Workers want user-friendly mobile access for enterprise applications, and companies are realizing that providing mobile tools tends to increase productivity and responsiveness. But there are several ways to make this happen, such as bringing responsive design to the existing corporate intranet, creating mobile apps from scratch or purchasing appropriate third-party mobile apps.
One option is to make your existing intranet available on mobile devices using responsive design. Generally speaking, responsive design means that a webpage is designed to recognize the device that is accessing it, and adapt to the tablet or smartphone’s screen size and aspect ratio. If you open the Gmail website on your computer, for example, it looks very different than it does on your phone, due to responsive design. When websites or pages display poorly on mobile devices, they may not have been designed to be responsive to the device screen size.
Many organizations like the idea of creating responsive design for their intranet user interfaces. And while it would be great if your entire intranet or SharePoint site collections were responsive for several different aspect ratios, that may be a very costly endeavor.
To manage costs and speed up implementation time, start by identifying specific intranet pages that need to be accessible on a mobile or tablet device, such as your homepage, HR employee benefits page, people search and corporate directory, for example. These are all core, common intranet features that employees might want to access on a mobile device.
After these common quick access points, assess what other information your workforce needs to access via mobile devices. Essentially, the idea is to conduct a needs analysis across your SharePoint site collections and Office 365 to determine what intranet resources and document management tools require mobile access. Are there particular lists or libraries that contain content that people need to access on a regular basis? Or is a newsfeed in Yammer providing key information?
Once you have this needs analysis, you’re in a better position to address specific needs with appropriate technology solutions. One way to provide mobile access is by making these intranet resources available through responsive design. Depending on your needs and circumstances, however, a mobile app might prove a better choice in terms of usability and cost effectiveness.
With mobile apps, many organizations create their own, but that’s generally not necessary. By focusing on addressing a specific business need, rather than launching an app development project, you may find that a third-party app is the best solution.
To access SharePoint 2013, for example, a lot of third-party apps already exist that make lists, libraries and workflow more mobile-friendly. Microsoft may also offer an app for tablets and smartphones that meets your needs. For instance, the Yammer app allows you to access your newsfeed and remain connected to your networks while out of the office and on the road. And the new Microsoft Office app for Apple’s iOS platform makes it easier for people to access documents and to respond to changes using Apple devices.
To sum it up, the choice to use mobile apps or making your intranet accessible to mobile devices depends on your organization’s needs and circumstances. Some of these options are potentially quite costly. Instead of trying to offer mobile access to everything, spend time doing a business analysis of your current system to assess what needs to be mobile and what does not. Investing this time in planning helps control costs so that you get the best return from mobile productivity tools.
Learn more about helping your organization leverage mobile productivity by contacting Portal Solutions.