What is an intranet?
An intranet is a restricted communications network, often used by workplaces to support employee and student engagement and collaboration. Many colleges and universities use intranets to organize the multitude of platforms, events and information shared by and among community members every day.
Intranet Overview
Holy Cross has never had a college-wide intranet. Instead, the College hosted internally relevant policies and platforms on the external-facing holycross.edu and provided over 160 employees with access to send campus-wide emails to market events and share information. This approach led to a high volume of information on the College website and in inboxes. It made it difficult for campus members to access relevant events and information in an organized manner.
Once launched, the intranet will provide a comprehensive space for accessing Holy Cross platforms, news, information and events. You will still be able to send and receive email, Zoom chats and calls, and connect with your colleagues as you see fit. What will change, however, is the frequency and volume of campus-wide emails and invitations. Importantly, the intranet will provide every campus member with the ability to opt-in to the groups, newsletters and notifications that matter most to them.
Transformational Impact
The intranet will offer a significant improvement to our current approach to internal communications, providing campus members with more agency and opportunities to connect with the people and news that matter most to them. This supports the goals of the world-class workforce pillar and the transformational student experience.
Project Timeline
The project will start in February 2024, and go live in August 2024 for students, faculty and staff.
Project Leadership and Contact Information
This work is led by David Shettler (Information Technology Services), John Hill, Cecilia Hylton and Jeremy Thompson (Office of Marketing and Communications), in consultation with working group members from Academic Affairs, Student Development and Administration and Finance. As part of the upcoming testing phase, campus members will be invited to pilot and provide feedback in the spring and summer.
FAQ
- Who will have access to the intranet? All Holy Cross students and employees will have access to the intranet to share and receive information internally. Departments and administrative teams will have administrative access to create events and communications for internal dissemination. Internal-facing content that currently lives on holycross.edu will move to the intranet.
- Will the intranet replace our current channels of communication? The intranet will be additive to the current suite of communications channels at Holy Cross. What will change is the breadth of permissions and frequency of communication on our existing channels (i.e., fewer one-off emails from individual senders).
- Who is the intranet vendor? Holy Cross is building its intranet with Simpplr, a best-in-class modern intranet provider. The intranet will offer both mobile and desktop applications for all users.