Fenestrae B.V.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a SharePoint administrator and developer. I head up the development, migration, and administration of SharePoint for our clients.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Fenestrae B.V.?

My client, who had 15 locations around the country, wanted to scan invoices and store them in SharePoint. The invoices would be searchable, and SharePoint would pull out certain information and store it in a document library. 

The challenge was that people were storing invoices elsewhere (e.g. in their Outlook “sent” box). So, this solution would provide one location for invoices, where everyone can scan them to the same email address.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They supported the creation of the invoice processing system.

First, I built a SharePoint document library with fields and columns that the client wanted to be extracted off their invoices. Then, I built in Fenestrae B.V.’s processing software, udocx. 

I targeted everything that needed to be searchable or removed from the invoice and placed in the metadata columns in the library. This included creating a unique name for each file (e.g. taking the company’s name, invoice number, and invoice date).

Sometimes we were getting hit-and-misses with the first rollout, so I've been a big beta-tester for them. I've spent quite a bit of time developing things, asking questions and helping them get better results, even giving them ideas on changes I'd like to see. 

For example, when I first started the project, we were having a number of errors. Fenestrae B.V. expedited the process for me and my client so it would work 100% of the time. 

What is the team composition?

My contact used to be a lady named Sandra (Former VP Alliances, Fenestrae B.V.), but she left for another opportunity. I’ve also worked with is Fabien (VP Business Development, Fenestrae B.V.), Hülya (Project Manager, Fenestrae B.V.), and Dean (Technical Consultant, Fenestrae B.V.). 
 
How did you come to work with Fenestrae B.V.?

We found them through Google searches. We spoke with a lot of vendors, and we found Fenestrae B.V. to be doing what we required. The other vendors were going to be too expensive, or they didn’t do quite as good of a job. 

How much have you invested with them?

We paid one yearly fee up-front for this project. We were able to purchase large quantities of pages upfront to get better pricing. There’s no software to buy, as it all sits in the cloud.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in October of 2018. We’re still involved with them, and we’re currently rolling out two more forms (other than invoices) that the client wants to be scanned in.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Now, the end-user can scan the invoice to their desktop, send it via email to where it needs to go, and then Fenestrae B.V.’s automation will processes that on the backend. The supporting documentation gets sent together along with the invoice in one scanned object PDF file. 

I’m setting everything up to scan to one email address, so there’s really no work on the end-user’s end. They just scan it, and boom—it’s processed.

Instead of searching through their “sent” files, they can easily find the data they need in the document library. (This is useful if they need to re-send an invoice.)

The other great thing is if they have 5–6 invoices, they can scan them all in one lump sum, and Fenestrae B.V.’s automation will split them up each time a new page comes in. If you’re scanning five invoices total and they’re all from different clients, they’ll get broken up as specifically as needed.

How did Fenestrae B.V. perform from a project management standpoint?

How frequently we communicate varies depending on what we’re working on. If we’re trying to solve an issue, we’ll send emails back and forth every day for a week until the issue is resolved. 

It can be difficult with the time difference (it’s about a 6-8 hour time difference), but they are really responsive. 

They have a support team in Atlanta even though they are in the Netherlands. The gentleman in Atlanta does a really good job. They’re very responsive to any issues when we’re going through beta testing and the development cycle.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I liked their software interface. It’s easy to use and easy to pick locations on the documents to scan. It’s all web-based, which is nice. Also, I don’t have have to maintain any software at the client’s location or my location. 
 
Are there any areas they could improve?

I’ve been making suggestions about making things easier for the end-user, and they’ve been following those suggestions. For example, today we were reviewing a new form and the user asked to change something. It wasn’t a problem at all. They’ve been very responsive, easygoing, and helpful.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Potential customers should seriously consider hiring them. Even though they’re in the Netherlands, they’ve been responsive, and they have the support in Atlanta, too.