ISU Sycamore Root Intranet - Frequently Asked Questions

web Intranet root

Introduction

The Sycamore Root Intranet is the home for ISU's internal exchange of data and services. It is comprised of the information, data, and tools which are needed to conduct daily business on campus but which have no reason to be shared to the wider world. The information below should help answer questions you have about how to use Sycamore Root to find internal information and services as well as assist you in maintaining your own Root site.

Sycamore Root FAQ

Using Sycamore Root Intranet

How do I get to Sycamore Root Intranet?

The Sycamore Root hub site can be found here: indianastate.edu/root

From there you can navigate into the Student or Employee hubs which are targeted at those audiences.

NOTE: The Student hub is accessible to everyone for advising and other purposes. The Employee hub is also visible to student employees.

Who can see what in Sycamore Root?

**Who can view Sycamore Root Intranet Content?**
	Employee	Employee Taking Classes	Affiliate	Student	Student-Employee
Student Site	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Employee Site	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes

How do I find what I need on Root?

Search

The Search box at the top of each Root page will let you search content within the scope of the site you are viewing. For instance, a search on the Employee hub will yield all results from all sites under that hub while the same search on the Office of Information Technology site will only yield results from the OIT site specifically.

In addition, the Campus Directory link will take you to a page with a specially configured search bar which will find content throughout the Office 365 environment so it is useful for finding people, sites, documents etc. on either hub. Visit that link for more information.

Hubs

The Sycamore Root - Employee and Sycamore Root - Student links will take you to those respective hubs. From the hub sites you can search the entirety of that section of the intranet or engage with the explicit list of active sites on the hub page.

Offices & Departments

In addition to the site lists on each hub page the Offices & Departments drop-down lists all of the active sites in the hub.

Editing Sycamore Root

What are the guidelines for building pages?

These guidelines were issued by the Intranet Governance Committee. They primarily apply to the main page of each site and sub pages can be less structured.

Each department will have access to a main site for both Employees and Students. Sites deemed unnecessary or inappropriate for the audience can be removed, e.g. Staff Council does not need a presence on the Student hub.
Each main Departmental Communication Site should contain the following elements:
- A Hero part at the top for site title and exposing most-used services/data.
- The main picture of the Hero part (or action link) should point to a separate About page which exposes an Org Chart, mission, vision and goals statements, policy and other information.
- A News part to highlight departmental activities and announcements (when appropriate or desired).
- An Events part (when appropriate or desired) to expose and help schedule important departmental events.
In addition, the following conditions apply and must be met
- Images used on Communication Sites should be drawn from ISU stock as much as possible. (https://isuphoto.smugmug.com)
- All the sites that are part of the University Hub Sites identified in Section 2.5, must adhere to the colors and theme of the parent Hub.
- Changing or altering the colors or logos on the sites that are part of the Hub is not permitted.
- No altering of site colors is allowed on any Communication sites.
- Department Team Sites can have custom colors if necessary, but adherence to ISU color and branding is strongly encouraged.
Other pages linked from the main departmental page can be created to fulfill whatever needs the department has.

Who can edit Root sites?

There are generally two roles defined in relation to a Sycamore Root site, the Departmental Site Coordinator (top-level rubber-stamp authority over site related content) and Site Member (those tasked with populating and maintaining the site). Sometimes these will be embodied in one individual (depending on the size of the department) but most often the department head fills the coordinator role and assigns editors as needed. Each of those roles has full control over the content of the site as well as site access.

Is training available?

Options for learning how to edit Sycamore Root sites are outlined on the SharePoint Training Page and include official Microsoft resources as well as more personalized training from the IT Business Analyst.

Where do I even start?

How you approach the building of your Sycamore Root site will depend on multiple factors. The steps below outline a generic process that should be applicable in most situations.

Gather Your Content
1. Starting From Scratch
  1. Gather Resources
    1. Text - Write/edit/acquire the text you will need for your page.
    2. Images - Best practice is to gather all of the images you would like to use in one folder. Edit them as necessary ahead of time and upload them as needed when building your site(s).
2. Converting Old Web Content
  1. Pick a Page
    1. From the original external Internet site choose a page to convert
  2. Identify and Categorize Content
    1. Analyze the information provided on the page you've selected. Use the Intranet Content Identification Worksheet.xlsx if you find it helpful.
      1. Determine which elements need to be exposed to the general public (Internet)
      2. Determine which elements need to be maintained internally for the campus audience (Root)
      3. Determine which elements (if any) should be retained internally for your department only (Teams etc.)
Decide how you want to present the Root content to those visiting your page(s)
1. Decide which content elements should be grouped together and on which page they should exist
  1. Should it have its own page or be included with other data?
  2. Front page or sub-page?
  3. What order is best to present the data?
Build a page
1. Use the Communication Site tools to build pages, add sections and configure web parts to display your data.
  1. Build in big chunks and don't worry too much about the layout. The most important part is to get your data onto the page in an appropriate web part. Everything can be tweaked and shuffled endlessly, get something on the page.
  2. Be as modular as possible with your data. For instance if you have several blocks of text on the page, but they aren't related to one another, use separate Text web parts for each of them so that it will be easier to move them around if necessary.
Build your site
1. Repeat the first three steps to flesh out the other pages/content
Link your site
1. Link the pages and data using the navigation bar, and links in context throughout the site
2. Link to the external web as appropriate
3. Link from the web to Root as appropriate
Make it pretty
1. Now that you have the content mostly where you want it and linked together in a logical manner you can work on colors, fonts, images etc. to get the aesthetic you want for your site.

How can I add/remove access to the site?

All editors of a site (coordinators and members) will have the ability to add/remove editors of a site:

To add an editor:

On your Sycamore Root Site
Click Site Access link in the upper-right corner
Type their name in the box
Select their name when it appears in the list
Drop down the menu right under their name and select Edit
Click the Share button

To remove an editor:

On your Sycamore Root Site
Click Site Access link in the upper-right corner
Expand the Site Members - limited control list
Find the person you wish to remove and select Remove from the drop-down associated with their profile.

NOTE: You will have to make access changes in each hub independently.

Do I have to maintain content in both SharePoint and Drupal?

Generally campus data/services will break down into those of public interest (how to enroll, what degrees are offered) and those which are only meant for internal consumption (guest parking passes for department visitors, how to submit workman's comp claim) but some things are of interest to both audiences (campus maps, department hours). In those circumstances our recommendation is to host the data in the service which reaches the widest intended audience and link to it from other sites as appropriate: Public and general information should be on the external web site, campus-only content should be hosted in Root and department-only content should be housed in Teams. That way the information can be maintained in a single location while being accessible from multiple places.

NOTE: The Employee and Student hubs are independent and content must be created/maintained in both if relevant. If the data is too onerous to maintain in two locations separately it is recommended to host that content in the Student hub (due to its more open access policies) and then link to it as needed from the Employee hub.

Additional Information

If you have questions or issues not addressed here please reach out to the OIT Technology Support Center (x2910) for assistance.

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