ECOSERV consultants and clients will soon be able to work together on projects even when they are miles apart, thanks to the company`s new Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server.
"Consultants and customers can access their files and collaborate on projects online," says ECOSERV MD Quentin Hurt. "This will have a huge impact in terms of delivering information where our consultants need it and allowing clients to access their file archives at any moment."
Yashna Sewraj, who is administering the server, will create personalised sites for clients, where ECOSERV can integrate information from various departments into one site. "We will post all our electronic reports and any related information that will appear in the appendix of the report, such as site notes, calculations and raw data," says Yashna.
Another motivating factor for implementing SharePoint is that external employees - in Cape Town, Richards Bay and Johannesburg as well as those in the field with a laptop - will have real time access to a central document store and contact lists, she says.
"Our consultants are increasingly working out of the office and really appreciate the portal," Yashna says. "It has speeded up access to data quite dramatically for these people."
A key tool of the portal is the Google-like search feature, which enables users to retrieve information from emails, reports and spreadsheets. "It is a powerful tool because we have accumulated huge amount of electronic data and we can now locate it and sift through it with ease," Quentin says.
"We are finding increasingly that our key clients are taking on more and more responsibility and it is important that they have the ability to find documents quickly."
Another key feature is the ability for users to know when someone else is working on document. "It allows you to physically check out documents so questions are better handled. And people don`t necessarily have to be sitting right next to each other to be collaborating on a document - they can simply do it online."
In terms of privacy and security, ECOSERV has set up a monitoring system to check that the network is secure. "All the documents require a high level of security to access," Quentin says. "Customers need specific logons and will only be able to see their personalised site. We have also purchased a certificate security system to make sure only people we know are using it."
The SharePoint Portal Server has been a fairly expensive project in terms of software that needed to be installed and the number of providers ECOSERV has worked with to get it working properly.
"Fulcrum, and more specifically Fulcrum director Dries van Colff, have impressed us with their thoroughness and commitment to making sure it works properly," says Quentin.
The portal has been favourably tested in Nigeria and other remote places and has proved to be a reliable way of letting people access the information they need. A few customer sites are being run on a test basis before it is rolled out on a wider basis.
"The portal keeps us on the cutting edge of information technology and allows us to work better as a team. Even though clients and colleagues are becoming more and more widely distributed, the portal enables us to work even closer together."
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