Velosio

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Director of IT for one of the leading companies in consumer organization products.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Velosio, and what were your goals??

We needed to transition away from our hosted phone system to Microsoft Teams Voice. We wanted to save money in the process.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

I have worked with Velosio in the past and have always had a great experience with their implementation staff.

Describe the project in detail and walk through their service package, including any calling tools used.

The project entailed migrating away from our current phone provider. We needed the Teams Voice system to work just the same as the existing system.

Who did you work with and what was the feedback process like?

We worked with Tammy Corso and Jonathan Darling - and they were both amazing. Jonathan did an amazing job of configuring the system, and basically handing it over to us turn-key.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the service?

We had numerous compliments from our customer care team on how easy this transition was. They were very happy with the way this project went so smooth.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

Jonathan was great with keeping a cadence on our weekly meetings on status reports. I always knew where he was in the process, and was able to accurately give progress reports to my executives.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

I was impressed with their professionalism and how quickly they were able to get me the right resources in such a short amount of time.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

None - this was a great experience.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

DM AIRPORTS, LTD. operates and manages all aspects of Morristown Airport from airfield & infrastructure management, hangar and real estate development, community relations and more.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Velosio?

We hired Velosio to help us reshape our Microsoft Teams and SharePoint applications to improve our internal company collaboration and communication. When we were forced into rolling out Microsoft Teams during the pandemic, we did not have a full understanding of the product and created more problems than we tried to solve. Velosio was brought in to help us leverage Teams to enhance company-wide performance.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

One of our current consultants works under the Velosio umbrella and we ended connecting with our Teams and SharePoint contact that way.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

Velosio first took a look at our existing structure of Teams. They then did a dive into our lines of business to help us streamline our Teams structure to better fit our day-to-day work.

Along the way, they explained the connectivity of Teams, SharePoint, permissions, policies, etc. to help us set up the structure in a way that would allow us to work more efficiently.

We have introduced the new structure to our executive team and are currently working on final adjustments before rolling out the new structure to the company as a whole.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

Jonathan Darling ran point and was our main point of contact and educator. Jon also brought in the help of Rod Darling to explain the intricacies of SharePoint and how it ties to Teams. On our weekly calls, Jon also had the help of Simar Singh

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Our newly designed Teams structure has already demonstrated to our team how affective the product can be for us when used correctly. We went from having over 60 individual teams to 10.

This allows for more organization and will force people into requesting a Channel within the constructs of the newly created Teams, allowing us to manage our "Teams Sprawl" and audit the usage of each Team more regularly to archive/remove those not being used.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Very effective. At the beginning of the project, our weekly calls were met with follow up action items for both parties and led to productive meetings.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Jonathan and his team at Velosio really took the time to understand where are problems were, and while we focused on a restructuring of Teams, he brought up plenty of ideas and solutions that we hadn't thought of before.

Our company has varying levels of comfortability when it comes to new technology, and he took that into consideration with every suggestion. Jonathan also made a special in-person trip to our company to do some hands-on training with our leadership team to make sure they were fully comfortable before moving forward.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

We were very satisfied with their work and would recommend using them to anyone.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Moore's does Commercial Construction, Industrial, and Commercial Service work primarily involving the HVAC, Piping, Plumbing, and Electrical trades. My position is IT Project Manager and I work as a part of the team that oversees all of the technology across Moore's, from PCs and laptops, to iPhones and iPads, and all the servers and software that goes along with it.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Velosio?

We initially got involved with Velosio (then SBS Group) as our Dynamics SL VAR. We needed first-class support in that area and we've definitely gotten that. Once we realized we needed to be looking to the cloud for other Microsoft solutions, it made sense to partner with Velosio on that as well.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We had an existing positive relationship with Velosio so it made sense to lean on them in this area of need.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

We already had a Microsoft 365 subscription, but it was only for software (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, etc.). The first thing we had to do was determine what new subscriptions we needed and get those purchased. We worked with Bert to determine the best options and get those purchased.

We then worked with Brian to get our tenant configured correctly and syncing with our local AD. We migrated Exchange mailboxes and started setting up Teams, with Jonathan, simultaneously. We wrapped the Exchange migration up in late March and we went live with Teams on April 1st.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We primarily worked with 3 people: Bert to determine correct licensing, Brian on Exchange and Azure AD, and Jonathan on Teams. We also had valuable assistance from members of Brian's and Jonathan's teams, working with Joseph and Simar.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The project was a great success. We moved 600+ mailboxes to Exchange Online and 300+ users from Skype on-premise to Teams. Obviously every technology project has hiccups, but we always had solutions and plans to address them and everything went pretty well.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Very effective. We met at least weekly for each project and had other calls or emails exchanged as needed.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

We've always had a level of comfort working with Velosio. They know the Microsoft ecosystem inside and out and that's why we continue to choose them for our support needs.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

None from our perspective.

BACKGROUND

Can you give a little background on what your company does?

Actually, we are a non-profit trade association. We have two nonprofits and we have a new for-profit company we just started 15 months ago. BroadPoint has been with our company for probably more than a decade, before I even got here. They handle all of our accounting for both the two nonprofits and the one for-profit. We are a membership-based company on one side, and then an educational institute on the other side for the two nonprofits. The for-profit is a publication company. We actually have a magazine that we produce on a bimonthly basis.

SOLUTION

Could you tell me about the work that they do for you?

They are our consultants. They do a lot of the formatting of our financials. When I had to start up the new company 15 months ago, they basically came in-house. We had to discuss the nature of the company, that it had to be a for-profit. It had to be set up a little bit different. They helped us design our financial statements, helped us set up the chart of accounts, and link up everything that we’re going to be doing using credit cards. Every company is different in how they want to operate. They helped us from the ground up to create everything that we needed for budgeting purposes, for financial formatting, setting up the chart of accounts, and getting us started. So that’s what they did for the for-profit.

For the nonprofit, they do maintenance behind the scenes every year. BroadPoint is always cleaning up. They always recommend when we need new versions, when stuff is starting to expire, and inform us about the new version that are coming out. We have to do it every couple of years. When needed, we actually have them come out sometimes and do work with us on-site. However, they often are able to dial in remotely and take over our system. If there’s a little error that we can’t fix, I can call them. They’ll dial in and they will take over the computer and go behind the scenes to correct the issue. Then we’re back up and running again.

Do you know which version of Microsoft Dynamics they’ve installed for you?

It was Great Plains.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How happy are you with the results so far?

I love Great Plains, but I love BroadPoint. I’ve been with them for so long. It’s just a small world because when I came here, they were already in place. I knew four of the guys who were consultants. This world is small because I had worked with them before. It was really nice to know that the company I came to were a client of theirs. I had a nice comfort level.

When working with BroadPoint, is there anything that you find unique or special compared to other vendors that you’ve worked with?

Well, they’re very responsive. We’ve been loyal to them and they’ve very loyal to us. For example, our BroadPoint rep has taken a lot more responsibility such as overseeing more than thirty people. So we’re one of the few clients that he still will come to onsite because of the relationship. It’s all about relationships.

We’ve been with them for so long and we have just a very good rapport. If we really need him to come on-site, he will carve some time out and schedule an appointment and come out. If he can’t come out, which he normally can, he’ll send his assistant who we have gotten to know during the last seven years. That person is excellent. Sometimes he’ll send the other guy out just because it’s a cheaper hourly rate. He’s trying to save us money. But, we don’t mind paying.

They’re very hands on. They respond immediately. When you send out an email, such as when I go through an audit, there’s certain things that auditors need. They always have to write these special reports for me. They get it done. Like I’ll say, “Guys, my audit starts in two weeks. I’m going to need these reports. This is what they’re requesting for this year.” They will customize reports. They’ll put it in a version that my auditors need because our auditors are paperless. They do everything electronically. They’ll put it in a format where I can just send it to him by email, it’s done. So, they save me a lot of time and money. The auditors love them, too because they make their job easier. The way they send it, it’s imported in their existing software. Nobody has to do anything manual, which is real nice.

Is there anything that you think they could improve upon?

No, because we’re pretty needy. We’re needy every now and then. They’re just very accommodating to us, so I can’t say anything negative because we’re kind of spoiled by them. They really take care of us. It’s because of the relationship built during the years. We’ve grown a lot with them.

They’ve made our life a lot easier because of their experience. They have a lot of other clients similar to us, so they will share with us some of their ideas or ways that we can import stuff instead of doing it all manually and doing duplicate work. We trust them. So, we go with what they say. They have made life much easier. We work definitely smarter, not harder, just because of the intelligence behind the scenes and the way they can make things work. You still get the information you need. It can be shared with different parties. They can get what they need as well like the auditors. That’s a great thing.