The Vesta company - implemented the internal portal based on Microsoft SharePoint 2010

Successful organization development in many respects depends on quality of internal communications. With growth of business and a staff increase of Vesta company informing employees and data exchange became harder and harder without specialized software. Use of the usual tools widespread in small business, – the notification of personnel by e-mail, accumulation and information exchange using numerous file folders and databases – took away a large number of resources and slowed down development of the company.

"We had to control constantly several sources of information, each of which needed to be supported in current status. It was very labor-intensive process which is taking away the most part of time of staff of IT service. At such approach we often came up against a situation when it was difficult to concretize a problem and to find an optimal method of its solution. We were forced to make important decisions only on the basis of an intuition", – Yevstigneyev Oleg Aleksandrovich, the head of IT service of Vesta company tells.

The company the complete solution allowing to increase efficiency of joint work of employees, to provide operational informing personnel and to consolidate information in a uniform source was required.

"We needed a resource which would provide up-to-date data about employees, had the built-in tools for creation of the knowledge base and was information loud-hailer for all staff of the company irrespective of their location", – Oleg Aleksandrovich Yevstigneyev explained.

Solution

Individual development of an information system requires a large number of resources in the absence of a guarantee of achievement of effective objectives. Need of thorough preproject training, the long period of development and testing of the custom software did application creation to order unattractive for Vesta company.

"Implementation the intranet portal optimum helped to achieve effective objectives. However our tasks were not limited to informing and data exchange. According to the development strategy of the company in the field of IT, our next step planned system implementation for joint work with documents. Therefore when choosing a technology platform for creation of the portal solution we considered only such software which would allow us to adjust afterwards without excess costs joint work by preparation of documentation", - Oleg Aleksandrovich Yevstigneyev tells.

With the purpose to solve assigned tasks specialists of IT service studied possibilities of different information systems of the domestic and foreign manufacturers presented at the Russian software market. As a result of the conducted researches the company management selected the reliable business platform for joint work - Microsoft SharePoint.

"We decided to refuse implementation of specialized electronic document management systems as need of their customization and integration with existing applications seemed to us much more costly in comparison with use of a ready-made product for joint work solving of tasks – Microsoft SharePoint Server", – Yevstigneyev Oleg Aleksandrovich specifies.

Its technology flexibility, scalability, intuitive simplicity of work for end users in the familiar Microsoft Office environment and also a possibility of a fast and full integration with other applications became not less important selection terms of the Microsoft SharePoint business platform.

Complex supply of modern materials and the equipment for heating systems and water supply has the features. For the organization of joint work of staff of the enterprises, similar Vest, the Ittilan company – the golden Microsoft partner – developed shrink-wrapped software products which differ in low cost based on the SharePoint platform and allow to deploy ready modules in a short time with the guaranteed result.

"Implementation of the boxed portal solution "ITTILAN Portal 4.0" adapted in the course of implementation for requirements of Vesta company allowed to resolve very many issues of the organization of internal information and communication space, having created a big backlog for automation of different internal business processes of the company", - Dmitry Kuznetsov, the CEO of Ittilan told.

Using the boxed portal solution "ITTILAN Portal 4.0" the portal in Vest was unrolled quickly enough. First of all services for operational informing and establishing communications between the staff of all territorially remote departments of the company were started. The structure of the internal portal was developed for achievement of an effective objective, the key modules of an information system responsible for information processing are installed, and integration of the application with a 1C system is adjusted.

Integration with 1C allowed to create automatically updated uniform phonebook in a convenient form integrating and structuring personal data of staff of divisions of the company and supplied with quick and advanced search. On the basis of the portal using Microsoft Silverlight technology the dynamic organization structure of the company providing to employees information on hierarchy and communications of divisions in the company is implemented.

"In spite of the fact that within project implementation we built an organization structure of the company and adjusted functionality of the used 1C systems and the Active Directory to the new scheme of business processes, in 2 months after the beginning of implementation employees in all departments began to use actively the portal", - Oleg Aleksandrovich Yevstigneyev notes.

The exit of SharePoint 2010 announced by Microsoft introduced the amendments in project implementation. The new version of the SharePoint platform has the bigger technology flexibility providing higher performance in comparison with the previous versions of a product. The company management of Vest made the decision to adjust business processes already based on the new version of the platform.

"The improved possibilities of the platform for document flow implementation, advanced user profiles and extensive opportunities for work with images became one of the main criteria of transition to SharePoint 2010", - Oleg Aleksandrovich Yevstigneyev comments.

After resumption of work over the project migration of already installed modules of an information system took place without delays and pads. The flexible scalable architecture of SharePoint Server 2010 allowed to implement works step by step in record-breaking short time. Thus, only several weeks later the works were completed.

The project was implemented by a team of IT specialists of Vest as a part of 3 people. In the course of implementation of the portal specialists of Ittilan company gave consulting support to the customer and helped to configure system operation optimum.

"In any development there are difficulties, however all arising questions at implementation and the SharePoint Server 2010 setup to us it was possible to solve quickly by own efforts", - Oleg Aleksandrovich Yevstigneyev notes.

Advantages

After the beginning of use of the portal solution based on Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 of Vesta company it was succeeded to reach the following indicators:

• Degree of knowledge of employees of the events happening in the company grew by 20%;
• Time for search of necessary information on work of the employee was reduced more than twice;
• Qualitatively the efficiency of communications of employees thanks to the automated business processes increased.

As a result of project implementation in Vesta company the uniform information and communication resource integrating all divisions in the different cities is created.

"In spite of the fact that the project is complete rather recently – in May, 2010, at us important data which allow to make the weighed decisions and to make corrections to further development of the company collected already now. Today we have the structured information concentrated in one source and at any time we see the broad and adequate picture of the events in the company. It allows the management to control better a situation and to operate with actual data at decision making", - Oleg Aleksandrovich Yevstigneyev tells.

Thanks to the portal of communication between the staff of branches of steel more effective, and access to working information considerably accelerated. Based on the portal the knowledge base of the company allowing to save data retrieveds for the subsequent use was created, doing work of specialists of more productive. The improved built-in function of search allows to find the necessary information in SharePoint 2010 quickly. Using opportunities of the platform the personalized data access according to roles of employees is organized. It allows to limit confidential information from unauthorized access and to protect a trade secret.

Vest received a modern basis for further development of corporate culture. The portal is successfully used for illumination of informal aspects of life of the company. Thanks to the developed information services, such as news feed, the calendar of events, useful links, library of documents, answers to questions, polls, etc., employees can always quickly get access to corporate data, be aware of important events and participate in decision making.

"Implementation of the portal based on the SharePoint 2010 platform increased employee performance and optimized business processes of our company in general", - Oleg Aleksandrovich Yevstigneyev summarizes.

At the subsequent stages of project implementation of Vest is going to organize electronic document management with the purpose to adjust a centralized system of storage and approval of documents. It will allow to optimize substantially work of divisions, will provide transparency of processes under approval of documentation and request processing and will allow to save time of employees even more.

Also in the company are going to implement all opportunities of the Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 platform in the field of placement of a multimedia content – video files and images. In an effect the portal should become the main point of entry of employees for the solution of the majority of business challenges.

"We will develop the reporting, to organize the centralized maintaining project information, to integrate a system with Microsoft Project. Thus, we are going to automate by means of the portal solution based on Microsoft SharePoint 2010 key business processes of the company", - Oleg Aleksandrovich Yevstigneyev notes.