Mint has recently completed a project for a leading South African financial institution that will help them to reduce the costs and complexities of managing documents internally.
Similar to most financial institutions, this customer operates across a wide geographical area. The issue that the customer was grappling with was in the distribution of documents to their branches, especially those describing processes and procedures.
Historically, the institution had printed documents and couriered them to their branches, which was both costly and time consuming. They had considered email, but they did not have a consistent platform for the users so not all users would be able to view the document. There was also the issue of version control, as users could edit the document and there was no process for identifying the master document.
Mint provided for a solution that addressed the end-to-end lifecycle of the process: from document creation to the end distribution of the documents themselves. While documents are being created, it is understandable that users need to work together, gleaning input. For this, Mint worked with the customer to deploy Microsoft`s collaboration suite, Windows SharePoint Services.
Beyond collaboration lies the need to publish created documents to the branches within the organisation. Mint created the ability to publish a document from the collaboration area to the finalised document repository. Then, Mint developed a component that translated the original document into web content for viewing, on the fly. In short, documents are created using traditional MS Office software, but the content is made available to the branches using just their web browser.
This prevents the incorrect versions of a document from being made available to branch users. The most up-to-date version is always made available to them, in a format that is viewed, but cannot be downloaded.
Grant Hodgkinson, sales and marketing director at Mint explains, "We provided the capability for content authors to create a self-managed web site, using Content Management Server. Documents were pulled through from SharePoint Portal Server in HTML format. By standardising on HTML, every user, irrespective of their platform, was able to view the document."
Mint helps their customers become more productive and reduce costs in their businesses. Their solution focus is in the area of consulting and development for collaboration, content management, knowledge management, document management and workflow, delivered through portal technologies. Mint is a Johannesburg-based Microsoft Certified Partner and a member of Microsoft`s Seattle-based Partner Advisory Council for Collaboration and Portals.
For more information please visit www.mint.co.za
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