Our challenge
In addition to the intranet, our employees use many business applications in their daily work. Some of these are used by all employees, while others are specific to certain departments. Our employees have no time to waste; they want to find and open the application they need quickly and easily, at any time and in their preferred language.
Our goal
Our employees should be able to access their relevant applications from anywhere on the intranet at any time and in their preferred language. Each colleague can select and sort their applications as they see fit.
Our corporate publishing team can quickly and easily maintain the application list, whether it is adding a new application, modifying an existing one or deleting an old one. When an existing application is changed, it is immediately available to our employees without any action being required on their part.
This ensures that the application selection is always up to date.
Our solution
Thanks to our excellent in-house development, our employees can easily create their own application link list according to their preferences.
Integrating ‘My Applications’ into the Intranet
The ‘My Applications’ solution can be integrated as an extension in the header of any SharePoint Online site.
The application list and the personalised content page with your own personalised application link list can be installed on a separate site. This allows you to quickly create an app in MS Teams. 😊
Creating and Editing Personal Application Lists
As an employee, I can simply click on ‘My Applications’ in the header of any intranet page. At the bottom of the list, I find the link ‘Manage my apps’. Clicking it brings up my personal applications page. Using the search function, I can quickly find the new application I want and add it to ‘My Applications’ by clicking on the pin icon to the right. I can sort my pinned applications to my liking by dragging and dropping. When I no longer need a pinned application, I can remove it from my list by clicking the pin icon to the right. Now, I can find my personalised application list from any intranet page.
Maintaining all Applications
As a corporate publisher, I can create new entries, edit existing ones, or delete them.
Adding an Application
I always assign a display title to the application as well as the URL. I assign a unique ID/identifier for each application. This allows pinned applications to remain in employees’ personal link list. The ‘Description’ field can be used to improve search results and describe the application. For languages, the ‘MUI Language Field’ is available. Here, I have two options:
- The application is independent of the title and URL in terms of language. In this case, I choose ‘Default’. This ensures that the application is available to all employees without having to store the individual languages. The application should always have the default language.
- The application has either a different title or a different URL depending on the language. In this case, I create multiple entries for the same application. In the ‘MUI Language field’, I then select the appropriate languages, which can be one or more. This ensures that the application is only displayed to employees who have one of the specified languages set in their SharePoint profile. I ensure that the assigned ID/identifier is the same for all entries of an application.
Editing an Application
Double-click on an item to open the dialogue box familiar from any SharePoint list and make your changes. When you close the dialogue box, your changes are applied and immediately available to all employees.
Deleting an Application
Again, you follow the usual procedure for deleting an item from a SharePoint list. For example, you select the item and use the trash can icon in the header of the list. The item will immediately disappear from all of your employees’ personal lists.
Conclusion
I, too, use ‘My Applications’ a lot. Personalised content, such as your own links to relevant applications, is one of the most popular features on our intranet. This enhancement gives us and our staff quick and easy access to all the systems we need to do our jobs efficiently.