Digital Media Specialists

The end client is a large international professional services organisation with over 800 staff in 27 locations in 16 countries around the globe.

Requirement

To develop a secure global Microsoft SharePoint intranet solution to allow company staff to have easy access to confidential information about highly sensitive clients and deals combined with a user friendly interface to encourage use and build a sense of community within the organisation.

Key functional elements included:

• Full integration with the clients existing authentication and employee data based around Microsoft Active Directory
• Secure document library with the ability for users to post documents and comments for users of the site to access with differing permissions levels controlled by the site administrators
• Ability for site users to post news, files, images and content into a workflow, approval and editing system before administrators make it live on the site
• Page creating tools to allow local offices to create their own sections on the site
• A moderated system of commenting on news and general information content
• The integration of interactive Rich Media elements to enrich user experience

Technical Solution

The foundation for the application was SharePoint 2007 64bit edition integrated with a MS SQL 2008 database.

Given the functional requirements of the project it was decided to only use SharePoint core components for approximately 60% of the build and develop custom web parts and other .net based functionality for the remaining 40%.

Additional elements were created by integrating JavaScript and Flash with both the frontend and the underlying application and database.

Project Mechanics

The first phase of the project ran for approximately six months from initial scoping to launch and involved very close cooperation with the client at all stages of the project. Some key stages of the project included:

• Developing a full functional and technical specification in conjunction with the client’s IS department and an internal development environment that exactly replicated the client’s proposed live platform to ensure compatibility of the final site
• Key delivery milestones where we delivered and installed releases directly to the clients live environment
• Final configuration of the client’s live environment and delivery of the final release for the first phase
• Providing global ongoing support of the live site from a technical and administrative perspective

Conclusion

By working closely in partnership with the agency and by collectively choosing the best areas of the site that would effectively use SharePoint’s in-built features and other areas where the best option was to develop new functionality from scratch we were able to build upon the strong foundation provided by SharePoint whilst creating functionality and look and feel that provided a very rich and interactive user experience.

The site has been extremely well received and has been successful both technically and through meeting its organisational goals and we are now working with the client on phases 2 and 3 to expand its functionality and reach even further.