Making human-friendly and simple software. That is the starting point of the social intranet of Embrace, the platform that we take a close look at from under the hood in this edition. The focus at Embrace is on delivering easy-to-use software. From three offices, they serve more than 450 clients in both public and commercial organizations, with no less than one in three municipalities using Embrace. In recent years, the software has developed considerably into a mature and user-friendly platform. Time to see what sets Embrace apart from other suppliers today.
Different from the rest
for under the hood we always look at the most important functionalities of an intranet. Think of publishing content, the smouldering book, The News section, interacting on a timeline and interacting in groups. These functionalities are broadly similar to its competitors at Embrace. But what specific functionality sets Embrace apart from the rest? One of the ways in which Embrace distinguishes itself is the portal builder. This is a tool that allows the customer to fully provide the intranet with its own, tailor-made portal. This gives you complete flexibility about the content of your portals, and you can offer a role-based variant for employees with a different information need: you may not offer a timeline at all for this target group. Or think of an onboarding or volunteer portal. What makes it so unique: this functionality is built as standard into the product that Embrace offers. Every (functional) administrator in an organization can adjust everything himself.
Embrace offers accessible support. For organizations with less technical knowledge, there are e-learnings to quickly adopt the platform, both for administrators, editors and end users. This combination of flexibility and accessibility makes Embrace attractive for organizations that want to control their own intranet.
Know and arrange
Another notable development within Embrace is the integration of information and action on a single content page. Pages often contain direct workflows to Associated actions. These workflows are easy to design by administrators themselves. Think of a page about declarations that also immediately contains a button to submit a declaration. This makes the intranet not only more user-friendly, but also more efficient. Less clicks, more action.
A modern design
The design of Embrace looks fresh and modern. For example, there is a lot of space between widgets and the navigation bar clearly shows what can be found where, both via desktop and via tablet or mobile. What is particularly striking is the way users can communicate with each other via the aforementioned timeline. Messages are divided into categories (questions, polls, congratulations or announcements), and each with its own formatting and functionality. With the’ focus filter’, employees only see important messages or messages in which they are tagged themselves. This makes the timeline clear and at the same time targeted.
Document
management efficient document management is a classic challenge that we often see in intranets. Until recently, documents within Embrace were only visible within the group where the document is located. A document manager has now been added. In IT, users see all the documents of the groups they are members of in one overview, whether they are in Embrace, SharePoint or OneDrive. This makes finding documents easier and avoids unnecessary searching in separate groups.
Own CMS
Previously, the Embrace employee portal was built on the Umbraco CMS, but now Embrace has developed its own CMS: Embrace Knowledge. This offers the important advantage that the CMS can be even better tailored to the platform and the way users work with it. With this CMS, organizations can, among other things, embed workflows in pages, which provides more flexibility and user-friendliness. In addition, Embrace introduces smartlabels: labels that can provide multiple pages with metadata and context. This helps in structuring and retrieving content.
On the roadmap: embracing AI
Embrace focuses on building automated chatbots, AI assistants. These AI assistants can have different purposes, such as chat-based information from the knowledge base, or finding information in a specific environment, for example care protocols from VIlans.
Cost
Embrace uses a flexible pricing structure, depending on the size and wishes of the organization. Embrace customers pay in the base for a one-time deployment and an annual license. Embrace is suitable for organizations from 100 employees, with an entry price of € 5000,- annually. For this type of organization, the one – time implementation is between € 6,000 – € 8,000. For larger organizations, the investment will obviously be higher.
Learn more
more information about the social intranet of Embrace can be found on the website of Embrace
you can also use the view interactive digital tour of the platform.
Can you use independent advice when choosing a platform provider? Contact Peter Haan via peter@evolve.eu or +31 6 13 98 14 27. Or leave your details via the contact form:
