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“The reality is when employees need to find something in SharePoint, they can find it in there" Iain Stephen, IT Director |
Rural Local Government Organization Uses SP Business Suite to Improve Communication and Collaboration Among Staff
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Manitoulin-Sudbury District Services Board (DSB) is a municipal service management organization with 210 staff in Northern Ontario, Canada, and was created by the provincial government of Ontario. It promotes healthy communities through planning, coordination and management of municipal services and programs in the districts of Manitoulin and Sudbury. Located in a sparsely populated area of around 30,000 people in an area of about 31,000 square miles, it’s not surprising to see a variety of wildlife run across the highway, such as moose, deer, and bear.
The DSB represents 18 municipal partners in the districts of Manitoulin and Sudbury (excluding the City of Greater Sudbury) and oversees the local planning, coordination and delivery of a range of services and programs divested to the municipal order of government. The specific programs the DSB is responsible for include Ontario Works, Social Housing, Emergency Medical Services (Land Ambulance), and Early Learning and Child Care Services. “It’s a big area with a small number of people trying to provide all the same services you would get in a county or city level, said IT Director Iain Stephen. |
“It’s a big area with a small number of people trying to provide all the same services you would get in a county or city level." |
The Challenge
As a local government organization, the DSB is under tight budget restrictions and has to be creative and prudent about they spend the money received from various levels. The provincial government of Ontario funds 50% of the DSB’s expenditures while the municipal sector also takes in financial resources.
“Our job is to pretend we’re a big fish but do it on a small fish’s diet,” said Stephen. “We don’t have as big a tax base as a city would have.”
The DSB’s biggest challenge was that they had 210 staff spread out over a very large, sparsely populated geographic area and a lot of light capabilities for technology in the remote communities. The goal was to have one central landing spot for staff and board members.
The vision was to have everybody from custodians for apartment buildings to paramedics to management land at an Intranet portal site and then proceed from there. In some cases the information necessary could be located directly from the Intranet page.
“It was a way to have a common starting point for everybody,” Stephen said.
“Our job is to pretend we’re a big fish but do it on a small fish’s diet,” said Stephen. “We don’t have as big a tax base as a city would have.”
The DSB’s biggest challenge was that they had 210 staff spread out over a very large, sparsely populated geographic area and a lot of light capabilities for technology in the remote communities. The goal was to have one central landing spot for staff and board members.
The vision was to have everybody from custodians for apartment buildings to paramedics to management land at an Intranet portal site and then proceed from there. In some cases the information necessary could be located directly from the Intranet page.
“It was a way to have a common starting point for everybody,” Stephen said.
The Solution
In the past, the DSB had used SharePoint so they were familiar with its potential and applications. However, they were looking to for a more unified approach to the organization’s departments and they looked to Office 365 for the platform and SP Business Suite to extend it to provide the Intranet.
SP Business Suite transforms Office 365 into a full featured operational hub to drive higher employee productivity and collaboration. Furthermore, SP Intranet 365, part of SP Business Suite, is a complete Intranet structure that includes operational department portals and employee self-service features. Beyond a home page, this Intranet structure also includes community sites, blogs and departments.
After four months with Office 365, the DSB decided to take the plunge and implement SP Business Suite into their operations. Beyond just providing an employee hub, they also wanted to automate processes that were now supported by paper forms and manual processes.
By deploying SP Business Suite they were able to convert paper forms and documents into electronic versions that now can be submitted into SharePoint to automate notifications and processes with workflows.
The DSB is able to customize forms quickly and easily and use the staff portals to deliver important messages, directives and operational notes. Simple alerts and notifications can be broadcast through email to entire groups from the director of Ontario Works or Social Services with staff receiving a daily summary.
The DSB is also able to set permissions so that end users are directed automatically to the employee portal versus the department staff side.
Another important feature has been the ability to deploy a similar approach for each department. “It was really just a way to get a common approach as much as possible for very distinct and different departments,” Stephen said.
SP Business Suite ensures that the DSB’s communication to staff is going in the right direction by receiving delivery confirmation in a timely fashion. Before, the organization would send basic email and hope that it was delivered. “It’s a consistent approach to getting communication out to staff,” Stephen said.
The best part of choosing SP Business Suite is that the DSB was able to use their existing Office 365 infrastructure with no additional hardware or underlying software. The cost to them was minimal and the ROI was mere months.
And how have staff responded? Employees within the organization are thrilled at the ability to search and find things they are looking for and the logical layout of the portals. “The reality is when they need to find something in SharePoint, they can find it in there,” Stephen said.
SP Business Suite helped a rural local government of 30,000 citizens, 210 staff and 18 municipalities achieve a more unified approach to employee communication and collaboration within budget. What can SP Business Suite do for your local government? To learn more about SP Business Suite and how it can transform your local government, visit SP Marketplace today.
SP Business Suite transforms Office 365 into a full featured operational hub to drive higher employee productivity and collaboration. Furthermore, SP Intranet 365, part of SP Business Suite, is a complete Intranet structure that includes operational department portals and employee self-service features. Beyond a home page, this Intranet structure also includes community sites, blogs and departments.
After four months with Office 365, the DSB decided to take the plunge and implement SP Business Suite into their operations. Beyond just providing an employee hub, they also wanted to automate processes that were now supported by paper forms and manual processes.
By deploying SP Business Suite they were able to convert paper forms and documents into electronic versions that now can be submitted into SharePoint to automate notifications and processes with workflows.
The DSB is able to customize forms quickly and easily and use the staff portals to deliver important messages, directives and operational notes. Simple alerts and notifications can be broadcast through email to entire groups from the director of Ontario Works or Social Services with staff receiving a daily summary.
The DSB is also able to set permissions so that end users are directed automatically to the employee portal versus the department staff side.
Another important feature has been the ability to deploy a similar approach for each department. “It was really just a way to get a common approach as much as possible for very distinct and different departments,” Stephen said.
SP Business Suite ensures that the DSB’s communication to staff is going in the right direction by receiving delivery confirmation in a timely fashion. Before, the organization would send basic email and hope that it was delivered. “It’s a consistent approach to getting communication out to staff,” Stephen said.
The best part of choosing SP Business Suite is that the DSB was able to use their existing Office 365 infrastructure with no additional hardware or underlying software. The cost to them was minimal and the ROI was mere months.
And how have staff responded? Employees within the organization are thrilled at the ability to search and find things they are looking for and the logical layout of the portals. “The reality is when they need to find something in SharePoint, they can find it in there,” Stephen said.
SP Business Suite helped a rural local government of 30,000 citizens, 210 staff and 18 municipalities achieve a more unified approach to employee communication and collaboration within budget. What can SP Business Suite do for your local government? To learn more about SP Business Suite and how it can transform your local government, visit SP Marketplace today.
