4-page Case Study - Posted 11/6/2006
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Technology Company Deploys Search Tool, Improves Security and Productivity
NNIT, based in Denmark, provides IT consulting and develops software solutions for large organizations throughout Europe. The company, formed in 1994 by pharmaceutical industry leader Novo Nordisk, primarily works on technical projects for pharmaceutical and medical companies. As the company’s workload has increased, NNIT employees have found themselves more and more overwhelmed with e-mail messages, software documents, and other customer files. To improve their file-searching ability, some employees downloaded Internet-based computer search tools. However, these tools were not secure and exposed classified information on the Internet. To solve that issue, NNIT deployed Windows® Desktop Search, a tool that employees can use to find computer files simply and quickly. NNIT now has an easily managed search tool that has increased employee productivity.
Situation
Founded in 1994, NNIT is a Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner that provides IT development, implementation, and consulting for pharmaceutical companies and other public and private corporations throughout the country. The company has 900 employees at its headquarters in Denmark and is owned by the Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk. With roots in the highly regulated and standardized pharmaceutical industry, NNIT is dedicated to applying the latest technology advancements toward software development, business processes, and communication.
As business has increased in recent years, NNIT employees have had to navigate their way through larger and larger volumes of customer-related data on their computers. Much of this information is in the form of e-mails, files, and other detailed technical documents that pertain to pharmaceutical and medical industry customers. Even though employees are very systematic and organized, many of them have still had trouble keeping up with files. Searching for e-mails and documents on their computers was taking too much time and negatively affecting their productivity.
Frustrated by an inability to quickly and easily locate important project information, some employees at NNIT chose their own solution: downloading free computer search tools from the Internet. Employees hoped to use these tools to help them find e-mails and other important information stored on their computers. However, these unauthorized downloads caused a major problem when it was discovered that some of the retrieved search programs allowed internal NNIT documents and e-mails to be searchable by anyone on the Internet. Such a security issue presented a serious risk to NNIT and its parent company, because both regularly work with proprietary files and private customer information. “We didn’t want this in a company like ours that works with a lot of private industry information, so the search programs were immediately prohibited throughout Novo Nordisk,” says Per Friis, PC consultant, NNIT. “The entire Novo Nordisk group exists in a very controlled and secure universe that must also live up to the strict requirements of the pharmaceutical industry.”
Nonetheless, NNIT realized it still needed to provide its employees with a solution that would enable them to reduce search times.
Solution
In late 2005, NNIT deployed the Windows® Desktop Search (WDS) tool, a free search tool that can help employees quickly find and retrieve e-mail messages, photos, calendar appointments, and important business files. With WDS, users can conduct detailed searches on their computers. Using a Windows interface, it creates a comprehensive index of files and folders on a user’s computer and displays search results on-screen for preview, filter, and action. As new e-mail messages come in or computer files and documents are edited or deleted, this index receives notifications that enable it to stay current.
The tool also searches the metadata within image and video file titles. Requested information can be located from thousands of stored e-mail messages and documents within seconds.
WDS also helps enterprise IT managers easily deploy and manage installation across all computers in their organization using Microsoft System Management Server, Windows Group Policy installation software, or other third-party deployment software.
Working directly with Microsoft, NNIT tested and expanded the WDS tool, which has now become an integrated portion of a new software environment that NNIT is rolling out for all employees. That environment, which features the Windows XP Professional Edition operating system and Microsoft Office 2003 programs, is currently being deployed. Once full deployment is achieved, 23,000 NNIT and Novo Nordisk employees worldwide will be using the WDS tool to search their computer files.
Benefits
The Windows Desktop Search tool has given IT administrators at NNIT a secure search tool that is easy to install and simple to manage. WDS also provides NNIT employees with a powerful, user-friendly tool they can use to increase productivity.
Easy-to-Install Tool
WDS contains features that help enterprise IT managers easily deploy and manage installation. For example, they can install the tool using Microsoft System Management Server, Windows Group Policy installation software, or any other third-party deployment software. Support for these deployment tools gives managers an easy way to configure setup, indexing, and search policy options.
WDS is also highly extensible, so IT managers have the option of adding the ability to search proprietary files or documents by creating or installing third-party add-ins. Such features are important for an organization like NNIT that constantly works with highly confidential information related to its pharmaceutical industry clients.
User-Friendly Interface
Because NNIT is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and user of Microsoft products, Friis says the organization was pleased to find a Windows-based tool that could solve its problems. “Using WDS is a clear advantage for us because we are running 100 percent Microsoft products,” says Friis.
WDS integrates well with Windows and with Microsoft Office Outlook® messaging and collaboration client, both of which were familiar to computer users at NNIT. That familiarity means employees can quickly search their computers and preview, filter, and act on search results that are displayed in the Windows interface.
Increased Productivity
With the user-friendly WDS interface, NNIT employees can quickly search their computers and preview and filter search results. A special preview pane shows them search results and immediately gives them the ability to refine or categorize those results through simple buttons and menus. As a result, NNIT employees can search thousands of files and e-mail messages in just a few seconds, resulting in more-productive searches. “Windows Desktop Search fit right into my daily needs,” says Sune Andersen, Vice President, NNIT. “I previously spent a good amount of time searching for e-mails and documents, and in some cases I never found them. WDS makes it easy to search many e-mails, which means I can concentrate on my work and not on searching for e-mails.”
For More Information
For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:
www.microsoft.com
For more information about NNIT products and services, call (45) 4442 4242 or visit the Web site at:
www.nnit.com
Windows Desktop Search
Windows Desktop Search enables users to easily search their PCs to find files and e-mail messages. Search results are displayed in a familiar Windows interface, so users can quickly preview, filter, and act on them. With the rich “search as you type” functionality, users see results instantaneously and with one click they can act on the information found. The software is extensible, so you can choose to install available add-ins or write your own I-filters and protocol handlers. Windows Desktop Search is enterprise friendly and easily deployed and managed across all computers in an organization using Microsoft Systems Management Server, Group Policy, or third-party deployment software.
For more information about Windows Desktop Search for the enterprise, please visit:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/desktopsearch
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published October 2006
