Metroplex Interactive

An extranet is a website that is accessible to a select user group such as employees of a company, vendors, partners and customers. Extranets are like an internet site in that they can display any kind of content you would normally see on a website such as text, images, links to documents, etc. Extranet pages are typically used by businesses to provide information and a communication tool to employees, vendors and customers outside the corporate network and firewall. Extranets can be used for e-commerce by including products and services with a shopping cart feature. Some companies have leveraged extranets for project collaboration allowing team members to post and review project artifacts such as requirements documents, process flows and other information critical to the project success.

Software titles exist to assist in the development of extranets (and intranets) such as Microsoft Sharepoint and other open source software titles. Some web design service companies will design extranets for customers which can either be accessed via a web portal, through a direct URL, or after a person has logged onto a corporate VPN.