An intranet in 15 languages for 42,000 employees

In order to bring OBI.info up to date technically, those responsible at OBI decided on a comprehensive retreading of the intranet. For this purpose, the previous portal server has been replaced and installed a powerful search engine. The weekly OBI info, which is customized weekly for the various OBIS sections, such as Construction, garden or technology appears, had previously been painstakingly created in an external program. A new web application integrated in CONTENS simplifies and accelerates this important process considerably.

OBI.info presents itself in a new guise since the technical overhaul. In addition to the many technical improvements in the background, the design of the intranet was renewed and adapted to the layout of the OBI website.

Employees of all European OBI markets can call OBI.info for up-to-date information on the company, download important documents and much more. Thanks to the new technology, intranet users can easily access OBI.info via single sign-on. There they will be greeted by an individually configurable home page, which will provide you with the latest news. The content displayed depends on the user's group rights. So every user gets only the information that he is allowed to see and that is relevant for him. The group rights are generated from the Windows user groups. As a result, no additional maintenance of the extensive rights system is necessary, which reduces the administration effort.

Direct edit for editors

To add or edit page elements, the editors do not need an additional login. If a user has the necessary writing rights, the editing functions are displayed directly on the respective intranet page. Content can be edited directly from the frontend.

To do this, users use an interface tailored to the needs of OBI by CONTENS, which discreetly integrates into the intranet front-end. A handy change view supports the editors in their work: New, changed or deleted content elements are highlighted in color in this view.

Intranet with 15 languages

Since OBI.info connects all OBI markets across Europe, the content has to be made available in 15 different languages. Since all language versions run in an installation by CONTENS, the editors can easily access the different languages: Switching to a different language version requires only two clicks.

The publication of content follows a defined workflow according to the four-eyes-principle, which is stored in CONTENS: If an editor creates new content or changes existing page elements, he submits his changes to the release. The responsible editor-in-chief can then review and publish the changes or reject the change if there is still a need for correction. In the clear task center, the editors will find the current status of all the pages they have worked on.

Fast search with Elasticsearch

Another highlight of the OBI intranet is the improved search function based on Elasticsearch. Newly created content is indexed immediately and is immediately available in the search. Already while typing a search term, the search engine suggests possible hits. The full-text search not only accesses the intranet pages, but also all attached documents. Despite the large amount of data that has to be searched, the search is faster and more efficient than before. An important additional function is the "OBI.Infocode", which every newly created page receives automatically. This six-digit code is also indexed by the search and makes it easier for OBI employees to communicate important intranet content.

Newsletter in no time

To create the OBI weekly info, there is now an application developed for OBI that is integrated in CONTENS. The responsible editors now easily generate the weekly information for their area via a clear, standardized input mask directly from the intranet. The integrated PDF generator creates a PDF file at the push of a button, which can be conveniently sent to all relevant authorities.

• Intranet in 15 languages for 42,000 employees in all European markets
• Weekly info application for the efficient production of internal newsletters
• Single sign-on for intranet users
• Direct edit for editors
• Personalized content
• Acquisition of group rights from Windows user groups
• Quality assurance through approval workflow
• Immediate indexing of new content and fast full-text search with ElasticSearch
• InfoCode for newly created pages for easier placement of intranet content