Education Services Firm Drives Adoption Of SharePoint for Email Management

The Learning Trust is a not-for-profit company that runs all of the education services for the London Borough of Hackney, a geographical area comprised of 220,000 people. To improve organizational effectiveness, The Learning Trust team chose Microsoft SharePoint to connect staff with the information and expertise they need to be able to better perform in their jobs. By selecting Colligo Contributor Add-In for Outlook, emails and attachments can be easily moved or copied from Microsoft Office Outlook, to SharePoint libraries and folders through drag-and-drop, improving professional productivity.

About The Learning Trust

The Learning Trust employs approximately 750 staff members, and delivers educational services to more than 27,000 pupils in more than 70 schools, nurseries, and play centres in the London Borough of Hackney. It is the United Kingdom’s first private not-for-profit company responsible for running all education services for an entire borough. The Learning Trust aims to provide students with the best possible educational opportunities, cutting edge facilities, and resources.

Application

The Learning Trust uses Colligo Contributor Add-In for Outlook to improve access, support email and manage attachments in SharePoint.

Business Challenge

The Learning Trust IT Services department is positioned as an internal services business. “We see our business as facilitating the overall business plan. Our goal is to make work easier, without creating a technical experience,” said Geoff Carter, Head of ICT Business, IT Services. “We work to help people stay abreast of business activities and projects by making information more accessible.”

In order to improve collaboration and centralize information, The Learning Trust decided to deploy SharePoint as an all-inclusive solution, providing secure Internet and delivery systems. It first launched an intranet site, where information could be securely shared with schools and other agencies, such as with Health Services and Social Services, and where projects could be managed.

“We are in a service-oriented business. This means professionals in various departments are often involved on the same projects and require full access to information to discuss cases intelligently with schools. With SharePoint, we have been able to provide easy access to the information,” commented Carter.

In addition to managing documents in SharePoint, The Learning Trust needed a means to manage email.  “Fifty to 60 percent of communication takes place by email in our organization. To better manage projects and to eliminate department silos created by public folders, we wanted to centralize all content, including email,” said Carter. The Learning Trust wanted an easy way for staff to drag-and-drop emails into SharePoint to improve enterprise content management and accelerate adoption of SharePoint.

Solution: Colligo Contributor Add-In for Outlook

The Learning Trust selected Colligo Contributor for deployment to their staff. Contributor Add-In increases user adoption of SharePoint for email and attachment management. It provides full read and write access to SharePoint document libraries and lists within the Outlook interface. Users are able to easily move or copy emails and attachments to document libraries with a simple drag-and-drop, while automatically capturing message fields.

“In a nutshell, the biggest advantage of deploying Colligo Contributor is that it is super simple to use. It makes life easier for staff, because it fits into the way they are already working,” said Carter. “Users like the easy drag-and-drop experience. It’s so intuitive that we’ve not had to explain the technology behind it. People are collaborating in new ways, and many don’t even realize they are using SharePoint since they are accessing it within Outlook folders. The most substantial benefit is that there is no longer segregation between documents and emails. People can now investigate situations and locate information themselves rather than repeatedly asking each other for the same information.”

The IT Services department has discovered another great use of the drag-and-drop functionality that Colligo Contributor provides. “Staff will often receive compliments by email on a job well done. All congratulatory email messages are dragged and dropped into a common folder in SharePoint,” said Carter. “This has become our ‘Star Area’ to share our success stories. It is motivating everyone to provide a higher level of customer service.”

The Learning Trust has seen a return on investment from Colligo Contributor Add-In for Outlook. In addition to creating a more efficient workplace, they have noted a more collaborative workplace. “The productivity gains speak for themselves,” noted Carter. “We have also improved perceptions regarding the delivery of our services to the schools and local community, while improving internal collaboration across departments.“

Results

By deploying SharePoint and Colligo Contributor Add-In for Outlook, The Learning Trust has been able to:

• Increase SharePoint adoption by simplifying access within Outlook
• Deliver an easy drag-and-drop experience to make work easier
• Enable and streamline email and attachment management in SharePoint
• Reduce departmental silos resulting from the use of public folders
• Increase productivity and collaboration with centralized information across departments
• Improve customer service excellence with centralized access to information