Pain
Our client currently faces a number of different challenges in their management of multiple technology and business processes. In particular, the way in which the company addresses and documents its internal business processes is an issue. With revenues in the billions, compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and a complete understanding and control of their internal workflow, is mission critical. There was also a need to eventually automate most of the manual business processes that were currently in use.
Replaced Technology
Our client's infrastructure entailed a number of legacy and custom-built systems.
Replaced Processes
Our client suffered from the need to manage multiple systems that all processed files differently and with varying levels of processing capabilities. The majority of the work was done via manual processes.
Proposed Solution
Our clients systems needed a major overhaul. However, since sweeping change is inherently risky, our proposed plan would be to identify discrete systems that could be broken down into individual projects, prioritized jointly by the client team and speakTECH, then prototyped in the client development environment and released to the employees for use when approved. This was a classic "Eating the Elephant" exercise… one bite at a time.
Software Used
- Windows SharePoint Services
- Microsoft InfoPath
- Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2003
- Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server Office 12 (Office 2007) release
- Human Workflow via Workflow Foundation (WF)
- 3rd Party Human Workflow Solutions.
Services Provided
speakTECH engaged with our client to provide architectural guidance and development assistance. The work was divided into two distinct phases. In Phase One we deployed a test Lab and prototyped identified processes. We worked together with the client team to deploy a development environment and implement the project management use case on SharePoint 2007. The primary goal of the speakTECH team was to transfer knowledge to the client team and guide them with the prototyping, pilot and deployment of SharePoint Portal Server.
During Phase One, we worked with the client project management team to document the project approval process, and helped architect a path to adoption of an automated process. To this end, we deployed Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server (Office 12 beta) in the client's development environment. We performed training and education for the client's internal development team, and prototyped the project management process using SharePoint 12 and the Windows Workflow Foundation platform. We conducted an internal pilot with the business users, then refined the business process and enhanced the applications as needed.
Once the prototype was successfully deployed and validated, we began developing end-user training for the new project management process. We designed and documented the client SharePoint deployment plan for an enterprise deployment, which included site template customizations to match client corporate branding, a best practices security model that embraced client organizational structure and security philosophy, and defined Content Types and Content Policies that ensured compliance with corporate data security policies. Further, we led an Active Directory integration, plus delivered Infrastructure Architecture and Configuration plans and an Implementation Plan for production.
Phase Two of the project was the Production Deployment. This included the implementation of production hardware and the configuration of dependent products, and execution of an Implementation and Customization Plan to deploy SharePoint Portal Server into the client production environment. We worked with the client team to migrate identified departments to SharePoint, creating team sites for required departments/divisions. Finally, we assisted in the creation of educational content, which was to be used to train the client users on the features and functions that they could now perform with the new portal.
Results
Based on our past experience, we know that it is critical for companies to grow and develop systems in a holistic fashion. One-off solutions developed without hooks for interoperability grow into monolithic silos over time, requiring ever-increasing effort and cost to integrate later. It is important to consider the platform usage in the overall architecture, as the rate of technological change is such that we will want to be able to take advantage of emerging technologies as they become available with a minimum of effort involved in switching. To this end, we base our solutions on well known best practices and patterns that will allow the evolution of the platform with a minimum of business impact.
The system we delivered to our client meets all of these criteria. Our client has deployed standardized processes that enable Sarbanes-Oxley compliance and full audit capabilities. By utilizing new automated workflow tools, they have exposed mainframe line-of-business applications and enabled true employee collaboration, reducing both their risk and substantial cost. Finally, they have enabled true marketing correspondence management and tracking with one integrated system.