Best Practices for Google Groups When Deploying an Intranet

The purpose of an intranet is to enhance organizational alignment and productivity. One of the key ways in which this happens is by delivering simplicity across a number of disciplines. Intranets bring simplicity by centralizing reliable content, removing friction from information searches, and giving users a one-stop shop to connect with each other. 

By removing silos, employees can improve their day-to-day work and provide value. It’s safe to say that the one thing an intranet should not do is add complexity to the tech ecosystem of an organization. 

User Access Complexity Considerations 

So when considering an intranet for your Google-run organization, it’s important to understand how that platform integrates with your existing tech stack, including the way in which your intranet manages user permissions. 

Many intranets house permissions for content access within the platform itself, meaning that during rollout, IT administrators need to manually create permission groups and rules for each user. This ensures that employees only have access to the information they are granted the right to view, which is important, but this approach also adds a level of complexity to the IT governance model of the entire organization. It requires intranet administrators to manage permissions in a separate silo, and creates a new standalone software that requires its own unique maintenance schedule and process. 

Instead of an intranet that is a bolted-on software, Happeo integrates deeply with Google, which is especially beneficial in terms of permissions because Happeo leverages the pre-existing structure of Google Groups to manage content permissions across the entire intranet site. 

Content Access Benefits of a Deeper Google Integration

Let’s take a closer look at an example of how this works. It wouldn’t be ideal for anyone in the organization to view the payroll slips of another employee, but HR and executive leadership may need access to that content. 

Likely, during the initial setup of Google Workspace, the IT team set up domain groups such as “leadership@company.com” and “hr@company.com”. When rolling out a Happeo intranet, access is assigned at the Google Workspace level, using existing distribution groups. This makes managing access as simple as toggling content on and off for each Google Group. 

IT has done the Google Group architecture already; why rebuild a new structure and add an additional layer of complexity rather than creating a more seamless IT-intranet alignment?

This deep Google integration removes duplicative effort, reduces complexity, and allows admins to easily manage content governance without over-reliance on IT to assist in the rollout of the intranet. In addition, it allows for easier ongoing processes. When a company grows or scales, they may need to add a large volume of users at once. Any additional manual work in user lifecycle management is exacerbated as the volume of users increases. 

Happeo’s Google integration gives our customers an even balance and a best of both worlds scenario. Happeo integrates so well with Google Workspace that organizations can leverage the existing architecture to make intranet adoption smoother and easier. But on the other hand, because Happeo is fed by Google Workspace, it means that our customers maintain control of all company information without a complex or risky entanglement of softwares or permissions rules. 

Content Curation, Starting at the Source

An intranet should be the chef of your company. A chef doesn’t serve ingredients, or the contents of the kitchen as-is. A chef curates the ingredients and serves it to each guest as a plate of valuable and digestible food. 

Happeo acts in the same manner. We take stock of what is in your organization’s kitchen and ensure that each employee is served exactly what they need. And the beauty of it all is that your employees don’t even need to order or request their content. Happeo can intuitively surface content that is relevant to them based on their role, location, language, and preferences. 

This level of resourcefulness in utilizing Google Workspace to power each element of an intranet experience means:

• An organization can benefit from reduced silos
• Users can continue to use the Google tools they are familiar with to drive their intranet, and
•  IT teams can feel confident that they are not adding to technical debt and complexity. 

With Happeo, everyone wins.

If you’re looking for the best intranet for your Google-run organization, you can request a demo with one of our experts and see the Happeo difference for yourself.