Implementation of MS Office 2010 in the Government of the Yaroslavl region

Staff of government office and other authorities of the Yaroslavl region widely use products of Microsoft in the work. In 2010 when there was a problem of transition to the new version of Microsoft Office, it was decided to take part in the Microsoft Home Use Program (HUP) program allowing to make such transition the easiest. This program is a part of a subscription of Software Assurance and gives an opportunity of installation of license copies of Microsoft Office applications on home computers of employees at the minimum price ($9). Thanks to simplicity and usability of the HUP program users could perform installation of new software of the house independently, without resorting to the help of IT specialists. Full-scale implementation of Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 in the organization helped to provide access to documents of Office from any point and promoted performance improvement of work of employees.

About the Customer

The Yaroslavl region is a part of Central Federal District and integrates 100 municipal entities, 3 city districts, 17 municipal districts and 80 rural settlements. The administrative center of area — the city of Yaroslavl.

The government of the Yaroslavl region is the permanent supreme executive body of the government created by the Governor. The main objectives of the government are project development of the regional budget and programs of social and economic development of the region; ensuring their execution and preparation of the corresponding performance reports; formation of other regional executive authorities.

Situation

As the associate director of Department of informatization and communication of the Government of the Yaroslavl region Vladimir Ionov told, a few years ago staff of bodies of the power of the region used applications of a packet Open Office in the activity. At the same time rather often there were problems during the work with the documents arriving from partners as because of distinction of formats these documents were not always correctly displayed.

To solve this problem and at the same time to provide to users comfortable working conditions, the decision on use of the set of applications of Microsoft Office was made. For this purpose in June, 2009 between Department of informatization and communication of the Government of the Yaroslavl region and Microsoft company the agreement of Enterprise Agreement was signed. This agreement represents the program of corporate licensing created by Microsoft corporation for the organizations which have 250 and more computers, selected the Microsoft platform as the corporate standard and intend to develop cooperation in the field of information technologies.

The license agreement Enterprise Agreement allows the organization to use different versions of Microsoft Office therefore the Department of informatization and communication of the Government of the Yaroslavl region decided to make an experiment.

"When there was a version of Microsoft Office 2010, we set it on computers of several users volunteers. After several weeks of work anybody of them had no desire to return to the previous version. And then we set the task to perform full-scale implementation of Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010". - Vladimir Ionov, associate director of Department of informatization and communication of the Government of the Yaroslavl region

Solution

As the consultant the Microsoft partner — the ALAN Yaroslavl company which already had experience of successful implementation of a number of infrastructure software products of Microsoft corporation in authorities of the Yaroslavl region was attracted to an implementation project of Microsoft Office 2010.

To perform transition to the latest version of the set of applications of Microsoft Office in the fastest and effective way and at the same time not to increase a burden of load of specialists of Department of informatization and communication on whom consultation of employees, as a rule, lays down when using new software it was decided to take part in the Microsoft Home Use Program program.

This program gives to the staff of the organization an opportunity to receive the copy of Microsoft Office applications on which corporate licenses, for installation on home computers were purchased for the minimum cost ($9). Thanks to such opportunity they can work at home with the same version of the software product, as at work. It gives to employees confidence in compatibility of the documents created by them and also facilitates transition to the new version of software as acquaintance to it happens also at home, and at work. On use of products no restrictions are imposed — the employee can use them both for workers, and for the personal purposes. The number of the employees having the right to home use of software is defined by the number of the purchased corporate licenses.

As the director of the company of ALAN Alexander Elin told, deployment of Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 was performed in three simple stages. On the first of them it was necessary to activate the Home Use Program program and to receive the access code. For this purpose the employee of the organization who was specified as the main contact person when signing the corporate agreement was registered on the portal of the Center of support of corporate licenses (Volume Licensing Service Center, VLSC) and, having selected from the list of the offered options "Home Use Program Program", entered a license number. At the same time he entered domain names of the addresses of the employees participating in the program.

At the second stage transfer of a distribution kit to users was executed. For this purpose the same employee who activated the Home Use Program program sent to employees the letter with the access code and the link to the website www.microsofthup.ru where they received a key and the Microsoft Office distribution kit.

And at last, at the third stage it was instructed users on installation of products using specially prepared "Installation instruction of Home Use Program".

As Vladimir Ionov noted, speaking about features of process of deployment of the new version of software not to load network a large number of downloadings the Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 distribution kit, at first the distribution kit was transferred to responsible specialists in each executive authority, and those, in turn, extended it among the staff of the organization.

"Use of the Home Use Program program is easy and clear, it does not require accomplishment of any difficult actions. In executive authorities of the Yaroslavl region specialists work with the different level of competence of information technology field, but vital issues with the software installation on home computers did not arise at anybody" — Vladimir Ionov emphasized.

Advantages

Today in public authorities of the Yaroslavl region over 1200 users work with office products of Microsoft. Each employee has an opportunity to use Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 on the home computer.

"Most of our employees have houses computers, and they sometimes can take work home. Now, to work with documents on the home computer, they do not need to allocate funds for purchase of office software from the family budget. The licenses Software Assurance for products of the Microsoft Office family purchased by us allow our employees to use them on the home PC at the distribution kit price", - Vladimir Ionov told.

Telling about advantages of the new version of Microsoft Office, Vladimir Ionov selects such improvements as the improved calendar of Microsoft Outlook and new abilities to manage with e-mail and also considerably enhanced capabilities of editing multimedia elements, including video, in Microsoft PowerPoint. Microsoft Office 2010 provides fast preparation of documents using representation of Microsoft Office Backstage integrating the main command set, and emergence of the Sparklines function in Microsoft Excel allows to build the minidiagrams which are located in cells and visually displaying dynamics of numeric data.

"Improvements in Microsoft Office 2010 allow staff of bodies of the power of the Yaroslavl region not only to solve such problems as difficulties with data visualization and fast tracking of interdependence between components, joint work, use of the outdated programs which are not meeting the modern requirements but also more optimum to plan and use the time", - Vladimir Ionov considers.

Transition to the new version of Microsoft Office allows to solve also such problem as access to documents from everywhere where there is an Internet. Such opportunity appears with online applications — the light versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote working in the browser.

"Especially it would be desirable to note perfectly thought over interface of applications of Microsoft Office — for the ordinary user this most important" — Vladimir Ionov emphasized.

In Microsoft Office 2010 possibilities of soavtorsky work when several users who are on any removal from each other can edit at the same time documents in Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint or Microsoft OneNote are considerably expanded.

"Joint work in Microsoft Office 2010 finally very positively affects labor productivity" — Vladimir Ionov is convinced.

"Participating in the project on transfer of public authorities of the Yaroslavl region on the new version of Microsoft Office, our company was once again convinced of quality, ease of use and the present of the products created by Microsoft corporation, and also of convenience to corporate clients of such special programs as Home Use Program", - Alexander Elin summarized.

Speaking about plans for the future, Vladimir Ionov noted that in 2011 the Department of informatization and communication intends to prolong the license agreement for use of software products of Microsoft in authorities of the Yaroslavl region.