The project on implementation of a corporate portal by Softline company for the Uralkali enterprise based on Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 is complete

JSC Uralkali — world leading manufacturer of potash fertilizers whose capacities are located in the cities of Berezniki and Solikamsk of Perm Krai in the territory of the Verkhnekamsky field of potassium-magnesium salts taking the second place in the world on ore reserves. Assets of the organization include five mines and seven enrichment factories and also factory on production of chloride of sodium.

The internal enterprise portal serves as one of the most important instruments of increase in level of efficiency of communications, cooperation and knowledge sharing. More than eight years for these purposes the solution based on the Oracle platform was used. To answer new functional and to business requirements of the company, it demanded development and improvement. Besides, it was necessary to create conditions for preserving and knowledge sharing for acceptance of effective management decisions. The Knowledge Management System (KMS) is decided to be placed on one platform with a new corporate portal.

Project Progress

The company started implementation of new full-function service with transfer of a part of functionality and content from the current portal solution when forming several new modules. As a result of an open competition the right to project implementation was acquired by the Softline company having long-term experience of successful creation of corporate portals for big customers and which offered the most optimal variant of project implementation on the Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 platform.

Specialists of department of solutions of Microsoft of Softline company unrolled the failsafe SharePoint Server 2013 platform and developed a number of new modules. For example, blocks administrative and HR requests, sections for communication of employees in the mode of social networks, services for a balance request in the section of a corporate power supply and printing of pay slips. Two versions of the internal portal in the corporate style of Uralkali were developed. One — for workstations, integrated with the main business applications of the company, another — the version for information booths with the enlarged interface for convenient work of users with a touch-panel.

For work with the internal portal of employees on production on each mine administration of Uralkali engineers of Softline designed and set eight information booths running Windows 8.1 OS with the 17-inch touch screen, the card reader and the laser printer for printing of documents of A4 format. The information booths set in seven mine administrations of Uralkali provide access to a corporate portal via the web browser. The input in the section of the personified services is performed after authorization using the admission of the employee.

Result

Development of the system of knowledge management became the most important block in the project. It was essentially important for the customer that information on existence of documents was available to each employee of the company. Earlier information contained both in different workflow systems, and in file folders of the general access. Now all materials are stored on the portal and the server of the organization, at the same time their cards are displayed on the portal. Documents are sorted by subjects and categories, in the knowledge base of Uralkali already more than 13.5 thousand documents at the moment.

Olga Smirnova, the chief of the center of corporate media and informing management of internal communications of directorate on personnel of JSC Uralkali, noted: "In structures of "Uralkali' more than 20 thousand work human. Only the office personnel could use a corporate portal. It was required to provide broad availability of information of the general and HR character for increase in loyalty and the involvement of staff of all divisions of the company".

"The main idea of the project was to make corporate information available for a wide range of users. It managed to be reached at the expense of the updated interface and content of the portal and also installation of information booths on mine administrations. Terminals provide with information of those employees whose workplace is not equipped with the PC. In the first months of work of the portal its attendance grew three times" — Olga Smirnova commented on project results.

Pavel Vakhnin, the CIO of JSC Uralkali, told: "As all IT infrastructure of "Uralkali' is constructed mainly on solutions of Oracle, we had to carry out a complex of technically complex works on integration with SharePoint. The portal is integrated with many applications of the company: by mail based on Exchange Server, the system of communications Lync Server, business products of Oracle (personnel, the corporate reporting, project management) and also with a directory service of the Active Directory and an electronic document management system based on Lotus Notes that was not in the old version of the portal".

"The project in "Uralkali' — one of the most sign for last year. In terms of the scope of the solution supports work of all personnel of group: a corporate portal and SUZ — up to 5 thousand users from stationary PCs and mobile devices, information booths — up to 20 thousand users without PC, but with magnetic cards — Sergey Zharov, the project manager of department of solutions of Microsoft of Softline company noted. — I want to note harmonious and effective work of a project team from "Uralkali company with our specialists. Works were conducted in two directions — a corporate portal and a knowledge management system, on each of them the customer always "had the finger on the pulse' and in every possible way helped us. We, thanks to such harmonious work, qualitatively approached project implementation and now are completely ready to pass to a stage of technical support of the solution".