This thesis is about building a team site with Sharepoint in a business unit at Company X. The objective is to create and design a site that is easy for everyone to use and maintain. This thesis includes a theoretical framework at the beginning which is the basis for the creation of Team Site.
Importance of internal communication
Tasks of internal communication
This is because the employees of the company also present the company in their spare time. It is important that employees know the industry in which the company operates and what the company's core products and services are, if asked by someone from outside the company.
Information sharing
If open interaction is what the company wants to achieve at some point, it's important to know that it won't happen overnight. Customer feedback received from the products and services is important to report to staff.
Channels of internal communication
Although employees may communicate a lot with each other, it is not always related to work-related issues, as people are mostly concentrated on their work. And although employees may communicate with each other, it is not always job-related.
Internal marketing
Fresser, 2015) Withee explains in the book that Sharepoint is more than just a website, it is a web platform. According to Anttila and Roine, the most common ways Sharepoint is used are as a template for intranet pages, for group work and for managing documents.
Sharepoint as an Intranet Template
Training for Sharepoint
When creating the content on the site, the person must become familiar with web parts and other components and features of the site. Those who create and edit the content of the website must go through a training of Sharepoint.
Usability
Usability in Sharepoint
According to Peacock, when creating the navigation for the site, it had to be strategic as it was made for consumers. If the navigation is well designed, it is. can save users time and in this way increase the user-friendliness of the page. When creating a Sharepoint site, most of the aspect of usability is limited to the user, but in my opinion it is important to also consider the usability from an administrator's point of view.
The website should be easy to manage so that it does not create work for the administrator. Word queries that do not lead to results are very important so that we can know what people are not finding on the site and improve the site in this way.
Rights
There is also the possibility of developing a search tool and in this way the use of search can be better exploited. When creating permissions for a Sharepoint site, it's good to remember usability in the eyes of the administrator. A website can easily become difficult to maintain if the real rules are too specific and have no logic behind them.
The reason behind this is that all employees of the business unit would have important information on the site and the site is easy to use for everyone no matter where the person works. The theory behind qualitative research and the research done for the dissertation is discussed in the following chapters.
Research methods
If the interviewee is alone in the interview situation and the order in which the questions are asked is important, the interviewee should be informed of this. The challenge in these thematic interviews is to keep the interviewee(s) on the topic of the interview, another challenge in group interviews is to have all the interviewees participate in the interview and the interviewer should be the one taking care of the matter. The difference with an open interview is that mostly all these interviews are individual interviews and the interview happens more than once.
In theme and open-ended interviews, it is possible during the interview to make sure that the interviewee understands the questions in the way it was intended. In qualitative research, the amount of material collected is not as important as the scope of the material.
Reliability of the research
The Team site was built because the Business Unit does not have a common internal communication channel for all employees. In the first instance, it is important to make this site ready for use and to allow employees of the business unit to use it. The following chapters will take you through the project of creating the Team Site from start to finish.
The project started with the creation of a preliminary research where the needs of the users would be discovered. From chapter 5.3 onwards, the process of creating the page is presented, where the plans and the final version of the page are presented.
Qualitative research made for the thesis
Some of the people who participated in the group work had been interviewed earlier, but even better responses were obtained from the group work than from the individual interviews. In individual interviews that were conducted in the Tampere office and in group work and Skype calls, physical examples of other Company Team sites and thus the idea behind it were shown. When the group work took place, there was a Powerpoint presentation which was given to all the people who participated in the group work.
In the presentation there were pictures of other Team Sites and a list of the ideas already received. Therefore, I think that expanding the interviewer's knowledge of the team website was well done, also in the email meeting.
Results of the research
- Question 1: How long have you been working in your role?
- Question 2: What is your job title?
- Question 3&4: What sort of information would you like to share
- Question 5: Questions about the news column
I also presented some of the ideas I collected myself and ideas I received from the previous interviews. In the questions about the news column, some of the answers from the interviews were very different from each other. This confirmed my thoughts on the importance of the news column, and that it is a good addition to the site.
Another problem with that posting rate is that if even some of the topics people have asked to be posted in the news column will be posted, monthly posting will not be enough. But one important thing emerged in the responses of the employees, that there should be contact information for the person who can be contacted about the position, if further information is required.
Design of the site
The most important change compared to the first plan and the finished product is the layout of different elements of the website. On the front page there is a news column and some quick links to different sites and features of the team website. Some of the pages that were planned to be on the site ended up not finding their place on the site.
How a website builder can influence a website is how to set up all the web parts on the website and where to use images. The theme is evident from the buttons and overall look of the site.
Rights of users
There may now be more people trying to grant permissions to the site, but now the page is private and there may be discussions and news for business unit people only. It was thought that if the front page was open to everyone in the company, the business unit could get more people interested in the business unit this way. But if the intention was to get more people interested in a possible future workplace or learn more about their company, then the front page should be completely different.
The business unit must be represented and there must be no "private" information that belongs only to the business unit. Of course, this can be changed if it is necessary for all employees in the company to see and learn about the business, with some changes.
Search feature
Another way the search function can be improved after a while of use is by examining the usage reports. The most important one in my opinion is the report that shows which search terms are not returning any results. Another good report is showing that people are using the search engine at all.
These reports should be checked at least monthly to find out what can be changed. The report of whether people use the search engine at all can be checked and then possibly also ask people if they need the search, or if they can find everything on the site through the navigation panel.
How to engage people to use the site
All Excel files are added to the same document library on the site and in this way the older Excel files are easier to find and the document library also functions as an archive. The email is sent to direct and remember people to access the site. At some point I think it will become automatic for the site members to access the site, and the email can be omitted from the image.
If there are problems getting people to use the site, I think it's important to remind employees that the site exists. And if the views don't increase, then an e-mail can be sent to the employees about why they don't use the site, if it's missing any meaningful information, people can go to the site and use it.
Future plans for the site
Internal communication
Training for the site
The production planners started adding the weekly lists to the page immediately after the training that took place at the end of 2019. Since it can be said that the meeting helped these people to use the page, a similar meeting could be held for all people in the business unit after a while , if people don't start using the site. Although the site is finished and usable, it is not yet fully finished.
If the changes and the use of the site are to be checked, a short questionnaire can be sent to the employees of the business unit. Initially, production planners will still send the email as usual with the link to the website. On the front page there is a news column which will be updated approximately twice a month, so remember to visit the page.
Then click publish the site from the top of the page and all changes will be saved.
Questionnaire e-mail sent to employees
Launch news post
Adding a page to the site
Adding a document library
Uploading a file to a document library
