Microsoft SharePoint for School District Case Study

To enable its staff of over 15 schools to access and share information

Leverage our expertise in Microsoft^® SharePoint solutions to improve communications, collaboration and knowledge-sharing to better engage your stakeholders and enhance customer service. We are Microsoft-certified for portals and collaboration.

Client situation— A need to improve user access, collaboration and communications

The client, a school district with over 15 schools, has a requirement for an intranet portal for its HR, IT, facilities, transportation, other departments and schools to encourage collaboration and resource sharing. The school district decided to replace its messaging and collaboration solution from FirstClass to SharePoint for their intranet portal to:

• Communicate effectively to staff across the school district
• Encourage collaboration between staff across over 15 schools y
• Enable access to documents from any location with a web-based solution
• Ensure security of school district information assets with restricted user access

PCIS approach— An agile approach to achieve user satisfaction

The client depended on PCIS for its SharePoint expertise to deliver an intranet portal. The PCIS team conducted end-user interviews to gather and analyze requirements and prioritize scope. PCIS provided analysis, design and planning services to define the solution, including information architecture and document management strategy. PCIS’ Agile approach emphasized development through teamwork, collaboration and process adaptability throughout the project to better manage expectations, change and risk. PCIS also provided testing and quality assurance.  

The key success factor was the development of site templates and a custom application for the HR department. One of the site templates enabled each of its departments to effectively share information, documents and hundreds of forms. This provided easier access to district information, streamlined workflow, and enabled self-service. 

PCIS also assisted the school district IT staff to integrate their Exchange email and calendars to the SharePoint portal. To maximize the value of the solution, the client’s IT department was able to efficiently standardize their deployment of the sites across the departments, schools and collaborative groups by utilizing SharePoint templatest.

Microsoft technologies utilized in the school district portal

PCIS worked with the following Microsoft technologies for the intranet portal:

• Microsoft Exchange—Email, calendar and contacts on your PC, phone and web browser
• BlackBerry Enterprise Server—Secure Exchange email on BlackBerry
• Microsoft SharePoint—Collaboration platform to share information, manage documents from start to finish and publish reports to help make better decisions
• Microsoft Forefront Universal Access Gateway (UAG)—Access to network resources such as websites and internal applications, with granular access control, custom content protection and endpoint validation.