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CASE STUDY

SHAREPOINT CONSULTANCY PROJECT FOR JISC - A LEADING DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY CHARITY

Case study on how MindPoint helped Jisc with their SharePoint Online solution and ensured maximum functionality and scalability

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JISC: A LEADING CHARITY & CHAMPION FOR THE USE OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES IN UK EDUCATION & RESEARCH.

Jisc is based in the UK and they act as a centre of expertise for digital technologies for the research and education sectors. They run

‘Janet’ (the UK’s high speed research and education network) and ‘Eduroam’ (a shared authentication mechanism that allows students to log in and use resources right across the education sector. After moving to Office 365 for their Exchange email, Jisc purchased SharePoint Online. As digital experts, Jisc immediately recognised the benefits of seeking sought out a professional SharePoint partner. Jisc knew that they needed expert help and consultancy to build a document management system that would enable them to wean their users off traditional file shares and third party synchronisation products.

With more than thirty years of combined SharePoint and business knowledge (much of it in the education and public sectors) MindPoint was in a unique position to provide a solution that would fit Jisc’s exacting requirements. Building upon Office 365, SharePoint Online can offer challenges since the product s in a constant state of flux with specifications changing all of the time. There’s also re-duced functionality in some areas of SPO when compared to the in-house versions of SharePoint. MindPoint proposed a solution for Jisc based around the built-in records management functionality and OneDrive for Business on the E3 plan available at the time. Jisc staff can now create and edit documents using either the web based Office 365 interface or the OneDrive for Business client on their local device (such as a laptop or tablet). They can then later categorise these documents in the Office 365 website. This allows

“Expert help & consultancy to build a document & records management system.”The Situation

Jisc is the UK expert on digital technologies for education and research. It was formed as a registered charity in December 2012 but since 1993 it has been providing vision and leadership to universities and colleges to help stimulate innovation and research into technology.

Jisc has staff distributed throughout the UK with offices in Bristol, Harwell and Manchester.

Overview

There was a large number of existing files that had been moved across toOffice 365 in a large file structure. This corpus of files was extremely important to Jisc. The existing plan was to create a document repository

that would allow for tighter management of information without being over restrictive when collaborating with external partners. However, although Jisc had grown organically since they became a legal entity in 2012, it wanted one single information strategy and felt that some expert guidance would be essential when it came to building a SharePoint Online (SPO) solution. It was important to Jisc that the solution be scalable, manageable and that it delivered a large amount of flexibility for their staff since there was/is a broad spectrum of in-house technology skills. They also wanted to minimise administration for their users. Jisc didn’t want, for example, users having to decide if a document was a record or not (or even how long it should be kept for).

Because Jisc is still in the process of adding new structures and departments as they merge with partner groups; the system had to be based on functions within the organisation and not tied to organisational structure (since this allows for future development).

The Solution“Allowing Jisc staff to just get on with their jobs.”

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documents to be declared as records or have retention policies applied. Staff no longer need to make decisions on retention length or decide if a document is a record or not since the rules for each document type has been worked out in advance and it is now centrally managed. This has allowed staff to just get on with their jobs and not waste time on file management.

Once documents have been assigned to a document type then all of the management poli-cies are controlled centrally. Documents that are considered “records” are locked and they are assigned a “retention schedule” which normally means that the document cannot be deleted or altered until the retention period ends. The document lifecycle ends with a workflow which allows data managers to either re-classify the document or send it for deletion. This mostly happens “behind the scenes” and users are freed from many of the tasks usually required in

a document management solution. As it is based on Office 365, the solution also allows for easy sharing of information with clients and partners and the easy sharing of resources with people external to Jisc was an essential feature to them.

Jisc now has a robust, scalable and manageable system for document and records management. The benefits include:

The Benefits

“A robust, scalable & manageable system for document & records management”

It’s now easy for Jisc to create & sync documents across a variety of client devices

It no longer matters what device the user has be it a PC, laptop, tablet or phone. Documents can now be sourced and edited across a wide variety of devices and then later managed using their web based Office 365 interface.

Document policy is managed centrally so Jisc’s users don’t need to be data managers

Thanks to the central management we’ve put in place for Jisc, users no longer need to “know the rules” about what documents are records or not nor do they need to know how long to keep stuff.

Document lifecycle is managed reducing data sprawl & document hoarding

Documents now have regular review milestones and, once declared as records, they now have defined end of life markers to avoid out of date documents being retained too long.

Documents are categorised allowing for easier search & retrieval

Metadata is added to documents allowing users to now easily find information at a later date. Findability is further improved by surfacing filters on search results pages.

“SharePoint Online is proving to be a great fit for Jisc, providing us with a robust, yet

lightweight environment that will enable us to collaborate effectively with colleagues, partners and customers. We engaged

MindPoint to help us realise our plans for implementing information and records

management controls within our Team Sites and were delighted with the results. They

quickly understood our requirements, were forthcoming with innovative ideas and worked

closely with us to deliver what we needed both on time and on budget”

Steve Bailey, Project Manager, Jisc

Jisc’s SharePoint solution is easy to extend as their organisation changes

We’ve ensured that it is easy for Jisc to manage future document types and futureproof the effects of any organisational change. Jisc is still evolving as an organisation so it was critical that they could factor in new groups and structures to their SharePoint solution.

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