Stanford
Stanford Sites User Guide

Intranet Overview

Stanford Sites Intranet is a fee-based service for building and managing a website for private, secure information sharing. It offers design flexibility, integration with Stanford systems, and substantial functionality through Drupal.

Intranets are fully functional websites that can be set up so visitors must enter their SUNet ID to view the content. You have the option to enable only certain groups or individuals—such as all Stanford staff members or only members of a specific workgroup—to access the site.

Intranets are created to make the whole site private. There is no option to make only certain pages private.

Stanford Sites Intranet

Features & Functionality

  • Same authoring experience and feature updates as Stanford Sites
  • Controlled access to the site via Workgroup or by broad category (Stanford-only, Stanford Staff, etc.)
  • Provide access to basic and full SUNetIDs
  • Map Workgroups to custom roles for more targeted access control
  • Restrict access to individual pages based on role
  • Use the full CAP API to pull Stanford-only profile information from Stanford Profiles

Frequently Asked Questions

Who can use the intranet service?

Any Stanford school, department, unit, institute, center, lab, and/or other group hosting low or moderate risk data or content, which has the ability to use full-service SUNetID for authentication and the ability to use a PTA for annual maintenance fees and the eligibility for using the Stanford-branded theme.

How do I request an intranet?

You will need to appoint a site owner who will take responsibility for requesting and being the point of contact for all service terms and communications. The point of contact should have signing authority for the PTA or the ability to connect to the signing authority. 

Request a Stanford Sites Intranet

What kind of access control is available for my intranet?

A site owner can establish an intranet with access controlled in a combination of four different ways:

  1. Open to any valid SUNetIDs
  2. Open to specific valid SUNetIDs
  3. Open to specific Workgroup(s) 
  4. Open to specific SUNetID affiliation (e.g. staff, faculty, or student)

How do I build and design an intranet site?

The same way you would any other Stanford Sites-based website. See the Build and Design page for tips. 

What kind of data is acceptable on my intranet?

Low and medium risk data only. High risk data can be stored on Google Shared Drives but cannot be accessed through your Stanford Sites intranet. If you require an intranet for your high risk content, please request a custom project consultation from Stanford Web Services.

What file types are allowed on my intranet?

Due to privacy concerns, documents shared via an intranet must be stored on Google Drive or another authentication-based service. Be sure to establish storage space first and set permissions on documents accordingly before creating links to the documents on your intranet.

How do I organize the content on my intranet?

How to display a group of files using the Basic Page

Due to privacy concerns, all documents shared via an intranet must be stored on Google Drive or another authentication-based service. 

Learn more about how to use Google Drive to support security and information sharing. 

Although all content on an intranet could be considered secure, there may be some content that includes sensitive information or information that should only be accessible to a subset of intranet users. 

For this type of content, you want to make sure users take precautions before sharing it. We recommend including a disclaimer that includes the page or file's security level and who has access to it. You can also display a lock icon by copying this text: 🔒 into your source code.

For content that includes policies and procedures, we also recommend adding a date to the text that lets users know when the information was last updated.

For example

🔒 This is highly sensitive content; not all authenticated intranet users have access to this information. The access level for this information is set through Google Drive and SUNet authentication.

🔒 This is secure content specific to authenticated intranet users. Take precaution before sharing it broadly.

How do I list links to documents on my intranet? 

How do I create and manage redirects from my old intranet to my new one?

Follow these instructions to create and manage redirects for your intranet.

How do I test the accessibility of my intranet?

Follow these instructions for checking the accessibility of your content as you create and edit pages on your intranet. Site Improve scans are not allowed by policy for intranets for data security and privacy reasons.