Ontario March of Dimes (OMOD)
Ontario March of Dimes eliminates workflow bottleneck with Office SharePoint Server 2007
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Company Overview
Although polio is little more than distant memory for most Canadians, during the 1930s and 1940s, polio epidemics ravaged North America. In 1951, the Canadian Foundation of Poliomyelitis, more commonly known as March of Dimes, was established to fund research and provide medical and rehabilitative assistance to people suffering from the highly contagious, disabling and sometimes fatal disease.
Business Challenge
As a result of various grassroots and celebrity campaigns, Ontario March of Dimes (OMOD) gradually helped lay the foundation for the discovery of the Salk polio vaccine in the mid-1950s. This discovery resulted in the virtual eradication of the disease and the fear associated with it, in North America. With the battle of new cases of polio contained, OMOD shifted its focus to supporting Canadians still suffering from its long-term effects and by the 1960s, that mandate had shifted to helping all people with physical disabilities. Today, OMOD is the largest rehabilitation organization in Ontario, serving nearly 37,000 people each year, in 70 communities across the province.
Maintaining such a high level of service requires the effort of a dedicated workforce comprised of 2,000 full-time employees. With so many workers spread across numerous OMOD locations, collaboration became a major challenge, particularly the workflow that supported human resources and other internal processes.
Utilizing nearly 400 different forms to support a variety of administrative processes – from time sheet submissions and expense reports to documents required to hire new staff – the system had become time consuming and inefficient. For the most part, these forms were simply created with either Microsoft® Word or Excel® spreadsheet software, and stored in Outlook® messaging and collaboration client Public Folders. One of the key challenges was finding the correct form. When someone needed to fill out a form, it first had to be printed, filled out by hand, and then faxed or mailed between offices for the necessary approvals. In some cases, these forms were e-mailed back and forth between a number of people, adding to the already large volume of e-mail being sent and received.
“Dealing with forms was a huge drain on resources. Typically, a form needs to be approved by four different people, and if it takes a day or two to get it on a person’s desk, and another day or two to sign off on it and forward it to the next person, it could take a week to approve even the simplest request. From a time and cost perspective, we could no longer afford to do this,” says Steve Driz, director of enterprise solutions and chief privacy officer, OMOD.
The inability to process forms in a timely manner also hampered the ability of staff to carry out their core mandate, which is to serve the needs of those with physical disabilities.
“If we took no action to resolve this, then all this wasted time would take away from our ability to provide quality service to our customers. Anything that puts that service level at risk is unacceptable. Clearly, we had to find a solution to this problem,” adds Driz.
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Solution
With an environment already running Microsoft® software, including the Windows® XP Professional operating system, Office 2003 on desktops, and a mix of Windows Server® 2000 and 2003 operating systems on its servers, OMOD once again sought a Microsoft-based solution to address its workflow issues. It turned to two Microsoft Gold Certified partners, Bell Business Solutions and Envision IT, for help.
Bell Business Solutions recommended the 2007 Microsoft Office system, and in particular Microsoft® Office InfoPath® 2007 and Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007.
“Ontario March of Dimes needed an efficient solution to its workflow bottleneck. Given the tight integration of SharePoint Server 2007 with other Office 2007 client applications, including Outlook 2007, and the ability of SharePoint to help streamline the way people work, we decided the best solution was a new portal based on these technologies,” says Joe Seguin, business productivity program manager, Bell Business Solutions.
Bell Business Solutions worked closely with the four-person OMOD IT team throughout the deployment process. Together, they set up a portal based on SharePoint Server 2007 that enables workers to take advantage of advanced communication and collaboration functions in the 2007 Office system. Among these systems is Microsoft® Office Forms Server 2007, which provides businesses with a scalable, standards-based electronic forms solution that can help extend document-based processes to anyone with a Web browser. The forms were created with Office InfoPath 2007, a Windows-based application that helps businesses create dynamic (electronic) forms, which teams can use to gather, share, and reuse information to boost collaboration and decision-making capabilities.
“The forms capabilities included in the 2007 Office system, immediately impressed OMOD. Particularly, the way it integrates with key business processes. For example, an expense report can be automatically sent to the appropriate contacts if the total figure exceeds a pre-determined amount. Functions like these ensure a smoother, more streamlined workflow,” says Seguin. “The forms also provided much more flexibility and richer features not available with forms in other programs. InfoPath forms, for example, enable data validation and mandatory fields, as well as the ability for users to add new rows to tables with the click of the mouse.”
Today, the SharePoint portal is used by OMOD employees working at the OMOD’s head office in Toronto.
“The new workflow capabilities of SharePoint 2007 make the forms much easier to manage,” says Peter Carson, president of Envision IT. “A user can easily find the form in SharePoint, complete it, and click the Submit button. They don’t have to worry about sending it to the right person, since the workflow takes care of this automatically. People who must approve the form receive an e-mail with a link to it, so that they can easily open it and approve. The originator of the form can also look up the status of the form to find out where it is in the approval process.”
“The integration process was quite smooth. It only took us six weeks to do the rollout, which included time for user training. We were nervous about how the change would be received, but we worked closely with our staff and they were immediately impressed by what SharePoint and InfoPath had to offer,” adds Driz.
Business Benefits
With the SharePoint Server 2007 implementation now into its third month, OMOD staff have realized significant productivity benefits from the 2007 Microsoft Office system. Administrative workflow has also become streamlined, enabling staff to be much more effective at their jobs.
Simpler business processes
Managing 2,000 full-time workers is a challenge for any organization. For a charitable agency with limited resources and a tight budget, it’s even more difficult. Instead of waiting for a week or more to address simple requests, using Office Forms Server 2007 and InfoPath 2007 in conjunction with SharePoint Portal Server 2007, OMOD can address requests more quickly. All forms are now easily accessible from the desktop and, once completed, can be routed within the SharePoint environment. As a result, the workflow delays of the past have virtually disappeared.
“With SharePoint Server 2007 our productivity has definitely increased. Employees can access forms from their browser, fill them out and submit them back to the portal. What used to take days, now takes minutes,” says Driz.
Improved collaboration
Although OMOD was driven by the need to simplify workflow, employees are also impressed by the wide range of collaborative techniques made possible, by using SharePoint Server 2007 with other 2007 Microsoft Office applications.
For example, the staff at OMOD is now using team sites in SharePoint for collaborating on projects. Instead of sending emails back and forth, and trying to track which version of a document is the most recent, they create a team site for the project to manage all the related items.
“The team sites not only allow us to store and share documents, but to keep lists of other information such links, issues, contacts, and tasks. The built-in lists and templates make this easy. One of the biggest advantages of SharePoint is that anyone can create a team site in minutes, without having to go to IT for help,” says Driz.
Enhanced user experience
As a charitable organization, it’s important for OMOD to drive maximum value from its technology investments. Any potential investment must be easy for staff to use, easy to integrate with existing applications and offer users a range of clear productivity enhancements. OMOD is confident that the 2007 release of Office meets these criteria. The desktop experience in Office has been redefined to help people do more in less time, and to take advantage of the near-seamless integration between various Office applications. Among its many new features is an enhanced graphics engine, better visualization capabilities, and improved task management features. Together, these new functions helped make OMOD’s decision to migrate to the new productivity suite an easy one.
“The potential for the 2007 Office system is incredible. As we continue to deploy it across the organization, we expect to see even greater time and collaboration benefits. The prospect of all 2,000 of our full-time staff taking advantage of these new features, and working together more effectively, is an exciting one,” says Driz.
Microsoft Office System
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For more information about the Microsoft Office System, go to: www.microsoft.com/office
For More Information
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For more information about Bell Business Solutions products and services, call (416) 503-1100 or visit the Web site at: www.businesssolutions.bell.ca
For more information about Envision IT products and services, call (905) 812-3009 or visit the Web site at: http://www.envisionit.com
For more information about Ontario March of Dimes products and services, call (800) 263-3463 or visit the Web site at: www.dimes.on.ca
