Challenge: Innovative-e, Inc. needed a web-based collaborative tool to manage remote projects and facilitate collaboration among team members. In addition, Innovative-e also needed to share information and collaborate with clients in an efficient, cohesive manner, while capturing all requirements discussions electronically. Objectives: In order to increase collaboration and communicate with clients more efficiently, Innovative-e needed a solution that would:
Provide a central location for data and communication
Share business data with clients and vendors without divulging sensitive information
Provide a single, integrated platform to manage intranet, extranet and Internet applications
Boost employee productivity
Provide comprehensive control over content and version history
Share business processes across organizational boundaries
Solution: Using only out-of-the-box SharePoint technology, Innovative-e created individual portals for each internal and external project to allow all team members and clients who have been granted access to see project timelines and status updates, as well as access shared project files. A discussion board was also set up to capture all requirements discussions and track which discussions have been resolved and which ones still need to be addressed.
Results: As a result, Innovative-e is able to store all project information in a central location and encourage collaboration among team members and clients. Since all project files are stored in a central location, team members are also more productive because they spend less time searching for files.