What are the best intranet platforms?

Intranet software has been around since the mid-nineties when organizations were looking for ways to utilize the power of computers to collaborate and communicate on a private internal network.

Intranets play a crucial role in keeping employees engaged and instilling company culture in a remote work environment. A good intranet allows the free flow of communication and information to keep everyone on the same page—especially in large organizations or multinationals working across multiple timezones.

What are Intranet Platforms?

An intranet platform is an internal social network where employees can access company news, announcements, events, discuss topics, collaborate, and communicate internally.

The purpose of an intranet is to create a secure, single source of truth for information across the organization.

Modern intranets resemble social networks like Facebook or Twitter, where each employee has a profile page with an image, bio, position, links, and other personal details. Employees post to a centralized news feed, groups, or projects to communicate like they would on any social network.

Do Companies Still use Intranets?

Organizations still use intranets, although the platforms and productivity tools have evolved significantly. Platforms like Asana, Monday.com, Notion, and other productivity apps all feature an internal communication tool, eliminating the need for an additional intranet in smaller organizations.

In large organizations, departments often use different productivity and project management tools, making it necessary for a centralized intranet for cross-functional communication and collaboration.

With that, let's dive into the 5 best intranet platforms for 2022.

1 - Happeo

• Best for: Google Workspace users.
• Pricing: Available on request.

Happeo is popular among companies using Google Workspace due to its seamless integration with Workspace and third-party applications. Happeo leverages Google Workspace and its apps to form a powerful intranet.

Beyond the Google Workspace ecosystem, Happeo integrates with many third-party applications like Slack, Jira, Trello, and other productivity platforms.

Happeo also offers native integrations for Microsoft 365, including apps like Teams, Excel, Azure AD, Outlook, etc.

Happeo allows complete customization of the pages, layouts, color scheme, and more to ensure your intranet is on-brand. You can also use analytics to see your most engaged employees, identify influencers, reactions to important announcements, etc.

We especially love Happeo's org chart feature, allowing teams to see where they sit in the company and identify key people.

Check out all of Happeo's features, including demo videos, to see if it's the right intranet for your team.

2 - Meta Workspace

• Best for: Organizations looking for a familiar UI to increase adoption.
• Pricing: Starting at $4 per person per month.

Meta (formally Facebook) is the world's biggest social media platform, with just shy of 3 billion users. Meta Workspace is an extension of Meta, providing employees with a familiar UI to work and collaborate. Employees can log in to Workspace using their Meta profile, so there is no need to create an additional account.

The most significant benefit of using Meta Workspace is no learning curve for regular Meta users—significantly increasing adoption, especially among younger team members.

Workspace offers the same features and functionality as Meta's social network with live video, events, polls, surveys, and more. Teams can also video chat using Workspace, eliminating the need for additional services like Zoom.

Workspace's insights look and feel similar to Meta's Pages and Groups, allowing People Teams to measure engagement and sentiment from posts.

Meta Workspace also comes with tons of integrations, including Microsoft, Google Workspace, Cisco Webex, Zoom, and HubSpot, to name a few. There are also security, bot, identity, HR, and other business integrations to tailor the intranet to suit your needs.

Check out Meta Workspace's features to see if it's the right intranet platform for your business.

3 - Microsoft Sharepoint

• Best for: Microsoft 365 users.
• Pricing: Starting at $5 per user per month.

If your organization uses Microsoft 365, Sharepoint is the obvious intranet solution. As a 365 app, Sharepoint seamlessly integrates with the rest of the Microsoft suite, keeping employees on a single centralized platform.

With Sharepoint's UI easy to navigate and direct integration with 365, it's easy to encourage adoption across the organization. Sharepoint also makes it easy to collaborate with outsiders like contractors and clients.

Microsoft Sharepoint's intuitive content management system allows People Teams to connect with the company, target specific users or groups with content, and collect valuable insights about engagement and sentiment.

Check out Microsoft Sharepoint's features to see if it's the right intranet platform for your business.

4 - SAP Jam Collaboration

• Best for: Enterprise manufacturers and SAP users.
• Pricing: Available on request.

SAP is one of the oldest and most widely used enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems worldwide. Many enterprise manufacturers use SAP due to its end-to-end software solution connecting employees, departments, subsidiaries, warehouses, factories, clients, and suppliers.

Like the rest of SAP's software suite, SAP Jam Collaboration is a powerful tool, allowing organizations to build a fully customizable intranet. SAP Jam Collaboration comes with templates and widgets so you can tailor groups for departments and projects.

SAP Jam Collaboration's aims to help organizations break down silos for cross-functional collaboration. The platform also allows companies to invite external team members, like contractors, clients, and suppliers, to specific groups to keep everyone involved up-to-date on essential communications and information.

SAP Jam Collaboration groups are super powerful, allowing teams to share files, create wikis, display project data, add tasks and events, and even a blog.

Read more about SAP Jam Collaboration, including case studies and resources to help build your intranet.

5 - Jostle

• Best for: Small businesses looking for a simple intranet solution.
• Pricing: From $1.17 per user per month for 2,000 users.

Jostle features seven "purposeful views" to keep your intranet simple and easy to navigate, including:

• News: Your company's main news feed, including a sidebar for employee posts and shoutouts
• Events: A list of company events relevant to each specific user
• Discussions: An employee's group chats and DMs
• People: Your organization's employee directory
• Library: A complete library of your organization's policies, guides, wikis, and other important files synced to Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive. You can also create and assign tasks from the library
• Teams: A visual org chart, allowing you to create target groups for content
• Listings: A company marketplace to buy and sell, advertise positions, ask for recommendations, request shift covers/swaps, etc.—it's a classifieds section for your organization

Another fantastic feature is Jostle TV, broadcasting your intranet to employee areas, like the lunchroom, warehouse floor, office, etc., to keep everyone informed—even those who don't use devices for their work.

Jostle has an extensive list of integrations, including Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, project management apps, HR software, CRMs, accounting, and more.

Check out an overview of Jostle's features and how this platform simplifies the intranet experience.

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