The Idea
I have been using WordPress blogging software for my personal website for a few weeks now and I’m impressed with its ease of use and the ability to update content without heavy-duty HTML skills. It seems like almost anyone could use it and get up to speed quickly to create a weblog style website. I’ve had some experience with other weblog software packages but WordPress seems much easier right from the start.
I wondered whether the software could be used and adapted for a simple corporate Intranet. As long as we could have pages outside of the chronology of dated weblog posts, it seemed like a viable option. Dated entries on the home page could be used for announcements, new hires and other event based information, while pages listing forms for downloading and benefits information could always be available as page links for the user. Both the dated posts and undated pages could be easily edited from the WordPress administration dashboard.
Since multiple users are allowed in the WordPress system, an Intranet administrator as well as the design staff, sales and even the CEO could conceivably update the site with timely information – all right from the browser based administration tool.
Adding The Content
To turn the weblog into our Intranet site I needed to modify the default links and add categories and pages for our non-dated information. After deleting the installed default “blog roll” links and default “first post”, I created a Quick Links in the WordPress administration tool.
Quick Links is to be used for the non-dated page links. These pages will have information like benefit provider contact information, employee handbook information, HR downloadable forms, or lists of downloadable sales and marketing materials.
To create this link, I went to: Manage > Pages > Create New Page. Enter the title of each page you would like and save it. The list of pages should appear in your sidebar as a list of links. I decided to change the default title of the section from “Pages” to “Quick Links” in the sidebar.php (Manage > Files > Sidebar Template). I filled in the page content by taking our old existing Intranet site pages and extracting the text and copied it to the new corresponding WordPress page (Manage > Pages).
Next I created a “first post” entitled “Welcome” with a short introduction to the Intranet site and its new features. I created a logo to use as a post image header. Since we will want to post photos and images with our dated “blog” entries, I went to: Options > Miscellaneous, and checked the “Allow File Uploads” checkbox. I entered the path information to a directory I created under my web server root to hold the images we might upload for events and dated posts in the future. An “Upload” option is now available in the WordPress administration navigation area. From here you browse to the image on your local computer and upload to the web server. The upload page even gives you the image tag code to include in your post.
This is a great feature as the designs will be posting their ideas, photos and sketches to share with others.
Conclusion
The flexibility to upload fresh information easily and post date sensitive topics right on the home page is a feature I was looking for but unavailable previously to the company.
