Business Problem:

• ApplyIT, an information technology company has experienced significant year on year growth and needed a way to efficiently manage it's web site, provide secure access to information to customers, partners and resellers, and also provide a point of access for staff and service departments from 3 separate offices in South Africa.
• Several of ApplyIT's customers are in remote locations and there was a need to create a uniform portal to provide support and coordinate geographically dispersed projects across several countries and in different time zones.
• As a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, ApplyIT had the required skills in SharePoint 2007 and preferential access to Microsoft resources - this presented an opportunity to use SharePoint 2007 to meet ApplyIT's internet and intranet needs, and then offer this solution to customers as a consulting service.

Approach:

• SharePoint 2007 was implemented as a replacement for the old intranet / file shares in use in the company.
• Graphics styling work was done to improve the "look and feel" and to reinforce the company branding.
• A security model based on active directory allowed the public to access parts of the web site, while also allowing authenticated users access to secure areas.
• Some specialised elements were custom developed to improve the blogging functionality and help create communities.
• All old file shares and web sites were decommissioned and a single instance of SharePoint used for all document and information management within the company.
• InfoPath was used to create line of business applications such as travel requisition processing.
• Alerts are used to monitor changes to key documents such as master legal contracts and policy documents.

Results:

• The entire project took about 4 months to complete also allowing the ApplyIT consultants to build specialised skills and experience.
• The www.applyit.com website provides a central point of access for all information within the company, as well as serving as a public web site.
• SharePoint provides all the administrative tools to maintain security groups, provide targetted content to different audiences as well as track usage statistics.
• Adoption within the company has been excellent, the site is easy to navigate and the powerful search capabilities provide quick access to information.
• Document management, version control and publishing features are used extensively.
• Product training is delivered through the portal to partners; including skills assessments and certification exams.
• Staff surveys are done using standard SharePoint functionality.
• Company meetings are planned, documented and archived using meeting workspaces.
• The SharePoint 2007 platform has proven to be reliable, robust and scaleable.  This allows ApplyIT to continue to grow and scale its business into new areas.