Results at a glance
- Full intranet redesign delivered on SharePoint: moving from a WordPress-based site last updated in 2018 to a modern, integrated Microsoft 365 environment
- 11 homepage features: including a live news feed, dynamic employee directory, integrated calendar, celebration modules, and accessibility tools
- Role-based and department-specific content: each department now has its own governed space with relevant pages, contacts, and quick links
- Active Directory-synced directory: employees searchable by name, department, or role, with real-time Teams status and one-click contact actions
- Delivered within a $50,000 budget: across a nearly year-long engagement involving five internal team members and representatives from every department
- Built on Microsoft 365: fully integrated with the tools the City already uses, including Teams, SharePoint, and Active Directory
The challenge
The City of Edina serves a community in Minnesota, US, of approximately 53,000 residents, with a workforce of more than 800 employees across departments ranging from Public Works to Police to Human Resources. The internal employee website, Edinet, was the organization's primary hub for internal communications, HR resources, and operational information. By early 2023, it had a problem: it was built in WordPress in 2018 and was no longer fit for purpose.
The gap between what employees needed and what the platform could deliver had been widening for years:
- The site had no integration with Microsoft 365, leaving Teams, SharePoint, and Active Directory operating as entirely separate systems
- News, events, and employee directory information required manual updates with no automated synchronization
- Files and communication were often duplicated, creating a need to reduce redundancy
- There were no accessibility tools to allow employees to adjust text size, color, or other display settings to meet their needs
- The mobile experience was poor, a significant gap for a workforce that includes field-based and frontline staff
A redesign was needed. Not a refresh. A complete rebuild, on a platform that could grow with the organization and integrate with the tools already in daily use.
The solution
The City of Edina partnered with Creative Arcade and Blue Net to lead the design and development of the new Edinet, built on Microsoft SharePoint and powered by BindTuning's web parts and Intranet framework. The project ran for a year, with an internal project team of five coordinating with department representatives across the organization.
BindTuning's components formed the functional backbone of the new site:
- News web part: a live, filterable newsfeed pulling automatically from both EdinaMN.gov (color-coded green) and internal employee news (color-coded gold), with department tags, social engagement, and topic filtering
- People web part: a dynamic employee directory synced directly with Active Directory, searchable by name, department, or job title, with real-time Teams presence status and one-click access to call, email, or message any employee
- Image Gallery web part: a dedicated, paginated photo gallery replacing a static, hard-to-maintain predecessor
- Celebration modules: automated birthday and work anniversary recognition pulled from SharePoint and Active Directory, with milestone callouts for 5-, 10-, and 15-year anniversaries and direct "Happy Birthday" messaging built in
- Accessibility tool: allowing every employee to adjust text size, color contrast, and display settings to suit their needs, embedded persistently across the entire site
Department sites were built with their own structured pages, contacts, and quick links. The Employee Handbook was restructured from a flat text document into a navigable, chapter-based layout. News posts now carry full-width formatting, author photos, and clickable contact cards.
What made this work
A project of this scope succeeds or fails in the planning phase. The City of Edina appointed a department representative from every part of the organization. That structure meant the new site reflected operational needs across the whole workforce, not just the priorities of the central project team. The result is a homepage that surfaces the 11 features employees most needed, rather than a generic template with city branding applied.
The partner model mattered just as much. Creative Arcade and Blue Net brought the design and development expertise, and BindTuning brought the functional components that would otherwise have taken significant custom build time: the live directory sync, the automated news feed, the celebration modules, the accessibility tooling. Building on that library lets delivery partners focus their effort on the experience and the information architecture instead of re-engineering solved problems.
Building on BindTuning brings a sophisticated, integrated intranet deliverable within a mid-market budget and timeline.
About The City of Edina
The City of Edina is a Minnesota municipality serving a community of approximately 53,000 residents. With a workforce spanning public safety, public works, communications, administration, community development, information technology, finance, human resources, and parks & recreation, the City requires internal systems that can reach every employee, regardless of role or location, with consistent, accurate, and accessible information.
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