Situation

The Investors in People (IIP) standard in the United Kingdom is a business improvement tool designed to advance both public sector and private sector organisations performance through their people.

The standard was developed during 1990 by the National Training Task Force in partnership with leading national businesses, personnel, professional, and employee organisations. These include the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), Trades Union Congress (TUC), and the Institute of Personnel and Development (IPD).

In 2003, IIP, which employs around 50 head office staff in London and works with approximately 1,500 practitioners implementing the IIP standard throughout the country, decided to embark on a major technology refresh to upgrade its systems.

Keith Geraghty, E-Business Manager, IIP, says: “We realised that IIP was becoming a very document-centric organisation with many cross-business teams working with a large number of partners and third-party organisations. Documents were being saved to various locations on the server- the main drive, team drives, template drives, and so on, which made it hard to find key documents especially when employees left and a new person arrived.”

The key challenge for IIP was to find a solution to provide a smooth mechanism for document creation and collaboration across the business. Geraghty says: “It was becoming increasingly difficult for staff to share information with each other or collaborate in teams using the legacy systems. By 2003, we estimated that IIP had tens of thousands of documents on its network drives with many duplicated documents and redundant files.”

These concerns coincided with a decision by IIP to upgrade its operating system from Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Server and to link this with a major technology refresh, including its messaging and communication server. In 2004, IIP completed a migration and upgrade to Microsoft Windows ServerTM 2003, part of Microsoft Windows Server SystemTM integrated server software, Microsoft Windows® XP Professional, Microsoft Office 2003, and Microsoft Exchange Server 2003. The organisation was already using Microsoft SQL ServerTM 2000 for its database servers.

However, IIP needed help in deploying a document management and search intranet. Geraghty and his colleagues examined various alternatives and studied research by Gartner. According to Gartner, a well executed portal deployment can help enterprises realise millions of U.S. dollars in productivity savings, because it often reduces days of employee workload to a few hours.

IIP then took advice from systems integrator and reseller Core, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and attended a Core briefing about the functionality available in Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003. Core has an extensive proven track record in designing, building, implementing, and supporting innovative business solutions based on the Microsoft .NET Framework. Core had advised IIP previously in the implementation of Microsoft Content Management Server 2001 for its Web site.

Solution

Core played a vital role in designing a customised system for IIP, using as its backbone SharePoint® Portal Server 2003. With SharePoint Portal Server an individual page called MySite is created for each user during their first interaction with the SharePoint, and users can easily populate a MySite by dragging and dropping Web Parts.

MySites may either be private or have a public view with shareable information-the basic tenet of teamwork.

Eamon McGann, Technical Director, Core, says: “The principal challenge was how to customise SharePoint Portal Server 2003 to be very user friendly for IIP’s staff, especially in searching for documents.

“To achieve this, we ran a number of workshops with IIP so as to analyse their preferred document structure and examine how documents were being used.”

This resulted in the creation of a categorised document storage and retrieval service which eliminated the need for the previous archaic and complicated folder structure. IIP also benefited from the easy integration of SharePoint Portal Server with Office 2003.

Nick Rosewall, Sales Manager, Core says: “By delivering an enterprise-wide taxonomy solution, we have unleashed the power of SharePoint Portal Server as a document management and search solution while providing a portal through to the various business sectors.”

SharePoint Portal Server also integrates with Content Management Server and Exchange Server 2003, as well as IIP’s third-party applications which include Snowdrop Systems HR and payroll software. Geraghty is taking full advantage of the extra functionality in SharePoint Portal Server to increase the value to the organisation of Content Management Server.

With SharePoint Portal Server, IIP can add an index and search engine for its Web site without needing extra software. “Microsoft now offers pre-packaged integrations for these tools using SharePoint Portal Server,” says Rosewall.

Benefits

Taxonomy Solution Helps Trace Documents in Seconds
Working with Core, IIP staff delivered a user-friendly company-wide taxonomy solution that greatly increased the value of its new document management system. SharePoint Portal Server was able to improve collaboration and team work at IIP without the need for costly bespoke electronic document management software.

Geraghty says: “With SharePoint Portal Server we have two solutions in one–a document management and search solution as well as a portal to our various business sectors. SharePoint Portal Server makes it easier to search for documents. What could take us hours in searching say 10,000 files can now be done in just a few seconds.”

Improving Workflow in Every-Day Projects
IIP staff no longer need to exchange multiple versions of the same document by e-mail leading to potential mistakes and unnecessary confusion. Teamwork has improved and productivity is rising.

Geraghty says: “With SharePoint Portal Server, our staff can work collaboratively from a single version of a core document instead of exchanging up to 30 versions of it by e-mail which was how it was with the old system.”

Reducing the Burden of Paper-Based Systems
Before implementing SharePoint Portal Server, IIP had tens of thousands of documents on its network drives with many duplicated documents and redundant files. Geraghty says: “With rapid access to data, IIP staff experience far fewer frustrations in searching for key documents. We are no longer as reliant on files and folders or paper-based systems. This will have the effect of improving our service to our customers throughout the United Kingdom.”

Value-Added Service from Partner
As a company with a high profile and reputation for innovation, IIP has benefited from working in close partnership with Core to ensure that the new system matched the needs of users. With Core’s help IIP has used SharePoint Portal Server to create an image library for the organisation and is using it for access to the IT helpdesk.

Geraghty says: “We greatly appreciate Core’s experience and credentials as a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. The solution has been running for six months and while some of our new staff will benefit from a new round of training the solution is working well.”