16 March 2023
Your request
I am writing to make a Freedom of Information request for information, guidance, protocols or procedures in relation to the way information is organised on your internal intranet.
Specifically, in addition to my previous request, I would also like to request the following information:
1. Information on the overall architecture of your internal intranet, including any documentation or diagrams that illustrate how the intranet is structured.
2. Any information related to the hierarchy or structure of the information on your internal intranet, including any documentation related to the use of folders, subfolders, and other organizational structures.
3. Any guidelines or protocols related to the creation and use of links within your internal intranet, including any documentation related to the use of hyperlinking or cross-referencing.
4. Any information related to the use of templates or other tools for creating content on your internal intranet, including any documentation related to the standardization of formatting or other stylistic considerations.
Our response
1. Lambeth’s Intranet is built on SharePoint Online, originally as a Tenant level classic home page above a classic site collection containing sites for each team or service. These sites feed content (Documents, News stories etc) to the home page though the use of page webparts and SharePoint content searches. With the introduction of modern sites, content is becoming less centralized, with the organization adopting new ways of publishing such as Hub sites and communication sites. Microsoft Teams is rapidly taking over as the main tool for communication and collaboration.
2. Any information related to the hierarchy or structure of the information on your internal intranet, including any documentation related to the use of folders, subfolders, and other organizational structures.
The content of the home page currently consists of
• News carousel (Corporate news)
• A list of systems (links to major applications)
• News stories (team news form underlying sites)
• Navigation (to support services teams)
• Social interaction capability (Yammer)
The classic team sites have access to 3 apps to allow content to be published to the intranet. These are:
• Intranet document library (So users can find useful documents)
• Intranet news library (to publish to the News stories section of the home page)
• Intranet pages (to provide pages that can deliver content to staff)
SharePoint Hub Sites and Communication Sites are also used alongside the traditional home page
3. Navigation links on the intranet are restricted to the workforce’s support services (HR, H&S, ICT, Finance, etc)
4. A guiding principle for the use of SharePoint Online is zero customisation in favour of configuration changes only. In order to ensure optimal performance and upgradability it is important not to implement custom functionality which could potentially break or cause SharePoint to degrade. It is important that any council team site will be able to update without intervention as and when Microsoft deploys SharePoint Online updates to the Office 365 cloud platform, the timing of which are outside of Lambeth’s control.
Guidance for content style is attached.
The content of the home page currently consists of:
- News carousel (Corporate news)
- A list of systems (links to major applications)
- News stories (team news form underlying sites)
- Navigation (to support services teams)
- Social interaction capability (Yammer)
- The classic team sites have access to 3 apps to allow content to be published to the intranet. These are:
- Intranet document library (So users can find useful documents)
- Intranet news library (to publish to the News stories section of the home page)
- Intranet pages (to provide pages that can deliver content to staff)
SharePoint Hub Sites and Communication Sites are also used alongside the traditional home page.