Housecall CareHeld back by open-sourceHousecall Care and Support is a company that provides on call nursing care for people who need support at home, perhaps because they are frail, elderly, recovering from hospital treatment or other circumstances. The company has been running for more than ten years in East Lothian, Scotland. While senior management used Microsoft Office 2003™, most of the company’s staff were using OpenOffice, an open-source suite of office applications. This presented Jason Logan, the company’s general manager, with a number of challenges First, if a file was saved in the native OpenOffice format, other people - both inside the company and outside - couldn’t open it easily. One out of four email attachments had to be converted and sent again. The same difficulty sometimes occurred when trying to open Microsoft Office documents, such as Excel™ spreadsheets or Word ™documents, inside OpenOffice applications. Staff also found the software difficult to learn. The company only introduced computers five years ago and many of the staff were new to IT. “The majority of the staff had a huge learning curve,” says Jason. The spartan design of OpenOffice meant that Housecall Care staff had to hunt to find the features they needed. Easier to use, easier to communicateWhen the chance came to upgrade the company to the 2007 Microsoft Office system, Logan grabbed it with enthusiasm. It gave him a chance to resolve his file compatibility problems and upgrade to a more user-friendly software suite. “With 2007, there’s a ribbon bar that prompts you and the icons are clearer,” says Logan.
He reports that users find the feedback, popups and help much more informative. He felt it was a much safer and more reliable product to use. Most importantly, “we didn’t need to increase training and support” to make the switch. Moreover, he felt that upgrading to the latest version of the software meant that he could look forward to a long period of stability for his staff - no new software to learn for a while!
The right IT partner and the right ITThe company has 220 staff, of whom 24 work on the administration side of the business. Across two offices, they have approximately 22 PCs. Their IT supplier, networkROI, a Microsoft Certified Partner and Small Business Specialist, previously installed Microsoft Small Business Server 2003™ to run their email, central file store and specialist rostering software and helped them with the upgrade to the 2007 Microsoft Office system They also installed a server running Microsoft Terminal Services. This allows Housecall Care to run client/server applications from their satellite office as well as enabling care managers to access their business critical application from home, out of hours. Microsoft software, on the server and applications for end users, has made Housecall Care more productive and eliminated file compatibility problems caused by their previous open-source software. In addition, it has helped their staff - who are mostly new to computers - get the most of out the technology available to them with no additional training or support costs. Starting with ten users, the company now plans to roll out the new software to everyone in the company. The new software has “been a good experience for our users and a big benefit for the company,” says Logan.
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