer groups, they wanted to ensure that Yammer was populated with content and discussions before people viewed it on the new intranet, so they didn’t find an “empty room”.
9 Don’t stand still
The need for ACM is always ongoing, even after a site has launched or a digital project has finished. Si advised that it as important not to “stand still”. Entain.Me was almost an MVP when it was launched, but there was always a vision for it evolve into a wider digital workplace with integrations to support a better employee experience.
The team are now working hard to iterate Entain.Me, for example to leverage Viva Connections to deliver more of that digital workplace “dashboard” functionality. Si emphasised that adoption and change management is a “continual journey without a start or end point” and it was essential not to let a site go out of date.
always putting employees at the centre of the change
ensuring you have a good understanding of any pain points that need addressing
establishing the right training and ongoing support
putting metrics in place in order to measure the change and track progress
having both peer-driven bottom-up communications perhaps though champions, but also top-down messaging to show endorsement from senior leaders
having a formal change and communication plan that targets efforts to different groups
making sure you have communications and assets that are engaging and stand out.
Need help with Office 365 or SharePoint adoption and change management?
ACM is critically important for Microsoft 365, SharePoint, Microsoft Viva and more. If you’d like to discuss your ACM strategy and approach for your digital workplace, then get in touch!
Supporting collaboration is one of the main objectives for any digital workplace, helping to drive a range of benefits from increased productivity to inspiring innovation, supporting the hybrid workplace to better customer service. Collaboration is very important as a source of competitive advantage, and is often reflected in digital transformation strategies, company values and more.
In this post, we’re going to explore the world of collaboration tools and why Microsoft 365 is a strong collaborative platform. We’ll also explore the different Microsoft tools which support collaboration in more detail.
Collaboration tools and the digital workplace
Enabling collaboration is high on the agenda for any digital workplace team. The good news is that there is an enormous range of different digital workplace tools out there to enable collaboration.
One of the reasons that there are so many is that multiple types of collaboration occur every day in organisations: collaboration across teams and projects, wider collaboration across communities, document collaboration, online meetings, user workshops, synchronous and asynchronous collaboration, brainstorming, ideation – the list goes on. In practice, different tools are needed to best support these different forms of collaboration.
Microsoft and collaboration software
Because of the wide variety of tools needed to fully support collaboration, many organisations choose to deploy Microsoft 365, which provides an excellent collaboration platform for several reasons:
There are multiple tools suited to different types of collaboration, covering the majority of most companies’ needs
Microsoft is continually investing in the collaboration capabilities of the suite, so you’re future-proofed
The tools integrate together seamlessly to support more advanced collaboration and related use cases
The quality of the tools is high, with well-designed interfaces, useful features and ready-to-go support resources
Considering the breadth of features you get, the cost per user is reasonable
Many organisations already have Office 365 or Microsoft 365, so many employees will have experience with the tools within them.
There are multiple other reasons why companies choose to go down the 365 path, so the decision almost becomes a no-brainer.
Having said this, the collaboration tools within Microsoft 365 tools are not perfect, and there is room for improvement. There is also some overlap between capabilities which can cause confusion.
Let’s look at some of the key Microsoft 365 collaboration tools that businesses should be using.
1 Microsoft Teams
When most people consider “collaboration” and Microsoft, they usually think of Teams. Teams is a unified communication and collaboration platform encompassing multiple capabilities that can be used for collaboration, including:
Online video meetings
Hybrid video meetings enabled through an ecosystem of Teams-friendly audio and visual equipment
Group audio calls
Group discussions and messaging for both real-time and asynchronous collaboration
Wider community collaboration using discussions or embedding Yammer feeds
More advanced collaboration tools, such as whiteboarding
Embedding other forms of collaboration, including documents that people can work on simultaneously
Additional Teams apps that connect to non-Microsoft tools can also support collaboration.
One of the most powerful aspects of Teams is its sheer ability to cover so many collaboration and related communication scenarios all from one place, with seamless alternation between the two and the ability to work in parallel. An online video meeting, for example, can incorporate a discussion thread to help the flow of collaboration.
Teams is also set for the future of collaboration, with support for Mesh – Microsoft’s mixed reality platform that may see collaboration increasingly using augmented and virtual reality.
2 Yammer
Yammer is usually regarded as a social collaboration platform or even a social network that is bundled into most Microsoft 365 and Office 365 licences. It is now relatively mature and provides a good tool to support more enterprise-wide or community-wide collaboration through Communities of Practice, Communities of Interest and Employee Resource Groups, for example. You can add documents into Yammer, but its main function is to facilitate discussion threads, with the ability to do @mentions and #hashtags.
Some internal communicators use Yammer more as an engagement and communication channel than a collaboration platform, and the truth is, it can be a good tool for discussion-based collaboration for working teams and project groups, as well as more of an engagement channel for wider communities. There are also tools within Yammer that support scenarios like embedding polls and giving praise (engagement), or marking best answers (collaboration and knowledge sharing). Another powerful feature of Yammer is the straightforward ability to embed feeds into SharePoint pages and Teams tabs.
3 SharePoint
Before Microsoft Teams, the main engines for collaboration were SharePoint team sites, which were often used by project teams and other working groups for everyday collaboration. Team sites are still used today through SharePoint modern, and provide a good way for teams to connect with each other and share documents through a document library, supply news updates, share discussions via threads and keep on track through the task management feature.
SharePoint further supports collaboration in a number of ways:
Providing opportunities to gather feedback and input from wider groups through commenting, allowing for more community-led or even enterprise-wide collaboration
Embedding content and information that supports collaboration best practices or helps people connect to different collaboration spaces and communities
Embedding Yammer feeds that support more community-led collaboration
More specific collaboration processes that might utilise SharePoint features like lists.
We explore all of the above and more in a post dedicated to how to use SharePoint to support collaboration.
4 OneDrive and document collaboration
Collaborating on documents is a common, and thus critical, activity for most organisations, and Microsoft 365 provides lots of opportunities for multiple people to work on the same document simultaneously. It’s hard to argue which specific Microsoft tool facilitates document collaboration. OneDrive provides an opportunity for individuals to share a document with others, while Microsoft Office apps like Word allow online access to the actual file. Features such as commenting and track changes also support such collaboration.
Sometimes, collaborative documents are also stored in SharePoint libraries that are accessed through Microsoft Teams. Although collaboration might happen in real-time on the same version of a document, document versioning within a SharePoint document library also supports collaboration.
5 Microsoft Viva
Microsoft Viva is an employee experience platform rather than a collaboration platform, but there are elements of it that support collaboration. Viva Connections surfaces posts from Yammer groups, while Viva Topics can encourage people to connect with subject matter experts. Viva Learning facilitates seamless access to Microsoft Learn resources that provide tips on how to use collaboration tools. Meanwhile, Viva Insights supplies analytics and insights into meetings that will suggest better practices.
Microsoft collaboration tools
Microsoft 365 has a great set of tools to support different kinds of collaboration. Within these are specific features that will meet most use cases. If you’d like to discuss how Microsoft 365 and the Microsoft stack can support your collaboration strategy, then get in touch.
Delivering a modern digital workplace hub in Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams for a vibrant new brand
Entain is one of the world’s leading sports betting and gaming groups and owns several prominent retail and online brands. Headquartered in the UK, the FTSE 100 company employees 24,000 staff spread across 20 global offices around the world, including 15,000 retail employees based in the UK.
A digital employee experience fit for a vibrant brand
On the back of an exciting rebrand, Entain was keen to establish a new intranet and digital workplace that would celebrate its vibrant new identity and give momentum to ambitions to be the world-leader in sports betting and gaming entertainment.
Entain wished to introduce a new LiveTiles intranet that would combine with SharePoint Online to create a world-class channel for global digital communications, while also launching and integrating Yammer to underpin community and collaboration. Entain also wished to retire an existing Jive intranet.
Working as one team
Recognizing Content Formula’s wealth of experience and specialist expertise in LiveTiles and Microsoft 365, we were engaged as Entain’s implementation partner for the new digital workplace.
Working closely with stakeholders in HR, Internal Communications and IT, we held workshops and conducted a user survey, producing a detailed discovery report with recommendations for the new intranet and a suggested information architecture. We also produced wireframes.
Following agreement on the scope, we set about developing and implementing the new intranet, working closely with the client as one project team across several different streams covering technical advice, Yammer, integrations, content and retiring Jive.
Entain.me – a gateway to the digital workplace
A brand-new SharePoint and LiveTiles intranet called Entain.Me acts as an attractive and compelling gateway to the new digital workplace, providing personalized access to inspiring communications, operational content and critical apps from right across the Group. Using the LiveTiles Noticeboard feature, it brings updates into view from all around the world, reflecting the everyday activity of a busy and diverse workforce.
Yammer drives global conversations and connection
Working closely with internal communications, we provided ongoing strategic advice and on-the-ground support to launch a series of Yammer group pilots, leading to a global roll-out of Yammer to all 24,000 employees.
Adoption is growing daily with social collaboration heavily integrated into the Entain.me experience through multiple embedded Yammer feeds supporting conversations and connections. This complements the use of Microsoft Teams for closed project and working group-based collaboration.
The video
The result
Support for content owners
Entain.me features over 100 sites, supporting locations, groups and functions from across the world. To ensure high quality content, we provided support for a network of content owners through training and weekly drop-in clinics, helping them to migrate their existing sites from the legacy Jive intranet and creating new Entain.me sites that are both engaging and useful.
A true digital workplace
To ensure Entain.me is a true digital workplace, the LiveTiles Everywhere persistent toolbar has been deployed with the Entain.me ecosystem, connecting employees to information from different systems and helping busy employees keep on top of their to do lists.
We delivered initial integrations with ServiceNow and Oracle HR, with further integrations planned in one of the most popular features in the new digital workplace.
Communication in the flow of work
With Microsoft Teams adoption on the rise, we also ensured Entain.me can be accessed within the Teams app, from desktop and mobile. This ensures that the new intranet is available on all devices and by all staff including those working in retail, bringing communication and messaging directly into the flow of work.
A vastly improved digital employee experience with strong adoption
The combination of Entain.me, Yammer and the Microsoft Teams app has resulted in a vastly improved digital employee experience, bringing the new brand to life, and helping staff get things done.
Early feedback from staff and senior stakeholders has been overwhelmingly positive, and initial adoption is exceeding expectations. We are continuing to work with Entain to evolve an even more exciting digital workplace.
A mobile intranet app for front line workers with a focus on communications, ease-of-use and engagement.
Employees: 1,500 Industry: Food and beverage Location: Europe
The challenge
While elegant Yorkshire Tea shops and quality products remind us of the simple pleasures in life, they needed to be able to communicate effectively with all employees, whether at headquarters, on a factory floor in India or a retail outlet in Leeds. Added to the challenge was the fact that many of the frontline employees had no digital identity within the Yorkshire Tea corporate ecosystem.
Our approach
It was clear that Yorkshire Tea needed a simple, portable means of reaching staff. The LiveTiles employee communications solution ‘Reach’ was the perfect match. ‘Reach’ is a mobile-first internal comms solution delivering targeted content through dedicated channels, and multilingual capability.
The result
More engaged and connected staff and a more inclusive communications culture. Hundreds of workers are now using Reach daily from wherever they are based, connecting, posting, and engaging via mobile or desktop.
Yorkshire Tea – a tradition of valuing people evolves into the digital age
Is there anything better than settling down with a comforting cup of tea?
In the business world, excellent staff engagement and internal communication comes close...especially for tea merchants who embraced employee communications app ‘LiveTiles Reach.’
Yorkshire Tea are one of the biggest tea manufacturers in Europe with a reputation for creating a truly excellent product with a focus on craft, quality and valuing their people. The company has a network of production plants in both the UK and India and their tea’s reputation is among the best in the world. Yorkshire Tea also have spin-off businesses in the retail market, including bakehouses and coffee shops.
The client’s primary means of communicating with their staff was via email and a couple of employee newsletters. One of their key pain points was the wasting of people’s time and resources, not knowing if these outdated forms of communication were getting through to the diverse groups of employees and the feeling that important cohorts of colleagues were not being reached or included in the workplace comms and culture.
How to improve food and beverage employee engagement while retaining the brand
While elegant Yorkshire Tea shops and quality products remind us of the simple pleasures in life, they needed to be able to communicate effectively with all employees, whether at headquarters, on a factory floor in India or a retail outlet in Leeds. Added to the challenge was the fact that many of the frontline employees had no digital identity within the Yorkshire Tea corporate ecosystem.
With so many different touch points to consider, Yorkshire Tea needed a solution to easily communicate with their staff, no matter their role, location or device. To achieve this, they set out to embrace innovative and easy-to-use internal communications technology.
Yorkshire Tea also recognized that spending so much time in email systems meant their communications were very one-way. They were very keen to move onto a much more advanced solution, something that was mobile-first, so they could move away from their dependence on email and create a two-way dialogue with their staff.
Finding the perfect solution with LiveTiles Reach
It was clear that Yorkshire Tea needed a simple, portable means of reaching staff. The LiveTiles employee communications solution ‘Reach’ was the perfect match. ‘Reach’ is a mobile-first internal comms solution delivering targeted content through dedicated channels, and multilingual capability.
What’s more, ‘Reach’ seamlessly integrates with Microsoft Teams and Office 365 or it can also be standalone. This is ideal for including all the frontline colleagues who may not have M365 licences assigned to them. Reach’s simplicity and ability to unite the workforce is its unique selling point.
The Result: Engaged, connected staff with LiveTiles Reach
More engaged and connected staff and a more inclusive communications culture. Hundreds of workers are now using Reach daily from wherever they are based, connecting, posting, and engaging via mobile or desktop.
Staff are innovating, creating events, participating in polls, an employee of the week page, and their own buy and sell. They also have their own ideas for innovative additions to Reach. The employee voice at Yorkshire Tea has never been more included or amplified. This massive increase in digital workplace participation has also positively impacted the evolution of company culture as Yorkshire Tea continue to accelerate their digital transformation journey.
After six months of using Reach the Yorkshire Tea comms team is hugely satisfied with the solution and how it’s benefiting the business. An off-shoot of the project was a digital paper being published monthly for and by employees, driving more effective corporate and bottom-up content and conversations. A survey was carried out with staff and leadership teams, asking for their thoughts on how the new Reach solution was benefiting the organization. Unanimously, the responses were incredibly positive.
Their "Employee of the Week" page, and a buy and sell trading page have become extremely popular. Polls and events have also really taken off and brought greater connectivity to the company culture and corporate communications.
Yorkshire Tea goal was to get around 1500 staff actively using Reach daily. Currently, around 900 staff are using Reach, and user numbers are rising steadily every day.
The Comms team at Yorkshire Tea has gathered plenty of ideas for new additions to ‘Reach’ that could be implemented going forward, such as a livestream function, a live Q and A function, and the ability to attach photos to news posts.
SharePoint rebuild boosts adoption and collaboration
Intranet revamp and governance strategy boosts knowledge sharing by 375%
The brief
Janssen is a leading pharmaceutical company. The EMEA Medical Affairs function in Janssen provides scientific support to both internal teams and external customers. They collaborate extensively on writing scientific knowledge documents. To help them with this they put in place a SharePoint collaboration and knowledge portal.
After 3 years the SharePoint site had only enjoyed modest success with key areas unpopulated and unused. Following a referral by EMEA IT we were asked by the site sponsor to provide consultancy on reversing the poor levels of adoption of their intranet.
Our approach
Whilst many people had their own ideas as to why the intranet was struggling, we approached the project with fresh and open minds. One of our top SharePoint consultants designed a research project that included a deep dive into the analytics, a content audit, a stakeholder workshop and 25 one-on-one interviews with content owners and end users from across the EMEA region.
Our research uncovered a number of problems – many of which the team had not considered. These included usability issues, technical issues, content issues, inadequate training, and almost non-existent governance. Together these issues had led to a huge lack of trust in the content held on the site.
We put in place a three-pronged plan to address the issues: first, rebuilding the core knowledge and collaboration section of the site to make the user experience more intuitive; second, putting in place a robust SharePoint governance framework aimed at driving up adoption and sustaining high levels of usage; and third, carrying out a SharePoint rebrand to send a strong signal that the site had changed.
The result
With a limited budget and a tight timeline we relaunched the site after two months. As set out in our governance plan we worked closely with the network of 25 content owners. We briefed, motivated and supported them to get their latest and greatest content onto the site. We’ve stayed in touch with the site owner and have delivered ongoing analytics post launch. We have found that:
The amount of scientific documents on the site doubled in one month after launch.
9 months later the site has seen the number of documents shared increase to 1762 – an increase of 375% since the launch date.
Year-on-year the site has enjoyed a 20% increase in users and a 30% increase in user sessions.
With such a pronounced and sustained increase in usage and adoption we have been invited to build a similar site on Office365 for Janssen Asia Pacific.
A SharePoint 2016 intranet-in-a-box with great findability and rich features
How LiveTiles Intranet is helping Craneware to work more efficiently
Craneware is the market leader in developing software and providing professional services which help US-based healthcare providers improve their profit margins. This means Craneware’s clients can continue to invest in better outcomes for their patients.
As part of a wider programme of communicating success across the 250 Craneware employees located in the UK and the US, it became clear that a new intranet was needed.
The existing intranet was impeding smooth communication and the flow of everyday knowledge around the company.
Employees were complaining that it was hard to find content either via the intranet navigation or through search. And, if they were lucky enough to find the item they needed, it was often out of date. Ultimately, many had lost confidence and trust in the intranet and its content.
With a rich set of features to enable publishing and collaboration, LiveTiles (formerly known as Wizdom) was the perfect solution to deliver an attractive state of the art intranet, while unlocking the value of the company’s continuing investment in its on-premises installation of SharePoint.
LiveTiles's intuitive interfaces, powerful templates and sheer flexibility meant the intranet would be far easier to manage going forward, resulting in both a successful and sustainable platform.
The discovery phase
To gain a deep understanding of how staff at Craneware work and how a new intranet might help, Content Formula’s consultants carried out two workshops, one involving a cross-selection of users and another with senior stakeholders. This was supplemented by one-on- one structured interviews with individuals from across the business, both based in the US and the UK.
Our consultants soon built up a detailed picture of how the new intranet could help Craneware meet its strategic objectives and allow employees to meet their everyday goals. We presented our findings and associated recommendations back to the core project team and senior sponsors.
Our accompanying report included the results of our discovery exercise, which not only highlighted issues with findability but also other areas of frustration. Synthesising the useful feedback and ideas received from staff, we also suggested key areas of the new intranet that would have a real impact.
We recommended taking a holistic approach which wasn’t just about deploying new technology but was also about improving content governance, managing search and developing a new information architecture.
The new intranet
With most of our recommendations taken on board, our consultants supported the team at Craneware to structure the site, build the basic architecture, design a new user-focused global navigation, and design key pages (with the aid of wireframes). We were also on hand to advise on overcoming some technical challenges.
The result is a beautiful SharePoint 2016 on premises intranet which slots seamlessly into the way Craneware employees work. At last it’s easy to publish news and success stories which can be targeted to individuals based on their profiles. The content also renders beautifully on to mobile devices via responsive design.
Staff complaints about not being able to find content are massively reduced. A user-centric navigation and a search which can be filtered by subject, content type and other data means employees can find the content they need. Automatic reviews and convenient publishing templates also ensure content owners can keep their pages up to date. Confidence in the intranet and its content has been restored.
And, for the first time, employees are also using the powerful collaboration tools within SharePoint – critical when teams are working across different continents! The intranet is helping Craneware to work more efficiently.
Looking to the future
Of course, it’s still early days for the intranet, but the huge improvements over the previous intranet are clear. More staff are using the intranet, senior stakeholders are fully behind it and the intranet team are excited about the opportunities for the future which the new intranet provides.
A responsive intranet developed on SharePoint 2013 on Premise with Skype for Business integration
SharePoint consultancy, UX & development to build a digital workplace serving a diverse user base of 1,700 people
The brief
The Institute for Cancer Research (ICR) is one of the world’s most influential cancer research institutes, with an outstanding record of achievement dating back more than 100 years. ICR London operates as a research institute, a higher education institution and an exempt charity.
connect people, promote knowledge sharing and communication, and foster collaboration - both within and outside of the ICR network.
provide easy and fast access to relevant information
provide staff and students with access to a range of tools and functions that will make their working lives easier
promote the ICR brand and organisational culture
develop a cost-effective and sustainable platform
Our approach
We proposed a partially bespoke solution to deliver ICR’s priority requirements utilising pre-designed templates as the requirements matched the features of these templates. This allowed us to reduce costs without any compromise on requirements.
We started with a discovery phase to gather information and insight to inform both the initial strategy for the site, and how the site should be maintained and developed moving forwards.
In the IA and UX phase we developed a set of interactive wireframes to reflect the output of the discovery phase. We ran testing on these wireframes with real users, and also tested the navigation using tree-testing. After, we were happy with the performance of the wireframes in tests, we then applied the ICR branded design to all the templates. The site was then built over five 2-week sprints, tested and the features and functionality developed demoed to the client for feedback and iteration.
One particularly interesting aspect of this project was the collaboration spaces. We modified SharePoint team sites to provide a very streamlined and intuitive place for team and project collaboration – with a personal activity feed for users on the intranet homepage. Also, because the ICR were already using Skype for Business, we integrated these collaboration spaces with Skype, so that each group had an associated group chat within the Skype for Business client.
The result
Collaboration area usage has increased by 139%
418% increase in usage of the policy library
19% sustained increase in traffic vs the previous intranet
The improved information architecture has seen reliance on search drop by 7%
All opinions expressed are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of the ICR.
"The ICR’s new intranet is a big step forward on our old one. It has a striking design, easy-to-use navigation system, fresh content, and a range of new functionalities. Content Formula understood the ICR’s requirements, and applied their detailed knowledge of SharePoint to craft a dynamic and modern new system. They found imaginative ways of putting into use out-of-the-box SharePoint functionalities, making the new intranet as useful as possible while minimising costs."
A truly global intranet serving the needs of all locations
A new global intranet to bring the organisation closer together
Bibby Financial Services provides funding solutions for small and medium-sized businesses.
With over 2,000 employees spread across numerous locations in the UK and throughout the world, effective communication is a cornerstone for great customer experiences.
However, the flow of information around the company was highly efficient; a dated intranet based on SharePoint 2010 had poor adoption, and a heavy reliance on email for internal communications meant messages were being ignored. International offices felt they could be better connected to Bibby Financial Services' UK headquarters.
A beautiful new LiveTiles intranet
Bibby Financial Services engaged Content Formula to implement a brand new, global intranet to transform communication and bring offices closer together.
We carried out detailed research, interviewing stakeholders and users, and made recommendations on how the new intranet could relieve pain points and deliver multiple benefits.
Based on our findings, it was agreed to implement a new LiveTiles (formerly known as Wizdom) intranet. This would not only create a beautiful intranet delivering personalised, relevant content to different groups and locations, but also integrate with other parts of the Office 365 suite which the company was in the process of adopting.
Meeting the needs of every location through content targeting
Content Formula worked in partnership with Bibby's Communications team to deliver a solution which centralises internal communications through news updates and a strong brand identity, but also ensures the needs of different locations and functions are met.
Relevant content and experiences are targeted to users based on their office and division; this involved helping the team populate accurate location data into Active Directory through an inventive data-mapping exercise.
Empowering locations to create content
Using LiveTiles's noticeboard feature, departments and global offices can also create their own local news which is also aggregated on the intranet homepage. Now the new intranet offers a dynamic feed of activity right across all locations, acting as a pulse for the whole organisation.
To ensure that local content teams were fully trained on how to use the intranet, Content Formula designed and delivered a "Train the Trainer" programme so local content champions could deliver effective training to content owners in different global locations.
A truly multilingual intranet though auto-translation
The needs of global employees are also met by translating content into local languages. If a piece of content has not been translated, Microsoft's automated Bing translation feature is enabled with content automatically translated into a user's native tongue based on their location. While machine translation is not 100% perfect, messages are still successfully conveyed for all employees across the world for the very first time.
The intranet also helps to drive collaboration between offices with dedicated templates for team and social workspaces.
Communicating as one company
Although it is still early days, the intranet has already proved highly successful in helping global offices to better communicate and work together, making Bibby Financial Services truly feel like one company.
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