AwayToday - useful and well loved
The AwayToday feature created for the intranet I work on has garnered some interest via email and the Kiwi Intranets online group because it won a Gold Award in the Intranet innovation awards 2007.
To answer these questions and help the intranet community in general this post will out line some of the processes and features that have made this a well used and now essential tool.
The problem : Staff absence from the workplace due to sickness, off site business commitments or travel for work caused a communications breakdown. This had a negative impact on our business.
The solution : "Share the love" - but seriously, sharing the information that was already available to some staff with everyone was our solution. Let everyone know where everyone else was, or at the very lease let them know if they were in the office or not. To this we added when they could be expected back in the office.
Background : Now used by staff globally the design of this solution was originally for a single campus situation where staff were spread over several buildings. The only way to find out why you were getting no response to email and phone was to walk over to the person's cubicle and ask the staff sitting in the area where Joe was. Invariably they knew he was sick or visiting another office.
Staff traveling for work, staff away on leave, and staff who had called the office administrator to say they were sick today all had this information recorded already via intranet based forms. This information was recorded in a database and available via other intranet based calendar views.
BUT
These views were several layers deep in the intranet's navigation structure.
Needs analysis : our needs analysis brought to light that staff wanted to know when they could expect Joe would be back. This was on top of their need to know that Joe was away. By knowing both things they could then make decisions on what to do about the issue they were trying to contact Joe about, escalate to someone else or wait for Joe's return.
Solution : use some of that valuable intranet front page real estate to show who in your region / time zone is not in the office today and tomorrow, when you can expect them back, and why they're away. By knowing they're away traveling for work you know you can try to contact the person but that it might take them a while to respond.
So middle right on our front page is the Away Today list (see image to the right).
Scope creep : Once we rolled out the Leave version of this system the scope of the project grew. Offices where staff are on the road a lot thought it would be great if their information showed up in the same location on the front page.
Again we were already recording staff 'out of office' events; client visits, consultation and work related travel. So we altered the query that gathered the list to include leave and 'out of office' events and displayed both.
When staff put in an 'out of office event' they can say where they will be and how best to contact them. The form allows for several types of out of office event
If you have questions or comments please let me know either here or in the Kiwi Intranets forum
Dorje
The AwayToday feature created for the intranet I work on has garnered some interest via email and the Kiwi Intranets online group because it won a Gold Award in the Intranet innovation awards 2007.
To answer these questions and help the intranet community in general this post will out line some of the processes and features that have made this a well used and now essential tool.
The problem : Staff absence from the workplace due to sickness, off site business commitments or travel for work caused a communications breakdown. This had a negative impact on our business.
The solution : "Share the love" - but seriously, sharing the information that was already available to some staff with everyone was our solution. Let everyone know where everyone else was, or at the very lease let them know if they were in the office or not. To this we added when they could be expected back in the office.
Background : Now used by staff globally the design of this solution was originally for a single campus situation where staff were spread over several buildings. The only way to find out why you were getting no response to email and phone was to walk over to the person's cubicle and ask the staff sitting in the area where Joe was. Invariably they knew he was sick or visiting another office.
Staff traveling for work, staff away on leave, and staff who had called the office administrator to say they were sick today all had this information recorded already via intranet based forms. This information was recorded in a database and available via other intranet based calendar views.
BUT
These views were several layers deep in the intranet's navigation structure.
Needs analysis : our needs analysis brought to light that staff wanted to know when they could expect Joe would be back. This was on top of their need to know that Joe was away. By knowing both things they could then make decisions on what to do about the issue they were trying to contact Joe about, escalate to someone else or wait for Joe's return.
Solution : use some of that valuable intranet front page real estate to show who in your region / time zone is not in the office today and tomorrow, when you can expect them back, and why they're away. By knowing they're away traveling for work you know you can try to contact the person but that it might take them a while to respond.So middle right on our front page is the Away Today list (see image to the right).
- Bold indicates the first day a person is away
- AM or PM indicates person is away for only 1/2 a day
- (number) after the person's name indicates the number of days they're away including tomorrow
- Plane icon indicates the person is traveling for work
- House indicates the person is working remotely
- On mousing over a name a tool tip lets you know why the person is away, and if recorded where they are and how to contact them
Scope creep : Once we rolled out the Leave version of this system the scope of the project grew. Offices where staff are on the road a lot thought it would be great if their information showed up in the same location on the front page.Again we were already recording staff 'out of office' events; client visits, consultation and work related travel. So we altered the query that gathered the list to include leave and 'out of office' events and displayed both.
When staff put in an 'out of office event' they can say where they will be and how best to contact them. The form allows for several types of out of office event
- At client
- At prospect
- At conference
- Other
- Travelling
- Unavailable
- Working remotely
If you have questions or comments please let me know either here or in the Kiwi Intranets forum
Dorje
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