As your business develops and grows larger, the need for proper organization and streamlined processes grows. You will have to define business objectives, set rules, classify teams, define functions and much more.
There are plenty of ways to make all that work more manageable, and a WordPress intranet is a great way to do just that. To set up a WordPress intranet you don’t need another website. You can have both your regular customer-facing website and your intranet with a single WordPress intranet theme.
Don’t know what all that means or where to start? Don’t worry, in this article you have all the information you need from the beginning to the end.
What will you learn?
Then buckle up, and let’s get started!
What is a WordPress intranet?
the internet
An intranet is a private network that only you and your employees can access, while people outside the company cannot access it. A good example of this is an internal community or corporate website that is not accessible to the general public. But why invest in an intranet?
- An intranet can serve as a private communication channel that can be used to share sensitive news and information with employees.
- Use the intranet to foster team spirit among employees. Allow users to create profiles and use message boards, such as social media walls.
- An intranet is also a great place to internally house company documents and private files such as personnel documents, contract templates, business policies, codes of conduct, employee training resources, etc.
- It can serve as a forum for organization members to share ideas or as a testnet website. Post content privately and ask staff what they think. Then make the appropriate adjustments before publishing it on the public site.
If you have a company with one or two employees, you don’t need an intranet. In that case, wait for your company to grow a bit; Setting up an intranet is best for medium and large companies. Also, an intranet can be a good idea if you have a business that relies on partnerships and collaborations.
The WordPress intranet
A WordPress intranet is basically an intranet setup that is hosted on the WordPress platform. So you get all the benefits of WordPress, except it’s private and only accessible to you and your staff.
Maintenance is not difficult, and you will have thousands of plugins to choose from. A WordPress Intranet can be a part of your WordPress site that you choose to make private primarily to allow sharing of company information and computing resources among employees.
Difference Between Intranet and Extranet
With an intranet, a company can streamline daily activity, classify people and information, and communicate more efficiently with employees. It provides remote access to company resources and the knowledge base, helping employees collaborate as they would in a conventional office environment.
An extranet offers the same benefits as an intranet, but additionally gives you restricted private access to authorized customers, associates, vendors, or other chosen individuals or groups who do not work within the company. Therefore, when a part of the digital workspace of a company’s intranet is made accessible to these people outside the company, that part of the intranet functions as an extranet.
The main difference between the two is that the intranet allows internal communications between employees or colleagues in the company, while the extranet allows the company to communicate with third parties in a private virtual space.
How to configure the WordPress intranet?
WordPress is not designed primarily as intranet software, but it does have many features and functions that are necessary to run an intranet efficiently. Choose plugins that suit the needs of your business. And if you’re not sure about the steps to set up a WordPress intranet site, this guide will show you everything you need to do.
There are two methods for setting up a WordPress intranet:
- XAMPP or localhost: Use this method if you want users to have access to the intranet only when they are within the physical space of the company office.
- A WordPress site with plugins: Use this method when you want users to access the intranet inside and outside the local network. System security can be improved with a plugin like All-In-One Intranet.
In this guide we will show you how to set up WordPress intranet using two plugins: BuddyPress and All-In-One Intranet. We will see how to set up a WordPress intranet with the , instead of a dedicated computer.
will help you turn your WordPress site into a social website, and All-In-One Intranet will help you block access to the site and restrict unauthorized users.
offers everything for a functional intranet and restricts access to unauthorized users. The free version includes privacy features, redirected login, automatic logout and much more.
With the free version you can configure the privacy of the site through the settings tab. However, if you want to have a lot of premium and support features, and you prefer , you will have to upgrade your plan.
Now, let’s see one by one the steps to configure the WordPress intranet:
1. Set up a WordPress base for your Intranet
For this step, all you need is a WordPress website. If you don’t have one, set one up and continue to the next step. A normal WordPress site serves as the basis for the intranet.
2. Install All-In-One Intranet
To install the plugin and configure the company intranet, you can follow either of the following two methods:
simple installation
- Go to the WordPress dashboard and then to the plugins page.
- In the search field type All-In-One Intranet and click the search button.
- When the page appears, click Install.
- Next, in the plugin, press Activate.
- Hover over All-In-One Intranet. You will find this by clicking on the Settings tab of the WordPress admin panel. Once there, click the button Set up.
complex installation
If you are having difficulty installing directly from the WordPress plugin list, you can install the plugin using the ZIP file. To achieve this, follow these steps:
- You can upload the all-in-one-intranet folder to the folder /wp-content/plugins/. Another option is to upload all-in-one.ZIP directly on the segment plugins from the admin panel of your WordPress site
- Next, go to your WordPress admin panel and click on the page plugins Y;
- Finish as indicated in step 4 of the simple installation
3. Configure the All-In-One Intranet plugin
After installing and activating the WordPress plugin, go to Settingsthen All-In-One Intranet and click the settings tab to create an intranet.
You don’t have to change much in the settings. It is an automated process that will be started automatically by the plugin.
The system will inform you if the “Anyone can register” option is activated or deactivated. If it’s turned on, it means the public still has access to your site. If that’s the case, disable the option.
After disabling the logging option, do the following:
- Decide which login page users will see when they click the login button. You can create a beautiful page and integrate all the essential tabs.
- Alternatively, select the inactivity timeout period before the system logs out the user. This feature is a security precaution to prevent unauthorized access when a user accidentally logs out on a public computer.
When you finish creating the WordPress intranet, click save changes to apply the new settings. At this point, if you visit the website, you will notice that it is hidden by the default WordPress login.
4. Modify WordPress Site Login Screen (Optional)
The intranet will work fine even if you don’t do this step, but you may want to integrate some unique external configurations to the front-end of your site. To do this, a plugin like this can help you modify the look of the WordPress login page.
5. Install and configure the BuddyPress plugin
BuddyPress brings social networking features that make it easy to create user profiles for different employees, and integrate them into group discussions and instant messaging.
With this plugin, employees or members can register and set up profiles, participate in private conversations and have social interactions with other logged in users. It is API compatible which means it works well with many WordPress themes.
Technical requirements
For BuddyPress setup, your web host must support:
- PHP 7.2 and higher versions
- MySQL version 5.6 and higher, or MariaDB version 10.0 and higher.
- HTTPS.
Login to the WordPress dashboard, open the menu plugins and click Add new.
Next, navigate to the search field and search for the plugin BuddyPress. click on Install Now to start the installation.
After installing and activating, go to Settings and click BuddyPress in the dropdown menu to configure the plugin.
The settings panel is divided into several sections.
The first section to configure is the component page. This page shows the existing BuddyPress components. The preset components are suitable for almost all websites.
However, you can check the box for any item you want to change. Remember to click the Save button to save your settings.
click on pages to set up directories and select the pages you want to set up for various segments of the BuddyPress site. The plugin comes with automated preset pages. You can use them as they are or modify them as you like.
If the registration and activation tab did not appear on your page, check if user registration on your WordPress site is enabled. When you’re done, go to the Options tab.
Finally, click on the tab Options. Look at the settings and modify them according to your needs. By default, some parameters are implemented automatically.
6. Integrate BuddyPress pages to your site
After setting up BuddyPress, the settings will not automatically show up on your site. To add it, visit Appearance -> menus and add the BuddyPress pages to the menu.
After that, click on the Save tab to apply the changes….
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