| An Post SharePoint Intranet Solution |
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An Post is a major commercial organisation providing a wide range
of services which encompass postal, communication, retail and money
transmission services. It is one of Ireland's largest companies
directly employing over 9,500 people through its national network
of retail, processing and delivery points.
In the summer of 2008, System Dynamics was awarded the contract
by An Post, for the provision of a range of services and solutions,
building on the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007)
platform. An Post was looking to implement the MOSS 2007 platform,
widen their knowledge of the environment and its capabilities,
and build a new intranet solution for their CEO Corner.
The CEO Corner is part of An Post’s current Intranet which
acts as a communication platform between the CEO and company employees.
As well as being a useful channel for dissemination of information
and documents, the CEO Corner also allows for interaction and feedback
between employees and the CEO on issues relevant to An Post business.
Some of the primary objectives for the redesign of the new CEO
Corner were:
- To provide a user-friendly and accessible Intranet design that
can be used as a platform to promote internal communications.
- To foster a culture of transparency and openness between employees
and the CEO via an improved interface design, rich content and
user-friendly navigation.
- To provide a central repository for documentation to pass onto
staff.
- To establish transparency and remove confusion around location
and document version control.
- To keep employees up to date on company news and initiatives,
key milestones and projects.
The Challenge
There were a number of key challenges involved in this delivery,
in areas such as operational implementation, intranet site design
and training.
The operational challenge was the physical implementation of the
MOSS 2007 platform. An Post is currently using MOSS 2003 but this
was to be a separate implementation and not an upgrade/migration
from existing environments. The architecture was to provide an
element of resilience by having two front-end servers serving up
the application and a separate SQL server and Indexing server.
The intranet site design and development centred on the needs
of the CEO Corner but were to be delivered in a way that would
support other areas of the business. The challenge here was to
look to deliver a solution with predominantly out of the box functionality
while at the same time achieving a solution that would deliver
the following (specifically for their current CEO Corner site):
- A more engaging and flexible homepage design.
- Consistent template driven content.
- Intuitive content approval and publishing.
- A site that is clear and easy to navigate.
- Readily available information, provided in the right format,
to the right people.
- A place where staff can have their say.
- Intelligent presentation of related information.
The training needs were relevant to both IT and Business user
groups. The key questions being asked by the IT users related to
the MOSS 2007 platform and its capabilities, both in isolation
and when integrated with other solutions. For the business users,
the key requirement was the acquisition of knowledge to support
their use and maintenance of the CEO Corner intranet site.
The Approach
System Dynamics held several collaborative sessions with An Post
to understand, document and finalise the specific requirements
they had. An approach was then outlined in three separate streams
such that the operational, site design and development, and training
deliverables could be delivered in a managed and transparent way
converging at a single point. The platform implementation, the
knowledge required to take on the platform and the developed intranet
solution were all delivered in a manner that supported each stream
in isolation and as a combined delivery.
Several challenges were met along the way in the area of specific
requirements and business processes and through collaboration with
An Post, System Dynamics adapted and customised the solution in
order to help address these challenges, many of which were discovered
during the development phase of delivery.
System Dynamics built upon the existing functionality of MOSS
2007 and provided many additional features resulting in a better
design for the CEO Corner site.
System Dynamics also provided assistance in relation to content
creation and migration, typically a business user task, following
a decision to adopt a different approach to content management
in the later stages of development.
It is our adaptability and experience in delivering high end solutions
that allowed us to identify and understand the limitations in MOSS
2007 and to extend the products’ capabilities to overcome
these limitations and this is something we can offer to clients
looking for solutions built upon the MOSS 2007 platform.
The Solution
System Dynamics delivered the following core requirements to An
Post:
- Deployment of the Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007 platform
in An Post.
- Mentoring and Training on the SharePoint platform.
- Design and implementation of a new Intranet Design with focus
on the CEO Corner.
The Benefits
The SharePoint Intranet Solution will deliver the following key
benefits to An Post:
- Best of breed document management solution.
- Consistent template driven content.
- Integration options for other productivity solutions.
- Improved skills and knowledge of SharePoint for IT and the
business communities.
- Powerful and engaging intranet site for their CEO corner.
- Firm foundation upon which to build an organisation wide intranet.
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