Top 12 Modules for Intranets on Drupal
Drupal is great for building intranets. It has many of the functionalities required by an intranet already built into its core. Apart from that, there are many contrib modules created by the community, which make building an intranet easier and allow companies to add fantastic functionality at a minimal cost.
Here is a list of 12 such examples.
1. LDAP
LDAP module allows integration of Drupal with Active Directory. Companies typically use Active Directory to manage employee access across their systems. Active Directory acts as the source of truth about which employees are currently allowed to use systems and all other systems grant access to users based on what Active Directory feeds them. Employees can have various data assigned to them, like name, role or group based on which other systems can decide how to treat a particular user.
The LDAP module is a great addition for an intranet because it can grant users access based on them being enabled in Active Directory. Typically it works so that once you log in to your PC, you can access the intranet just like any other website without the need to enter a password.
https://www.drupal.org/project/ldap
2. Group
The Group module allows exactly what the name suggests - to create groups. Users can be grouped or gain access to groups. Content can be grouped allowing only members of the group to view or publish.
This module allows companies to create dedicated sections of the intranet solely for use of particular departments or employee levels. It can also allow multiple editors and administrators who can moderate content only within the respective groups.
https://www.drupal.org/project/group
3. Fivestar
Drupal offers a great variety of modules for voting. The majority are based on the underlying Voting API module. The most common of the voting modules is Fivestar, which allows users to rate entries on a scale.
Fivestar can be great to give your users the ability to rate articles published on the internet. This allows admins to see what people like and dislike and adapt.
https://www.drupal.org/project/fivestar
4. Flag
Flag module allows users to flag content (think of it as like or mark content). This is a super powerful module. You can also create various “flag” functions. Also, Flag has views integration which gives it incredible power to produce functionality. Here are some examples:
- “Like” flag - allows users to show appreciation. You can create a board for users where each user will see things he/she liked. This is also a great way to create a list of most liked/popular posts
- “Report abuse” - a flag to allow users to report things they deem unacceptable. A separate board for admins will allow them to see reported items
- “Follow” user - users can tag other users. You could then display the activity of the users that are tagged
https://www.drupal.org/project/flag
5. Workflow
Workflow module allows your admin team to manage the publishing of content to the intranet. The content can go through various stages until it is deemed ready to be published. At each state, actions can be added that will, for example, notify people by email that a post reached a particular stage (eg requiring their review).
https://www.drupal.org/project/workflow
6. Scheduler
Scheduler allows admins to schedule the time an article is published. This is important especially if you have to post to the intranet at particular times. Thanks to Scheduler you can also prepare in bulk multiple articles which will be published throughout the week. It can save a lot of time for the editor.
https://www.drupal.org/project/scheduler
7. Userpoints
If you want to add gamification to your intranet and involve your staff a little bit more, the User Points module may be what you are looking for. It allows you to grant points to users for specific actions (eg publishing a comment or an article).
Some actions are already built-in, but depending on your use case you can create your own scenarios.
https://www.drupal.org/project/userpoints
8. Profile
Profile is a simple module which allows adding profile pages to each user. Currently, in Drupal, you can add fields directly to the user entity. What Profile allows, however, is to separate “profile” information from the default user fields like email and password. Also, a user could have several profiles (eg. customer profile and an internal funny profile).
https://www.drupal.org/project/profile
9. Search
Search is very important on intranets. Employees have to be able to find what they are looking for quickly. Luckily Drupal comes with fantastic support for searching. Thanks to the search API module it can be integrated with multiple search engines and can allow your staff to search not only for articles but also files and content within the files.
https://www.drupal.org/project/searchapi
10. Imce
If you allow your users to add articles or other content to the intranet, they will most probably want to add files as well. Imce is a really neat module which allows users to interact with files on the server but grands admin control over what they do. Each user can have his own folder and you can also specify maximum upload quota to preserve your disk space.
https://www.drupal.org/project/imce
11. Masquerade
A helping hand for each administrator, this module allows the admin to log in as a different user with one click without knowing the password and interact with the website as that user. The admin can later re-log back to being an admin.
The feature is great particularly when you need to troubleshoot an issue a user is having but cannot replicate it an account you are using.
https://www.drupal.org/project/masquerade
12. Calendar
Calendar is a module which integrates with the Drupal views module and allows to place content on a calendar view based on a date field.
If you have events you want the users to know about, showing them on a calendar might be helpful. With little additional work, room reservation functionality can be nicely built with this module as well.
