Refined for Confluence: The Engine Behind Exatel’s Empowered Intranet

500
Telecom and Cybersecurity
Poland
Refined case study icon in white.
Customer Story
Empowered teams

Teams now manage content themselves, no outside help needed.

Aligned through design

Branded, intuitive, and decentralized spaces keep everyone aligned.

Engagement at scale

Modern UX and easy updates = higher engagement across 500+ employees.

When your organization sits at the intersection of telecom and cybersecurity, a high degree of clarity and efficiency in internal communication is non-negotiable. For Exatel, a government-owned company based in Poland with around 500 employees, staying connected across IT, service management, and operational teams was critical. Their old SharePoint intranet just wasn’t cutting it. We spoke with Robert Swiderski, Exatel’s IT System Administrators Team Lead, to learn about why they made the move away from their old intranet set-up, and how Refined gave them the tools and confidence to build something better.

Tired of the service-heavy intranet setup

Exatel’s old SharePoint solution was a hassle to maintain. Content updates, UI tweaks, or branding changes often had to be filtered through a third party. That kind of dependency slowed everything down. The result: a lack of engagement that undermined the very purpose of the intranet.

With such high barriers to keep it fresh and up to date, employees had little incentive to use it. It was time for a full migration from their legacy system, and after some testing they found the right tools for their needs.

An intranet solution built with Refined for Confluence Data Center

The turning point came in 2023 when Exatel migrated to Confluence on Data Center, where they now house their many documents, procedures, logos, images, templates and spaces for collaboration. While Confluence could contain these resources, something else was needed to turn it into Exatel's internal home base. Enter Refined for Confluence.

With Refined, Exatel now had their intranet — one they could build, customize, and publish without outside support. And because it was layered directly over Confluence, where content is created, it could actually keep pace with their teams by reflecting updates instantaneously.

Whether it’s updating branding for the holiday season, or posting an urgent security alert, Exatel teams can make changes themselves. No more outsourcing basic updates.

  • They now have faster turnaround times for changes and improvements,
  • a quickly customized and branded intranet,
  • and more opportunities for employee engagement through easy-to-find blogs, internal news, and announcements.

Decentralized but controlled

Each department owns and manages its own space in Confluence, making content creation easy to understand and access across spaces while simultaneously allowing for the customization needed by each team.

Only a few employees per team have editing rights, while everyone else can easily access the information they need in view-only mode. This structure gives teams autonomy while maintaining oversight, allowing Exatel to operate independently without needing outside consultants.

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Before, the intranet couldn’t be managed by our people. Sometimes we had to create a request to the third party company to make changes… Now we can manage by ourselves.

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Design freedom with custom CSS

The intranet doesn’t just work better, it looks better too. Exatel utilized Refined’s built-in theming, page design, and easy-to-implement navigation options to apply its brand aesthetic. Plus, thanks to support for custom CSS and HTML, they were able to add blog aggregations, dynamic footers, custom menus, and other elements that fulfill their requirements.

Learn more about design and themes with Refined for Confluence.

UX that boosts engagement

With a more modern look and feel, improved navigation, and a clean layout, employees started to engage with the intranet instead of working around it.

Important updates, announcements, and internal blogs are easy to publish and surface. Teams can post, highlight, and manage communications in ways that keep everyone in the loop without flooding inboxes.

Exatel reports a significant uptick in content contributions and engagement. Teams now manage their own blogs and content updates. This includes internal blogs focused on topics like system maintenance and outages.

An engaging intranet means engaged employees.

Refined works so well for Exatel that they have expanded their use beyond the intranet. Refined is also being used in other internal projects, such as their extranet and Jira Admins projects, with Refined for Jira Service Management.

We have started using Refined for other projects because the people love the interface and love how it looks.

Robert Swiderski - IT System Administrators Team Lead, Exatel

A central hub for access to everything

The intranet isn’t just about resources, news, and information. Refined’s top navigation menu links directly to CRM, ERP, and other business-critical systems, giving employees a unified starting point for their daily work.

The outcome: Full intranet control, no outside help needed

Refined turned Exatel’s Confluence intranet into something flexible, scalable, and actually enjoyable to use. With more engaged employees, empowered content managers, and fewer blockers across the board, Exatel now runs on an intranet that supports their mission — not one that gets in the way.

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