About Entrac Technologies
Founded in 1989, Entrac Technologies, Inc. over the years has established itself as a leader in providing secure, easy-to-use card based access to common self-serve business equipment including printers, fax machines, photo printing kiosks and desktop computers. Headquartered in Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada, Entrac’s card-based access control solution ExpressPay is used in 2,000 locations throughout North America by clients such as OfficeDepot, FedEx Kinko’s, and Staples.
“It is often a challenge rolling out technology to a technology company. SharePointHQ was able to not only meet our requirements but exceed our expectations.” – Micah Kornberg, President of Entrac Technologies Inc.
Challenges
Entrac strives to be at the forefront of technology both within its vertical and in providing its employees with the latest productivity tools and technologies. That’s why when Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007(MOSS 2007) was released Entrac was one of the first companies to make the transition from Share- Point Portal Server 2003(SPS 2003). Entrac’s business challenge was determining how to best transition to SharePoint 2007 without disrupting day-to-day business operations. The new Intranet needed to optimize SharePoint 2007’s new features while maintaining continuity with the old site. Specific solution requirements were the need for robust document management, the ability to access and manipulate spreadsheets online, and advanced collaborative features.
Solution
After attempting to install SharePoint 2007 in-house, Entrac turned to SharepontHQ, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, to implement its new SharePoint 2007 -based Intranet. SharePointHQ met with Entrac’s stakeholders to audit the new portal’s specifications and whether to perform an upgrade, migration or a clean install of MOSS 2007. At the completion of the audit of Entrac’s requirements, SharePointHQ’s consultants recommended a clean install of SharePoint 2007. SharePointHQ’s consultants delivered Share- Point 2007 to Entrac implemented using best practices that mitigated Entrac’s implementation risks, costs and time. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, SharePoint Designer 2007 and SQL Server 2005 were the principle technologies used in the implementation. Entrac’s SharePoint portal was built upon MOSS 2007’s Collaboration, Portal, and Enterprise Content Management feature groups in addition to Excel Services.
Breaking Down Departmental Silos with SharePoint 2007
To provide end users with both continuity and consistency between the old SharePoint 2003 site and the new SharePoint 2007 -based intranet, SharePointHQ delivered a centralized, branded enterprise Intranet that had the same “look and feel” of the old Intranet. The SharePoint site’s home page interface contained lists of recently added documents and customers, RSS feeds of local weather and news, and an Advanced Search field. To ensure end user adoption, a simple to use Intranet, with intuitive navigation, designed from stakeholder input, where key information was just a click away was delivered to Entrac.
Entrac’s new Intranet portal provided its end users with collaborative tools and technology needed to break down Entrac’s information silos. Collaborative tools and technologies that allow for improved collaboration between its employees, teams and departments were deployed. These collaborative tools included documents workspaces, audience targeted announcements and alerts, wikis, blogs, forums and online meeting sites. Entrac’s corporate culture was promoted through a Culture and News sub-site where employees could learn about the latest company, client and industry news.
Analyzing Business Data using Excel Services
A management sub-site was created to provide Entrac’s management team with an interactive interface to Excel 2007 spreadsheets contained within trusted file locations. This was accomplished using SharePoint 2007’s Excel Services. Through Excel Services, access to both product and project information, contained within Excel workbooks, was made available concurrently to Entrac’s decision makers.
Document Management in SharePoint 2007
A document repository site for all of Entrac’s key documents and files, with sub-folders for customers, departments, resources, images and a dedicated ExpressPay folder, was deployed. The document repository replicated the look and feel of the original SharePoint 2003 document library as it was easy-to-use and familiar to Entrac’s employees. In addition, having the documents located in a central, secure site where access to each document was determined by the end user’s role, ensured that one version of the truth was maintained throughout the company. All documents within the Intranet were enabled with SharePoint’s document management features including major and minor versioning, check-in/check-out, content authoring, and basic content approval workflows. Adobe PDF iFilter was installed and configured to allow for Adobe Acrobat PDFs within the site to be located by SharePoint 2007’s enterprise search feature.
Results
Providing a consistent end user experience, in terms of look and feel, between the old and new Intranets led to a seamless transition to SharePoint 2007 by Entrac’s end users without tying up Entrac’s internal IT resources. This meant that Entrac was able to immediately profit from SharePoint 2007’s tangible benefits such as reduced document printing, filing and storage costs. As important, are the intangible benefits that are realized when employees connect, communicate and collaborate through SharePoint 2007. Through Excel Services and the project management sub-site, Entrac’s key decision makers now have access to enhanced online tools that will allow for better informed, timely business decisions and ensure that ongoing and future projects are delivered on scope, on time and on budget.
In transitioning to SharePoint 2007, Entrac has chosen a secure, scalable, and extensible collaborative Intranet solution that can be customized with business forms, business reports and advanced workflows as Entrac continues to grow.