It lets you gather insights and feedback and better understand what works well and what can be improved, so you can refine the App before the launch to the wider organization.

You will make your first steps as an admin at small scale: publish and assign content and updates, manage permissions, track engagement add/remove users etc.

You will know what to expect and how to prepare for the company-wide launch.

You have identified the participating team.

Your App is ready; It usually takes about 10-14 days for organizations to populate the App's content and prepare it for the launch.

You have notified the participating team and they are expecting an invite.

Don’t surprise them, let them know in advance - send an email, make an official announcement, and get them expecting. 

Make your mid-managers aware and part of the process. so that they will respond positively when asked by their employees/colleagues.

Let your users know they were chosen to be the first users and that you value their input/opinion.

Track login progress and do ‘follow-ups’ -  see this article to learn how to rack login progress.

Be user-focused: when pushing content, especially in the first few days publish as many things as you can that will prove compelling for your employees. Things that are more relevant for the organization, can come a little later in the process.

Ask yourself: what would your users like to see in the App? many times there are ’small wins’ that will make your users come back to the App. What would it be in your organization? The ability to find someone's contact details? The frictionless process of submitting a vacation request? Or perhaps just the quick access to the up-to-date cafeteria menu?

Plan in advance! Make a schedule for the first 3 weeks after launch - this way you can make sure that your users enjoy a steady and balanced content stream, not to overwhelming on the one hand and not to sporadic on the other.

Have a solid foundation - bring the content in your app to be as mature and relevant as possible before the Launch. Avoid having ‘open ends’ or things that are not relevant, do a final content review before the launch.

Create a list of at least 10-15 updates that you will publish over the course of the 3 weeks process, make sure there is a balance between ‘employee updates’ to ‘organizational updates’

Provide a visual experience - leverage your ability to add photos or videos, and take the extra moment to make your update look good before you launch it. 

Leverage the variety that the platform offers- share text and images, videos, and links so your users will be exposed to what can be done at an early stage.

Leverage existing resources - have an email newsletter? existing company videos? an off-the-shelf safety presentation? It is easy to use the existing resources and make adjustments to mobile where needed.

Lastly, remember that each organization is different. Adjust your plan the best you can based on your understanding of your users.

See this link for an example of a 'content-planning table'.
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Read about the next step in the implementation process - company-wide launch.