Microsoft Office SystemCustomer Solution Case Study

IT Consulting Company Improves Knowledge Management, Streamlines Workflow

OverviewCountry or Region: United StatesIndustry: Professional services

Customer ProfileSt. Louis–based Quilogy provides IT solutions to companies throughout the United States through 14 offices. Founded in 1992, the 275-employee company reported 2004 revenues of U.S.$34 million.

Business SituationAlthough the company had a comprehensive intranet that provided access to custom, mission-critical applications, Quilogy needed a more efficient way to centralize business documents and customer data.

SolutionQuilogy implemented Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Portal Server 2003, making all applications, documents, and advanced workflow capabilities available to its dispersed work force in a single location.

Benefits One data storage and distribution

point Better management of customer

engagements with improved

“With SharePoint Portal Server 2003, we’ve seen a tremendous improvement in managing customer engagements.”Alan Groh, Chief Technology Officer, Quilogy

Quilogy, an IT services company, is constantly seeking innovative ways to improve its productivity. As part of an ongoing effort to improve internal systems, the company had developed a corporate intranet that housed 250 Web-based, business-critical applications built using the Microsoft® .NET Framework. But with no way to associate relevant documents and other unstructured data with those applications in the intranet, the company faced inefficiencies when it came to storing, seeking, and reusing information. To address those issues, the company incorporated the intranet applications into Microsoft Office SharePoint® Portal Server 2003 and created portal sites for groups to collaborate and store documents. As a result of the new solution, the company has created a single point for applications and data, improved project management, and created a model that can be tailored for customers.

SituationBased in St. Louis, Missouri, IT consulting firm Quilogy employs 275 people in 14 offices, including consultants and technology experts. Since 1992, the company has focused on using emerging technologies to solve complex business problems for midsize corporations. Over the years, Quilogy has amassed a wide range of awards from industry experts and publications for its forward-thinking applications and solutions.

A key part of Quilogy’s success comes from deploying within the company many of the solutions that it markets. The reason for this strategy is twofold. “We’ve always stressed having up-to-date systems internally, because there’s a definite cost and productivity advantage,” says Alan Groh, Chief Technology Officer of Quilogy. “We also like to deploy many of our products internally first, so we can show clients exactly how they work.”

As a Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner, Quilogy has been creating and deploying Microsoft solutions since its inception. The company’s intranet portal was one such solution. The portal, MyQ, consolidated more than 250 custom-built applications so that employees could access them over the Internet. Ranging from human-resources forms to accounting programs based on the company’s Microsoft Business Solutions–Great Plains® accounting software, the applications had been developed by using the Microsoft .NET Framework

(an integral component of the Microsoft Windows® operating system that provides a programming model and runtime for Web services, Web applications, and smart client applications).

MyQ also had workflow management tools. For instance, a consultant could enter an expense report, which is first routed to the appropriate person for approval and then to the financial department. Then, the financial department posts the transaction to Microsoft Great Plains Payables and the General Ledger.

Although MyQ gave employees access to programs, the portal didn’t have a way to structure the data associated with customer engagements and other projects. Consultants stored this information in different places, including their hard disks, public folders accessed through the Microsoft Office Outlook® 2003 messaging and collaboration client, or the network. To improve its productivity, Quilogy needed a centralized repository of information to support current projects and create new proposals. The company also wanted to be able to search across all documents for a particular type of information. “We really needed to be able to weave together the structured data from our systems with related documents that were stored in a variety of places,” explains Groh.

SolutionIn June 2003, Microsoft contacted Quilogy to build demonstration

“We view SharePoint Portal Server as a development environment because it’s highly customizable. We can develop custom Web applications and tailor the solution to deliver the right information.”

models of, and add-in applications for, Microsoft Office SharePoint® Portal Server 2003. During this project, Quilogy realized that SharePoint Portal Server was the ideal way to associate the MyQ applications with a centralized repository of information.

After conducting a short pilot program, Quilogy migrated MyQ—along with its 250 custom applications—to SharePoint Portal Server 2003, a process that the company completed in December 2004. Now, every piece of information relating to the com-pany’s operations—whether it resides in applications or documents—is available from within SharePoint Portal Server. Groh explains, “We view SharePoint Portal Server as a development environment because it’s highly customizable. We can develop custom Web applications and tailor the solution to deliver the right information.”Employees log on to the portal from within a Web browser. The Active Directory® service validates the employee, while data pulled from Microsoft SQL ServerTM

2000—part of Microsoft Windows Server SystemTM integrated server software—determines how pages are displayed according to job function. For instance, the portal home page for managers is an executive dashboard from which they can view key performance indicators from the accounting

system, but the home page for consultants focuses on current projects.

From the customized home page, employees can search portal sites for specific information, track action items as part of the workflow process, and subscribe to alert notifications. If an employee needs to go to a specific application or portal site, the Q Explorer navigation bar, a Quilogy-developed addition to SharePoint Portal Server, provides readily available links to all pertinent areas. Q Explorer is always available, no matter where the user is in the portal.

To improve knowledge sharing both within and between groups, Quilogy has created four categories of sites available from the portal: departmental sites, profit-center areas, engagement sites, and national practice sites. Quilogy defines its national practice groups as experts in

Quilogy has customized SharePoint Portal Server so that it can incorporate a wide range of

a particular technology field, such as business intelligence, business applications, or interactive development. Groups within each site category can set up additional sites according to their needs. Furthermore, the MySite feature of SharePoint Portal Server 2003 enables individuals to set up personal pages that detail their areas of expertise, thereby generating additional knowledge resources for other portal users.

Quilogy has customized SharePoint Portal Server so that it can incorporate a wide range of information sources—from documents and files created in Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003 or viewed in Microsoft Windows Media® 9 Series to images and animation files. Furthermore, the company hasconfigured a prerelease version of Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005, which provides real-time communication within an organization, so that it can be accessed through SharePoint Portal Server. As a result, employees have more ways to collaborate and communicate—yet the portal remains the hub for all information. For instance, an employee can sign up to receive workflow alerts by instant message or e-mail message, on a portable computer at a remote site, or even on a personal digital assistant (PDA) or Windows MobileTM–based Smartphone. Once an employee completes a task, however, the updated information is automatically stored within the portal.

Quilogy has developed additional Web parts and programs that enhance its custom applications. The company maintains its company data in SQL Server 2000. The Web parts that Quilogy developed funnel information from the SQL Server database to the appropriate SharePoint sites and, if applicable, create a workflow to route the information to the correct parties within the organization. For example, Quilogy has created a custom application that connects Microsoft Great Plains and SharePoint Portal Server. When consultants seek approval for travel, they fill out a Web-based form. SharePoint Portal Server routes the form to the appropriate person for approval and then sends it to the Accounting department, which creates a travel approval number that is used when filing the expense report. This process ultimately allows Microsoft Great Plains to assign travel expenses to the right account and pay out the expense check. Quilogy has also developed a system of alerts that notifies the parties involved in a given transaction that they need to perform a task, such as approve an expense report. As a result, tasks can be completed more quickly. Finally, the company has configured the portal solution so that each site has a consistent appearance and data is easy to find.

BenefitsQuilogy is focused on continually improving its own systems and then extending those improvements to its

clients. Therefore, any way in which the company can improve productivity and internal operations is a boon to business. Not only has SharePoint Portal Server 2003 provided a centralized repository for information and centralized access to business-critical applications, but it has also enhanced workflow and improved efficiency—both for internal communications and external customer engagements.

One Storage and Distribution Point for Applications and DataOne of the biggest benefits of implementing SharePoint Portal Server has been the establishment of a single area where all business-critical applications, documents, and other data reside—including all information related to customer engage-ments. Whether they are consultants, members of the marketing department, or managers, all employees now have easier access to data. In addition, because the portal is the required entry point for all inter-nal applications, the company has more opportunities to inform employees about current events and other information.

“We’re seeing a lot of cross-linking between our line-of-business applications and the portal content,” says Groh. “All our opera-tional data is being augmented with the corresponding documents.”

Better Management of Customer Projects

Now that the company is able to store all the data associated with a project in a central-ized site, project management has improved. Each project site includes a console, which the project manager uses to keep track of contracts, project documents, consulting hours, budgets, issues needing resolution, ex-penses, client communications, and project status. The information is always up-to-date because the company’s database is tied into the portal. For instance, every time a consul-tant enters his or her hours, the information is sent to the database and immediately shows up within SharePoint Portal Server. “With SharePoint Portal Server 2003, we’ve seen a tremendous improvement in mana-ging customer engagements,” says Groh.

Cost-Efficiency Due to AutomationWith SharePoint Portal Server, the company has set up a series of alerts, which can now be sent to PDAs or Windows Mobile–based Smartphones. As a result, Quilogy has reduced the amount of time required to complete a task. “There is definitely a cost advantage to having automated systems,” says Groh. “Using SharePoint Portal Server, we’ve reduced the amount of time spent managing the workflow process.”

Superior Quality of InformationPreviously, information resided in many different areas, making it difficult for consultants to access information about a customer or to use a current engagement as the blueprint for a new sales proposal.

“We can access all our custom applications from the SharePoint site. And … we can save any type of document from within the portal.”Alan Groh, Chief Technology Officer, Quilogy

However, now that all documents reside on the SharePoint site, consultants can gain immediate access to the data that they need.

In addition, the company maintains document libraries, which are configured to track document versions and take advantage of the check-in and check-out features. As a result, employees have access to the most current documents—and know with certainty which version they are working on. “With our SharePoint site, employees open, work on, and save documents directly within the portal,” says Groh. “This eliminates the confusion associated with having multiple versions of a document and helps ensure the integrity of data.”

The SharePoint site has also helped improve the quality of data by offering detailed searching capabilities. One of Quilogy’s primary goals for the new solution was the ability to search all portal sites—a requirement that SharePoint Portal Server has fulfilled. Now, employees can search across the entire portal; the search includes not only text content and document titles, but also each document’s content.

Better CollaborationOne of the benefits that a knowledge management solution provides is better collaboration among employees. With SharePoint Portal Server, different departmental and product groups have a structured way to communicate with one another and share project information. The

company has encouraged the flow of information among its employees because all employees must log on to the portal to access their business-critical applications and project information. “By using the SharePoint site as a required part of everyday business, we now have the opportunity to inform employees about what’s going on,” says Groh. “They’re also encouraged to share documents and ideas.”

Full Access to All Business Applications from the PortalWith SharePoint Portal Server, every business application the company uses is available from anywhere within the portal. That includes the 250 custom applications developed by Quilogy for human resources, sales and marketing, and operations, as well as the Microsoft Office System programs, such as Microsoft Office Word 2003, Excel 2003, and Outlook 2003. “We can access all our custom applications from the SharePoint site,” says Groh. “And the integration between the Microsoft Office System and the SharePoint site means that we can save any type of document from within the portal.”

Enterprisewide LearningQuilogy has also used SharePoint Portal Server as the foundation for its learning management system, the Quilogy Learning Platform. With the Quilogy Learning Platform, employees can access training and customer evidence courses, assessments, and their personal training records, while managers have better visibility into

their employees’ achievements and goals. “SharePoint Portal Server has provided an environment for creating the Quilogy Learning Platform for enterprisewide learning,” says Groh. “We consider this a key offering to our customers.”

Microsoft Office SystemThe Microsoft Office System is the business world’s chosen environment for information work, providing the programs, servers, and services that help you succeed by transforming information into impact.

For more information about the Microsoft Office System, go to: www.microsoft.com/office

For More InformationFor more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to: www.microsoft.com

For more information about Quilogy products and services, call (866) QUILOGY (784-5649) or visit the Web site at: www.quilogy.com

© 2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Microsoft, Active Directory, Great Plains, the Office logo, Outlook, SharePoint, Windows, Windows Media, Windows Mobile, and Windows Server System are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.Document published February 2005

Software and Services Microsoft Office System

− Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003

− Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005

− Microsoft Office Outlook 2003− Microsoft Office SharePoint

Portal Server 2003 Microsoft Business Solutions—

Great Plains Microsoft Windows Server System

− Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Microsoft Windows Media 9 Series

Technologies− Active Directory− Microsoft .NET Framework

Hardware Dell PowerEdge Servers Xiotech Storage Area Networks