The City of Langford, B.C. expects to boost productivity and enhance file search capabilities through its new document management system.
The new system - based on Microsoft Corp.'s Share Point Portal server - is expected to speed up and streamline processing of around two million pages of text.
And that's a far cry from the situation until recently, when Langford used to index all this content but - according to Mike Palmer, information systems administrator at the city - was "very disorganized" with it's filing.
By contrast, he said, the Share Point server is "really good at indexing content both inside and outside the portal." He said the municipality has a high volume of content on file servers that can be indexed from the portal with City employees being none the wiser.
And why was Microsoft selected?
According to Palmer, the city reviewed options from rival content management software vendors as well, but the fact that Langford is largely a Microsoft IT shop helped with the decision.
Share Point was integrated into the city's IT infrastructure which includes Live Communications Server 2003, Exchange Server 2003, and Outlook 2003, as well as a document scanning program.
While a traditional document management offering would provide the necessary controls, it wasn't going to help with the city's collaboration needs, Palmer said. "We were coming at it from a couple of different angles [which included] portals and document management."
There's yet another difference between Langford's setup and a traditional system, according to Rick Martin, a municipality practice leader with Vancouver-based HabaC1ero Consulting Group who helped with the project integration.
At Langford, Martin said, the information architecture has been constructed with the business process in mind. "Everything [users] need to know for [a] specific business process is presented to them on one screen, instead of different folders."
According to Palmer, it was an easy transition architecturally, as the new system "dovetails nicely with our existing look and feel." He said the product offers the same Web interface and look and feel as the Microsoft Office System.
Similar document management servers are available from vendors including Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co. and IBM Corp.
At its Worldwide Partner Conference 2005 on last week, a Microsoft executive said the vendor sees an opportunity to lure partners away from IBM to Microsoft's collaboration software because of the technology migration from the Lotus/Domino platform to Workplace, IBM's next-generation collaboration suite.
"It's a great time to talk to [Lotus partners], given the transition," said Chris Capossela, corporate vice-president of Microsoft's Information Worker Product Management Group. "We might be able to encourage Lotus partners to do something around Microsoft's collaboration technology."
Capossela called Microsoft's collaboration strategy one of the "core scenarios we're interested in winning in." He said the vendor is putting significant marketing muscle behind that objective.
The tight integration Microsoft offers across its collaboration products - including SharePoint Portal Server, Exchange Server, Outlook and Live Communications Server - is a big selling point, according to Ryan Gavin, director of platform strategy for Microsoft.
It enables partners to market and sell a more streamlined offering, he said.
- With files from idG News service
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