Tuath Housing Launch an Intranet for their Resident Groups

Tuath Housing commissioned the software development and UX team at Digital Sales to develop an Intranet for their Resident Groups.  Which is now live….

The Intranet is defined in the Oxford Dictionary as ‘a local or restricted communications network, especially a private network created using World Wide Web software’.  So, how are Tuath Housing going to use their WordPress Intranet and what kind of functionality has been built into their particular Intranet.

Intranet WordPress Use for Tuath Housing

Tuath Housing are one of the largest housing authorities in Ireland with Resident Associations in every county and such, communication is extremely important.  Collectively sharing ideas, initiatives, distributing good news stories and also communicating directly with Resident Groups.  Sharing files, documents, updates, etc. directly with their stakeholders.  Essentially adding value to their customers, creating a sense of togetherness and spreading social and civic duty within local communites.

Intranet Functionality and UX

Intranet Functionality at Tuath Housing

Their particular Intranet allows a Master Administrator add Super Users and these Super Users manage the Intranet.  These Super Users can add content to the Intranet.

The Master Administrator and Super Users have rights to create End Users for each Resident Group.

End Users/Resident Groups will have access to the Intranet, but they do not have rights to upload content.  They can only view posts uploaded by the Master/Super Users – and these posts can include Notices, Downloadable Files, Videos, Images, any type of electronic content.

Content on the Restricted Intranet are not indexed by search engines and access is denied by any normal user on the Tuath Housing website.  Content can only be viewed by end users who have been given access to the WordPress Intranet.

WordPress Intranet – User Experience

In order to keep the look and feel of the website consistent and for user familiarity, the Latest News/Blog section of the current website was used as a UX/Design base for the WordPress Intranet, which you can see here – https://www.tuathhousing.ie/latest-news/

Firstly, the UX team set up a front end login page and navigation menu, see:

Front End Intranet Login

In simple terms this Intranet is a Blog with restricted access, which you can see here:

The Profile and Logout links are positioned to the very top menu in order to avoid distorting the Primary Top Navigation.  Clicking in a Test Blog Post from Digital Sales, you can see the Intranet layout is the same as a typical Latest News blog post.

The Back End Users Rights – Adding Regional Users/Super Users

This is rather easy, see:

Within the backend, you will see a separate Restricted Blog link, which allows Admin Users to upload content, Add New.

Adding new users to the WordPress Intranet – End Users or Subscribers which they are titled within WordPress:

Summary – WordPress Intranet

Intranet’s can come in many forms and some are rather simple, but if they work and they achieve corporate goals, simple can suffice in many circumstances.  The Tuath Housing Intranet example would be considered an effective solution based on their current WordPress website setup.  It perfectly fits their requirements and isn’t overly complicated.  Training is not required, and the user experience is very familiar to the end user.  Which ticks many best practice UX principles.

At Digital Sales we have built a number of Intranet’s, mainly custom-built Intranets.  This is one of a few WordPress Intranet’s and if your business requires any sort of Intranet software development, let the team know and we will compose a solution based on your strategic objectives.

Contact the Digital Sales team direct send us a mail at: info@digitalsales.ie, see our contact us page for our office locations.

Diarmuid Haughian – Business Development Director – Digital Sales

Post Grad Dip. User Experience (UX), Dip. International Selling, Cert. Digital Marketing, MSc. BITS