TekReach Solutions | Albatross Cloud

BACKGROUND

Can you please provide some brief background information about your company?

We are a large business located in McLean, Va. We provide a variety of services. The company is a contract service provider for SharePoint mostly for logistics operations.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I am a director of business development. I was the lead for the project. I changed positions, and took over as the transition manager once the contract was awarded. I just finished transitioning this contract. I also put together the request for proposal for the SharePoint work. PortalFront won that bid.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What were your company’s business goals for this particular project?

The interest that we had in SharePoint development was to support a logistics contract that we had won. Part of the requirement in delivering services included a SharePoint application, where we would manage all contract deliverables as a collaboration tool for this program. This includes notification to the individuals who are proving the contract deliverables, requests in a workflow process and many other processes.

SOLUTION

How did you select SharePoint software compared to some of the other platforms you could have used?

SharePoint for us was a requirement that was identified within the solicitation that the government provided. 

Are you satisfied with SharePoint?

I think it does what we need it to do. SharePoint is a Microsoft product,  people are familiar with Microsoft and it’s integrated into Microsoft. All of the information that we’re exporting, exports into the suite that we have easily.

What was your process for selecting PortalFront?

There were 13 companies that bid on the request for proposal that was submitted. We reviewed all of the proposals. Our IT director, me, and the CEO made the final decision. We received price quotes back from everybody to include the technical approach on how they would build and design what was put in the RFP for the SharePoint tool. From 13 companies, it was narrowed down to three. We had the three do a presentation on WebEx. Ultimately, the best company was selected based on their presentation and approach.

What parts of the project was PortalFront involved in?

PortalFront was involved from start to finish. During our meetings with the final three companies we received business plans. PortalFront was involved from the beginning of the concept for the data that would be migrated, to the look and feel of the information, and how it was going to be maintained. PortalFront created everything from the beginning concept all the way to final execution of the system.

Were any other technologies used besides SharePoint?

There’s other technologies for the program, but none that were aligned to the work with SharePoint.

Can you give us a sense of the size of the initiative in dollar terms or personnel hours?

The size of the job is right at $70,000. The number of hours was directly associated with the size of what it was. That was the base. We turned this into a two-phase approach. The initial base phase was just to get the database established with all the key components to it. The key, the tables, what the processes were going to be, and standing up a Web portal was one of the requirements. It had to have the ability to allow individuals to request access, and include a notification system for any information that we dropped into the portal.

So, once the base requirements were established, we shifted to phase two, which kind of expanded on the base. We added a website portal, log-ins, and the notification email. It actually turned into a workflow for each of the processes that we have, and then changed into a dashboard associating each of the processes for the deliverables that we were assigning. Phase two is still ongoing with changes. You don’t really know what fields you may need, and how the information is going to be distributed until you actually start using it with employees in the field. That’s where we are now.

As far as the SharePoint server, everything is working. PortalFront delivered on everything that we needed. It’s just changes for additional things that we think would enhance its capability.

When was the initial part of the project completed?

The end of January of 2013.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Do you have any statistics or metrics to track improvement?

We went through milestones, Gantt charts to show exactly how much time was being spent and the percentage of the things that were being done. All of it was being communicated through Microsoft Project. We were adding tasks for each of the various functions that we were looking to either change or to define. They were defined in the detail that was needed to take action, those things were put on the project plan within the task areas of the work. That is how it was managed. We didn’t keep metrics per say.

Was there a marked improvement in efficiency?

Oh, absolutely. PortalFront has provided a lot of customized training sessions for our employees so they would understand the new system. That has been great for getting employee buy-in.

How did PortalFront perform during the project?

I’m going to use them again. That’s probably the best testament for the support that I’ve received on this program. I talked to their lead about developing another RFP, making sure that all of the things that I want to capture in this are captured in the RFP and work with them. I want PortalFront to provide a good RFP, so that my team will have a good idea for pricing.

I want to use them again on another project. That’s probably going to take a little longer than this one, along the same lines, and it’s more of a recruiting-HR application.

What is unique or special about PortalFront compared to some of the other companies or vendors you have worked with?

They were very clear in their methodology and approach on how they would develop and support the program. They understood the process, and the language in the RFP was not just regurgitated back. They articulated their thoughts and processes for the RFP. If there was something unclear, and then they would write back and ask for clarification. They showed a lot of initiative when trying to understand the RFP. They were not the cheapest, but showed the best understanding.

Looking back on the project, is there any area that you think PortalFront could improve upon or you would do differently?

They’re on the West Coast and we’re on the East Coast, so there is a time difference, but that was taken into account when we selected them. They have addressed that by extending work hours so we would have someone to speak with. It was just a time zone difference from California to Virginia.

BACKGROUND

Can you please provide a brief description of your company?

I work for a subsidiary of a large, global document management corporation. My unit responds to requests for proposals from city, state, federal, and local governments. My unit responds to requests for things like Medicaid, Medicare, red light proposals, food stamps, child support, anything  that the government services wants to put out to bid for. We will bid on either running their system or installing and running a system for them.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I am the director of technology for our marketing support group. I work with a group of 95 to 120 non-technical personnel writers and graphic artists. I support them in all of the systems that they use. The systems include Microsoft products, Adobe products, SharePoint, any tools that they use to do their job. Additionally, I support 850 people who use an in-house SharePoint system that we developed to manage and create proposals for our clients.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was the business challenge you were trying to address?

We needed a document management system to improve productivity and collaboration. We have many proposals to track, and it wasn't done efficiently before the system was implemented.

SOLUTION

How did you select SharePoint?

For the past five years, my company has focused on using SharePoint more. When we were attempting to determine which software we should use for a new proposal development tool, it was an easy decision because we already had SharePoint. SharePoint meshes well with the systems we already have in place and is similar to Microsoft Windows, which our users know.

It was a combination of price, functionality, and usability for our staff. Most of the people that we work with are not technology people.

What was your process for selecting PortalFront?

We put together a request for proposal with all of our requirements. We solicited bids, we received five proposals from separate companies. We evaluated each of those bids on the combination of price and features, customer service, and references. We chose PortalFront out of those five companies.

What parts of the project was PortalFront involved in?

PortalFront set up the environment for us. They have development environments and backups for us that they do on a frequent basis. After they set up the environment, my team set up the SharePoint system.

Were any other technologies used besides SharePoint?

No.

Can you give us a sense of the size of the initiative in dollar terms or personnel hours?

I can’t speak to what they had deployed on the PortalFront side. I can tell you that there are two individuals that we worked with closely from their team. They worked almost full time for five months.

When was the project completed?

We went live in August of 2012.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Do you have any statistics or metrics to track improvement?

It’s very difficult for us to track improvement for the simple fact that the tool that we came from worked completely different from this does. This was a complete paradigm shift for our staff. We have managed more than 200 proposals on it since last August. Some of those proposals are in excess of $30 million contracts. I have more than 850 people currently using the system on a daily basis.

Our employees have been very pleased with the usability. PortalFront did not develop the tool that our end users are using. They developed the environment that the tool sits on. We developed the tool, which is the actual SharePoint solution internally. We maintain that ourselves. PortalFront does not maintain that for us.

Our team was already used to using SharePoint in a minor way. The SharePoint solutions that we were using internally did not have a lot of functionality. They were very simple. It was an out-of-the-box SharePoint solution.  

Now our system is a complex environment that we have been making changes to since last August. It has worked very well for our processes.

How did PortalFront perform during the project?

PortalFront has been excellent to work with. They understood our requirements. They sat down with us to make absolutely sure before they started developing code that they understood our requirements. We have had two, maybe three issues of downtime since last August. The downtime has been very brief. PortalFront has been very quick to jump in and get whatever the problem was resolved. We’ve had very little adverse customer impact. PortalFront has been very good with the OS.

When working with PortalFront, is there anything unique or special about them compared to other companies that you may have worked with?

We have someone that we can actually reach out to on a personal basis any time we have an issue and we’re on deadline. They’re there to support us 24/7, even non-business hours. I’ve been working in this field for about 25 years. That’s something that you don’t see a whole lot – that level of customer service.

Is there any area that you think PortalFront could improve upon or maybe you would do differently?

The only problems with the project were internal, PortalFront was great.