OverviewCountry or Region: United States

Industry: Education

Customer ProfileEstablish in 1994, Rio Rancho Public

Schools (RRPS) is a school district in

Rio Rancho, New Mexico comprised

of 19 schools and nearly 2,300

employees. RRPS dedicates itself

to student success and excellence

through the school district.

Business SituationRRPS needed a central location to

store documents, reduce paper-

based processes and streamline

employee onboarding. It seemed

unlikely they would find all this

in a single solution. Regardless,

they sought a solution that could

accomplish all these tasks and could

scale with the needs of the district.

SolutionIntranet Connections delivered a

central location all schools could

communicate and share resources

at an affordable price. The new

intranet was able to eliminate

inefficient business processes,

reduce paper waste and deliver

consistent employee onboarding.

Now, 14 years later, Intranet

Connections is still improving

intranet adoption, employee

engagement and employee retention

at RRPS.

Benefits• Automated Business Processes

• Reaped Immeasurable ROI

• Improved Employee Morale

• Centralized Employee Onboarding

An Intranet Built to Last:14 Years & Counting RioNet Intranet by Rio Rancho Public Schools

“The return on investment since purchasing

Intranet Connections has been astronomical.

In one year, we have saved over half a million

dollars - and that’s being conservative!”

PETER BARRON | Internet Services Manager, Rio Rancho Public Schools

Peter Barron, Internet Services Manager at Rio Rancho Public Schools (RRPS), began his search for an intranet in 2001. Barron sought a packaged intranet solution that would connect all nineteen schools in the Rio Rancho Public Schools district. Researching and evaluating intranet software solutions, he quickly came across Intranet Connections. “Compared to the other intranet solutions I evaluated, Intranet Connections just made sense for me in terms of a turnkey operation, simple instal-lation and server set-up. It just worked,” Barron described about his evaluation and ultimate decision to purchase Intranet Connections.

Since purchasing Intranet Connections more than 14 years ago, Barron has not second guessed his decision once. With Intranet Connections, Barron was able to provide staff with a single platform to connect, collaborate and create, regardless of geographic location. Barron was also able to eliminate several archaic business processes and better align resources for the school district with the implementation of the new intranet, named RioNet, ultimately saving the school district at minimum $500,000 annually.

14 Years of Return on InvestmentAfter purchasing Intranet Connections, Bar-

ron took responsibility of the implementation

and architecture of RRPS’ intranet, quickly

dubbed RioNet. Barron became RRPS’

intranet champion and evangelist, com-

municating with different departments and

administrators within the school district to

find out how they could use the intranet to

improve communications, organize resources

and automate workflows. When he gathered

enough information about what business

processes each department executed, he

was determined to streamline them by build-

ing these processes in RioNet.

“RioNet provided a single platform on which

staff from various locations and various

job titles could communicate and share

resources. But the most important thing it

did was it provided functionality that let us

get rid of our archaic businesses processes

that were very costly, both in labor costs and

actual montetary costs,” Barron reported.

Time Savings & Cost Savings

Since implementing Intranet Connections,

RRPS has seen significant savings in time,

resources and costs. Intranet Connections

facilitated these savings by eliminating paper

waste, streamlining the employee onboard-

ing process and automating offline business

workflows.

“Before RioNet, our Procurement Specialist

would spend hours printing hundred-page

Request for Proposals (RFPs) and mailing

them out to vendors,” Barron remembered,

“I thought to myself, there has to be a better

way we can do this that won’t be as costly

or time consuming”. Barron then converted

the electronic RFP documents into the

Portable Document Format (PDF) and stored

the documents on the intranet. When the

Procurement Specialist needed to send a

new PDF, she could simply fire off an email

to the vendor with the attached PDF. Barron

estimated that this alone has saved RRPS

thousands of dollars in printing and mailing

costs annually.

Measurable & Meaningful ROI

When Barron saw instant return on invest-

ment (ROI) just from moving the RFPs online,

he sought out other ways in which he could

leverage RioNet to improve processes at the

school district.

Quickly, another opportunity presented itself.

Special Services at RRPS was manually

completing paperwork to document the

detailed data required for Medicaid. “Our

Specialists spend a lot of time with children

and most of that time is Medicaid billable,”

Barron detailed, “Originally, the Special Edu-

cation Department had the Specialists docu-

ment this all on paper. I thought, why can’t

we complete this paperwork digitally and

submit it securely on RioNet? We definitely

could and did.”

Barron created an Online Form that enabled

the Specialists to complete and submit the

form on RioNet. A designated person would

then receive it digitally, and have a chrono-

logical record of the form.

Prior to installing RioNet, Special Services

had a substantial collection of PDFs and

hundreds of operational document manu-

als stored on a network share drive. This

was not secure and was at risk for being

deleted and unrecoverable, a major concern

for the department and for Internet Services

Manager, Barron. Barron decided the safest

place for these operations manuals to reside

was on RioNet. This ensured that the special

documents were organized, up-to-date and

protected with the Document Management

System on Intranet Connections.

“Moving these Special Services Operations

Manuals online to RioNet was a huge relief

as well as an immense time and cost savings

for the department and the district. We no

longer had to spend money on manually

copying hundreds of documents, not to

mention the man-hours that much copying

takes,” Barron detailed.

Mega Growth & Changes

Recently, Barron developed an entirely new

schema for the intranet menus following

Intranet Connections’ Mega Menu release.

As RioNet grew organically over fourteen

years, the amount of documents residing

on the intranet grew exponentially, which

unfortunately resided in a single massive

document management folder. This made

finding documents on the intranet difficult

for RRPS employees.

“It was taking staff up to eight or nine clicks

to locate a document on the intranet, which

soon became a common complaint. This

system had become difficult to use, as

we hadn’t expected how well used RioNet

would become and relied upon for docu-

ment management over the fourteen years

of having it in place. Before the introduc-

tion of Mega Menus finding resources on

RioNet had become time consuming and

unintuitive,” Barron reported disappointed.

“Having said that, utilizing Mega Menus

reformed and revitalized RioNet. I reorga-

nized the site and added frequently used

documents to the drop down Mega Menus.

It made an enormous difference in usability

on our intranet, which is now much more

simple and intuitive. It now only takes staff

one-to-two clicks to find a resource on

RioNet.”

Now when a fourth grade teacher needs

to locate the fourth grade math assess-

ment on RioNet, he/she can click the fourth

grade tab on the menu, and it appears

under “Assessments”. This has saved

countless man-hours spent searching for

documents and improved efficiency across

the district.

Simplified Hiring & Onboarding

With nineteen schools in the RRPS district,

hiring is challenging, especially because

every school had its own hiring process.

“The hiring process was similar to the

Wild West – chaotic and disorganized. We

had new hires walking into buildings with

administrators they had not met, with basic

job entrance requirements left unfulfilled,”

Barron reported, “the onboarding process

desperately needed to be standardized

across the district, so I began to think of

ways in which RioNet could help.”

Barron created an Online “New Hire” Form

on RioNet and used it as a tracking tool to

develop a consistent onboarding process

flow. The New Hire Form and Process

begins with Human Resources (HR). HR

completes the initial portion of the form and

once that is completed, the form has a built

in trigger that automatically sends an email

to the next party required to complete the

second section of the form.

Each stage then automatically sends emails

to the appropriate departments as the

process/workflow progresses. Once the

entire New Hire Form has been completed

by the designated parties, a final approver

is automatically notified to review and ap-

prove the entire form. Impressively, there

are over forty stages built into this form/

workflow, which now is completed in a

timely, organized and automated manner

using RioNet.

Standardizing the hiring and onboarding

process on RioNet using workflows and

forms was so well received among RRPS

employees that the high schools in the

district copied it and used a modified ver-

sion to improve processes within the high

school.

“The staff are gaga about the new hire

form because now they have one fantastic

system that documents exactly who did

what, when, and in what order,” Barron

elated, “the hiring process runs smoothly,

and everyone is on the same page when a

new hire enters their building. We couldn’t

organize and execute this process without

Intranet Connections”.

The new hire form alone has delivered im-

measurable cost savings for RRPS in labor,

material and resource costs. The hiring

and onboarding process on RioNet has

eliminated completing manual paper work,

manually routing and waiting for paper

forms to be completed by each depart-

ment, not to mention the forms getting lost

in transit or buried on someone’s desk.

“Singlehandedly, the new hiring and on-

boarding form/process on RioNet replaced

twelve old systems that were both costly

and inefficient. If that isn’t significant ROI, I

don’t know what is,” exclaimed Barron.

Organized & Up-To-Date

Out of all the business processes RioNet

has either eliminated or improved, the most

popular and helpful feature among the staff

is the calendars.

Barron established individual sites within

the intranet for each school, which have

each been set as the default home page

automatically for the employees of their

respective school through Intranet Connec-

tions’ Active Directory Synchronization and

Authentication.

Each of the school sites feature a home

page calendar feed, which the administra-

tor populates with all that school’s events.

“Staff are raving about their school sites

“Intranet Connections’ intranet software is unlike any other software. It just works.”PETER BARRON | INTERNET SERVICES MANAGER, RIO RANCHO PUBLIC SCHOOLS

and home pages, especially the event calen-

dars. This has enabled them to see impor-

tant, school-wide events all in one central

location. And the principals no longer have

to send endless internal emails. Thanks to

these calendars, the emails, phone-calls, and

mail box notes are all being eliminated within

the schools,” Barron exclaimed.

Another innovative way in which RRPS is

utilizing RioNet and the school sites is by

featuring a Bulletin Board on each school

home page. Principals now type weekly

announcements and post them onto the in-

tranet home pages for each school, enabling

staff to be informed come Monday morning.

These Bulletin Board announcements have

also benefited the students, cutting down

daily school announcements to one minute

to give teachers more teaching time.

The Bulletin Board announcements have

eliminated interruptions and extra time spent

by staff to locate this information or simply

be unaware of it. “Staff are thrilled with this

phenomenal communication tool within their

school. This is just one more way RioNet has

helped get rid of the inefficiencies and old

ways of communicating,” Barron testified.

The weekly Bulletin Board alone has elimi-

nated thousands of emails being sent and

RRPS has seen significant time-cost savings

for administrators, teachers and students.

Improving Employee Morale

Barron has also witnessed soft benefits with

having RioNet a part of the school district

from a boost in employee morale to a shift in

culture. “We include the Employee Recogni-

tion Application on the home page of every

school site. Since instituting this, our entire

climate in the school has been raised. Staff

are sending hundreds of employee recogni-

tion nominations and appreciations. As these

recognitions are posted on RioNet, we can

visually see employees patting each other on

the back. One person posted, ‘thank you for

doing this on time, kudos,’ and now all em-

ployees deliver on time, it just becomes the

norm. These recognitions turn into cultural

expectation and our employees are happier

for it,” Barron delighted.

This simple application has significantly

increased employee appreciation engage-

ment and retention at RRPS. Barron added,

“Staff are happier, they appreciate each other

more and even complement each other more

in the hallways.”

Why Intranet Connections?

As a long-standing Intranet Connections

client of more than fourteen years, RRPS and

Barron has experienced numerous product

upgrades, new product releases and is a

member of the Intranet Connections Cus-

tomer Advisory Board.

“Intranet Connections’ intranet software

is unlike any other software. We distribute

authorship and have staff own pages and

sites. Everyone is responsible for adding

documents and ensuring these documents

are up-to-date. We don’t have to hire anyone

outside to manage our intranet like other

costly intranet software providers,” Barron

explained.

A few years ago, a new Director of IT at

RRPS asked Barron to look into deploying a

SharePoint intranet in-house, though Barron

advised the staff and IT team were happy

with the current Intranet Connections solu-

tion. Barron complied and found SharePoint

far too expensive to purchase, implement

and maintain. In addition, purchasing support

and implementation for SharePoint would be

an added cost and may not measure up to

the level of support that RRPS had grown ac-

custom to with Intranet Connections. Barron

happily stated, “One of the primary reasons

we’ve been with Intranet Connections for

so long is the outstanding support. Intranet

Connections’ Technical Support makes me

wonder what other companies are calling

‘customer support/service’. Not one time in

fourteen years have I ever experienced a lack

of immediate, considerate, professional, ‘go-

ing the extra mile’ assistance from any of the

amazing Intranet Connections staff. It is an

amazing jewel in today’s world of impersonal,

uncaring interactions with so-called support

companies”.

Since purchasing in 2001, the user adoption

of Intranet Connections has skyrocketed,

and RioNet has become the go-to resource

for anything and everything at RRPS.

During the more than fourteen years RRPS

has been with Intranet Connections, the

school district has managed to save in

countless ways using RoiNet. Barron esti-

mates that RioNet has paid for itself several

times over with year after year of use.

Barron asserts, “the return on investment

since using Intranet Connections is astro-

nomical. RioNet has saved a single school

approximately $40,000 annually just on print-

ing and labor costs alone. Multiply that by

the rest of our schools and we’ve saved just

over half a million dollars, and that’s being

conservative.”

RRPS continues to explore new, innovative

ways to leverage their intranet, all lead by

the intranet evangelist, Barron, for more than

fourteen years and counting.

One of the primary reasons we’ve been with Intranet Connec tions for so long is the outstanding support. Intranet Connections’ Technical Support makes me wonder what other companies are calling ‘customer support/service’.”

PETER BARRON

INTERNET SERVICES MANAGER

RIO RANCHO PUBLIC SCHOOLS

“

BNA

Established in 1999, Intranet Connections has a rich history in the intranet software industry. With

over 1,600 clients and counting, we have intranet software that serves a wide variety of industries:

Healthcare Intranet Financial Intranet Corporate Intranet

Our three product offerings are based on the implementations and evolutions of our customers’

intranet successes, including: hospitals, medical center, hospices, long-term care facilities, banks,

credit unions, government agencies, financial firms, technology companies and manufacturers/

distributors; some of which have been with us from the beginning.

SimplicityThe core concept that drove the creation of Intranet Connections software was KISS (Keep It Simple Silly). As our company grows, the concept of simplicity has evolved into a more customer-centric version where we ask “How can we make life simpler?”

PositivityWe bring energy and enthusiasm to our work, so our customers can have a positive experience doing their work. We believe that as a team, we can tackle hurdles and achieve great things, and that our software can inspire a positive workplace.

IntegrityWe have survived this many years because of our continued product innovation, integrity and authenticity. We have inspired intranet champions and advocates, and are proud to have customers that have been with us for over a decade, still going strong!

CreativityHow an intranet makes an employee feel, and they ways in which they interact with it, are very important to us. We build innovative and creative interfaces that are easy-to-use with robust functionality to support them. It is a very creative process.

EmpathyThe relationships we build with our customers, and the connections we make, is what sets us apart. It’s not just about selling software – you can’t make an impact with just technology. We put ourselves in our customer’s shoes and truly listen to their needs.

A FEW OF OUR HAPPY CLIENTS

Intranet Connections: A Company with ValuesWe have thrived in the competitive industry of business intranet software because of the core principles

our company was founded upon: SIMPLICITY, POSITIVITY, INTEGRITY, CREATIVITY and EMPATHY.

Woven into the fabric of our company and software, we strive to embody these values in every avenue

of our customer’s experience with Intranet Connections.

Connect with us

+1 604-924-9770www.intranetconnections.com