How to Setup a Plone Intranet in Half a Day (Python Web Conf 2020)

Level: Beginner 
Topic(s): Plone 

Whether at work or outside of work, we usually need to collaborate with others.
This collaboration can take many forms:

  • storing documents
  • organizing documents
  • sharing documents
  • creating and filling out forms
  • protecting documents and data from prying eyes
  • managing access to documents and data
  • finding documents and data

Enterprises enable this kind of collaboration by creating an intranet. Users must log into this intranet, quickly and easily find the documents and data they need, revise them, save them, and share them out to others on their project teams. Intranet administrators create teams and set aside workspaces for those teams.
Setting up this type of intranet does NOT have to be hard nor does it have to be expensive!

Plone is a longstanding, secure, open source web content management system that lets you create intranets like this.

In our interactive, hands-on tutorial we will cover how to:

  • install Plone on a brand new virtual machine
  • create a website using Plone
  • turn that website into an intranet
  • create user accounts
  • create user groups
  • create team workspaces
  • grant access to workspaces to the right group(s)
  • create and organize documents, files, and forms in workspaces
  • test the security of the intranet's access restrictions

And best of all: you will be able to do this for volunteer groups and any communities you're a part of.

What you'll need:
  • a laptop (any operating system)

Characteristics of an Intranet

What are the general characteristics of an intranet?

Who collaborates?
  • individuals
  • teams

When we collaborate, we often do so using documents:
  • “documents” (files, images, website pages)
  • forms

We organize documents using folders, which can contain other folders, and so on.