Case Study | Crowe Chizek

Consistent Online & Offline SharePoint
Experience Improves Productivity

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"Contributor will allow our professionals to stay connected to business information and processes managed with SharePoint while on client engagements or travelling. Contributor will help Crowe Chizek save time, streamline engagements, and improve the quality of our client service."

Cornelius J. van Dyk
SharePoint Architect
Crowe Chizek

Application
Crowe Chizek has chosen Colligo Contributor for SharePoint for deployment to all 2,300 personnel – to provide a consistent SharePoint experience both online and offline and to drive productivity gains.

Business Challenge
In 2004, Crowe Chizek deployed Microsoft SharePoint as a platform on which to build their Intranet. With the release of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007), the IS department started adopting the platform more widely for knowledge management, records retention, project collaboration, intranets, and client extranets – in some cases replacing existing business applications. “For example, we used another document management solution for our client collaboration and document retention requirements, but found it complex and time-consuming. It took us two days to set up a site so our professionals and clients could work on documents together," commented Cornelius J. van Dyk, SharePoint Architect at Crowe Chizek. “With SharePoint, we’ve created a site template, so it takes just five minutes to set up a new site."

The biggest issue the firm experienced in migrating content management and collaboration to SharePoint was the lack of support for professionals working offline. Crowe Chizek professionals often spend 30 hours a week out of the office. While on client engagements, they are disconnected from the servers that host their knowledge management and client collaboration applications. When working from home, they can experience latency and connectivity issues.

One case in point. Among its many SharePoint applications, the IS department created a large knowledge-base for its tax professionals, however; it quickly became obvious that an offline solution was required. "Although used daily and valued, the SharePoint knowledge-base could not be easily leveraged by our tax professionals on client engagements," said van Dyk. "In response to client questions, they would have to say 'could you please give me five minutes to call a colleague who can look up this information for us?' With immediate, local access to tax information, engagements could be streamlined and our response time improved."

Solution: Colligo Contributor
"The search for a solution didn't take too long. We were already aware of Colligo and its excellent track record in designing offline collaboration solutions. The audit teams at Crowe Chizek use Colligo Workgroup Edition for instant peer-to-peer collaboration and file sharing on client engagements," commented van Dyk. "So I was really pleased to learn that Colligo developed an offline solution for Microsoft SharePoint."

Colligo Contributor enables professionals at Crowe Chizek to synchronize content stored in SharePoint sites to a local encrypted data store on their laptops. It increases productivity and adoption by enabling them to instantly and securely access, modify, and create SharePoint content online and offline through a rich client interface.

"We started with a Contributor pilot group of 50 users and they 'loved it'. Some commented that if Crowe didn't buy Contributor for them, they would buy it themselves," reported van Dyk. "It drastically improved their productivity by giving them ready access to the business information they needed, whether online or offline. In addition to documents, Contributor allows our professionals to take SharePoint elements such as custom lists, metadata, and views offline. Microsoft Excel content, including formulas and links between spreadsheets, is fully functional regardless of connectivity."

A consistent user experience was key for Crowe Chizek. "The Colligo Contributor desktop client is terrific and provides the same user interface for our professionals whether they are connected to the network or working offline," says van Dyk. "When working remotely, our users are automatically logged off after a short period – so when using SharePoint they previously had to log on to the server every 15 minutes. With Contributor our professionals continue to work on documents without constant interruptions and they simply sync up their files at the end of their working session – this really improves productivity."

As a 5MB .Net client-only application, Contributor is a fast solution for IT to deploy. Crowe Chizek also found Contributor performed well. "With Colligo we've never had performance issues," added van Dyk. Based on the pilot, the firm is now planning to deploy Colligo Contributor for SharePoint company-wide. "All of our professionals will benefit. For example, Contributor will allow the tax professionals to look up knowledge-base documents on their laptop so they can immediately respond to clients on site. Contributor will allow our professionals to stay connected to business information and processes managed with SharePoint while on client engagements or travelling. Contributor will help Crowe Chizek save time, streamline engagements, and improve the quality of our client service."

Results
During the pilot phase, Crowe Chizek professionals reported significant time savings and better service to clients. The firm expects that a company-wide deployment of Colligo Contributor will enable it to:

• Save time by reducing information requests to the office from professionals in the field
• Drive SharePoint adoption with a consistent, rich, friendly user experience, online and offline
• Reduce IT support calls related to offline access to SharePoint and VPN connectivity issues
• Enhance professional productivity by enabling read/write access to SharePoint anywhere
• Deliver superior customer service with instant access to relevant files while on engagements
• Improve work-life balance by enabling busy professionals to complete tasks while traveling or in the field

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