Business Impact Article - Posted 5/11/2007
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Airline takes off with Collaboration Solution.
Running an airline is hard enough—easyJet has 122 aircraft and is one of Europe’s largest Internet retailers. However, keeping 6,000 staff informed and connected is an added challenge when they are spread around 72 locations in Europe.
The company wanted a system that would allow for company-wide collaboration. It needed to include document management, an intranet portal, and employee self-service for HR forms, and other processes. This represents a long-term plan for the company—the starting point is the requirement for a new intranet, including the latest features such as search, categorisation, and workflow.
The airline selected Microsoft® Office Share-Point® Server 2007. All its employees have access to the site, which includes news, company information, and mini-sites for each airport base across Europe, as well as for project teams. It also features an extensive search function, which indexes all the content on the site. It also links to Active Directory® so users can search the staff directory as well.
The new site is based around user productivity and keeping everyone up to date. For example, there’s a project mini-site for the new HQ at Luton. This allows a cross-functional team to collaborate, and other members of staff to see what’s going on.
With the built-in search functionality of Office SharePoint Server 2007, staff can easily find what they want. Every document on the site is indexed and searchable—which wasn’t the case on the old site—so every procedure, Microsoft Office Word 2007 document, progress report, and, yes, holiday home can be searched. For people used to searching the Internet, it is easy to use. “If people are stuck, and they can’t find something, it gives them another option,” says Peter Ironside, IT Project Manager at easyJet.
It was also easy to implement, working straight “out of the box,” without any customisation. Because it is linked into easyJet’s Active Directory system, it also allows staff to search for people as well. For example, they can look for “John” in the finance department and get contact details, roles, and responsibilities. In a clear reference to the “Yellow Pages” phone book and the airline’s brand, they call this function “Orange Pages.”
“The thing that impressed me most about SharePoint Server is how intuitive it is to use,” says Ironside. He says employees are using the system, creating new content and searching for existing material, within a few hours of being trained. “It’s very simple and straightforward.”
© 2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This document is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Microsoft is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
