A document management and portal solution based on Microsoft SharePoint

April 4th, 2012 Upeksha

PortalsOil and gas companies involved in the development, exploration and operation of oil and gas properties, have to reconsider their document management systems and tools available to their employees to comply with the new policies of data retention and management. Sometimes these organizations may not have standards for records management and document management, and most of the content is actually kept in network drives and employees’ personal computers. And usually there is no mechanism to search all these documents residing in various personal computers. 

And adding to the problem, sometimes the company’s intranet would also be obsolete. Such out dated intranets are ineffective and difficult to manage. Employees don’t use them as they are not user friendly. A company who is experiencing a situation like this will seek to restructure their intranet with a portal-based knowledge sharing network or shift into a more community oriented model.  And the solution should include an enterprise document management system which would allow various teams in the organization including management, legal and IT.

 By implementing a document management and portal solution based on Microsoft SharePoint, organizations can overcome problems related to many operational areas.  And there are lots of advantages in using a SharePoint-powered content management and portal solution. 

The most important one is that companies can get a proper document repository. And employees will be able to centrally store, manage, share and access documents across the organization. And users will find it so easy to navigate and find the information they want.

With strong search capabilities that SharePoint offers, it’s the company can seamlessly integrate structured databases and Web pages to offer employees complete and accurate information. The Enterprise Search feature in SharePoint allows employees to find up-to-date and relevant information from a single location. So they will not have to waste hours and hours searching for important data in various systems and files.

With SharePoint, the company can automate and reorganize workflows and improve the efficiency of day to day business activities such as document review and approval and signature collection. It will also seamlessly integrate with other Microsoft applications such Office, e-mail, and Web browsers.

Furthermore, SharePoint platform supports intranet, extranet, and other web applications that a company would need, so the companies do not have to depend on different systems and platforms for each solution.

SharePoint: the perfect platform to build HR solutions for the energy sector

March 28th, 2012 Upeksha

SharePoint HR SolutionIn an energy company which is experiencing accelerated growth, the HR department has to devote lots of time to manage simple tasks such as inductions, vacation requests and sickness reporting. One of the main reasons for this is that the original systems were not designed to scale. Therefore the HR department will need quite a big team to handle these tasks efficiently. 

Even though SharePoint is not normally considered to be an HR technology, it has features such as search, content targeting, content management and social collaboration tools which make it the perfect platform to build HR solutions.

With the help of SharePoint custom workflows HR departments can save a lot of time and bring down the costs substantially and make the entire company more efficient. With a SharePoint solution, staff inductions can be managed almost completely online with electronic user acceptance. Vacation requests can also be processed in SharePoint and the workflow solution guarantees that the request is directed to the relevant manager for approval before sending it to the HR department. The system will also enable managers to track sickness absence without any difficulty. Another important advantage of using a SharePoint solution is that it can ease the burden on email servers and allow users to find information faster and easier than finding information in complicated directory structures which are usually found in companies. 

Many companies in the energy sector are considering social media and its use in HR functions now. In the Towers Watson’s 2010 HR Service Delivery Survey, it was revealed that 30% of participants are using some sort of social media in the organization. Social media is frequently used for collaboration and social networking to support career development. 

By designing a HR portal in SharePoint, a company can improve self-service and self-sufficiency through personalization.  And the company will be able to create a global HR functional collaboration portal with 24/7 access to everyone. When HR departments in energy corporations want to offer effective and efficient HR service delivery to their employees, new comers and retirees, SharePoint is the best platform.

Leveraging SharePoint 2010’s social networking capabilities

March 19th, 2012 Upeksha

Social NetworkEnergy companies usually have thousands of employees working for them from multiple locations across the world. One of the biggest challenges energy companies face is to make sure that all of these employees have access to accurate and latest information. Although these employees are scattered across the world, they can be colleagues who want to meet periodically and share best practices and other important ideas with each other. When one person tries to find some files that are already there and fails, he will end up creating the same file of information again. If this happens quite regularly, lots of time is wasted and productivity is decreased.

Using Microsoft SharePoint 2010, a site can be designed to help these employees to come together, share ideas and discuss best practices in real time.  By leveraging SharePoint 2010 for Internet Sites, a new community site can be created to connect and support the employees and allow them to share ideas, experiences, methods, and best practices.  The My Site feature of SharePoint offers a variety of social networking capabilities, which contains a ‘My Networks page’ to organize interests, a ‘My Content page’ for document management, and a ‘My Profile’ page for profile management. There are other useful features such as ranking, rating and tagging of content and an effective search. Since this site can provide Facebook-like features, people don’t have to always call or email each other with questions, so it enhances teamwork and collaboration. SharePoint 2010 also empowers the employees with better publishing capabilities; they can go in to edit mode with just one click, upload material, and save the changes swiftly. SharePoint platform provides an opportunity to create a seamless experience for all employees in the company.

A SharePoint portal for knowledge sharing in oil and gas corporations

March 6th, 2012 Upeksha

knowledge SharingIn most of the corporations in the Oil and gas industry, there are three generations of employees working together and often they are positioned all around the world. And a substantial number of the knowledgeable and experienced workers will retire soon, which is of course a major challenge faced by the industry. Regular employee turnover also adds to this, demanding an effective solution for knowledge sharing.

There are oil and gas corporations which are responsible for constructing oil and gas platforms and infrastructure throughout the world. Because of this global nature of the industry, employees have to collaborate with internal colleagues and external associates who are placed around the world and may never see each other face to face. These projects normally cost millions of dollars, so engineering or construction mistakes may cause huge financial losses. With effective knowledge sharing and managing, corporations can avoid multi-million dollar mistakes in these international projects. In a business, when a person learns from the experiences of others, it saves both time and resources.

Therefore, a scalable and well recognized system of knowledge sharing is essential for oil and gas corporations. This can be accomplished by creating a role-based information portal that is accessible to all the team members involved in a specific project. And Microsoft SharePoint is the ideal technology to build such a portal.

Some oil and gas companies are already using portals to make their employees understand the larger picture of the project they are engaged in and to offer them a snapshot of what’s going on in the organization. Such a solution allows employees to share best practices, identify complicated issues, and find the required data to take corrective actions. 

As a part of the strategy formulated to retain critical knowledge in the organization, a SharePoint knowledge portal equipped with discussion forums, advanced search tools and proper content management processes can be extremely helpful in addressing the problem of generational gap. It will also be a platform for a diverse and international work force to communicate with each other easily. It will be a central meeting place for team members to share ideas, ask questions and find answers. And they can also manage schedules, create documents and contribute to important business discussions. This technology offers managers, engineers, and operational staff a highly capable and collaborative environment.

Project document control with SharePoint

February 29th, 2012 Upeksha

Project ManagementIn the energy sector, there are many operators, contractors, sub-contractors and suppliers involved in one project. They cooperate with each other in constructing and maintaining plants, installations, refineries, and other infrastructure. These are large and complex projects that need effective engineering document management.   And they have to also ensure that they meet health, safety and other regulations. For this purpose all the parties involved in the project need up-to-date and accurate information of their resources and everyone must have consistent access to this data in case of any problem or disaster.

Throughout the projects, the company has to provide their partners with latest project documentation to make sure the project is completed on time and within the budgets. Proper document management is vital for energy companies to successfully complete multiple projects and also to manage and maintain their plants and other facilities.

The Oil and Gas industry can rely on a SharePoint solution to manage all the project documentation. There are many features in SharePoint that help in creating a powerful project document management system. It will offer a dedicated collaboration space for every project. It will help the company and all the involved parties to keep up with schedules, maintain project documents, and communicate meetings and announcements. Employees will not have to face problems such as missing files or compiling heavy reports for status update. It can also be synchronized with MS Project. The company can keep all the teams well informed, aligned with goals, and improve engagement.  Everyone will be benefitted from the Project dashboard with key performance indicators. With the right solution in place the energy companies can minimize the associated risks and successfully complete the project while maintaining a good relationship with contractors, suppliers and other partners.

Microsoft SharePoint: A whole new way to Collaborate!

February 24th, 2012 Upeksha

CollaborationOil and gas companies that continue to grow organically or by means of mergers and acquisitions, become large diversified companies in the world with operations in many countries, thousands of employees. And as the company grows rapidly there is an increased need for employees to share documents, and collaborate on various projects. Employees should have the capability to create, disseminate, and access data swiftly and effortlessly. It could be a project of building a new pipeline or arranging audit documentation in compliance with government regulations, whatever it is employees must be able to find the relevant, correct and up to date data easily. And often, the existing mechanism of managing information is not sufficient and the company may fail to keep up with its regulatory and business requirements.

When E-mail is used as the main mode of dispensing information and file shares as the primary method of storing information, the information flow of the company becomes ineffective and inefficient.  And that will have an adverse effect on the company’s interconnectivity, its information security and its overall productivity. In a time that it’s more important to work as one integrated team to survive tough market conditions, the company may lag behind because its information management practices are not supportive. 

To correctly address these problems the company can create a new intranet platform with Microsoft SharePoint that will serve as a single location for employees to access all corporate applications. Employees can use team collaboration sites as a central location to store all documents related to a team’s work. And team calendars help them to track all the milestones and deadlines, while task lists and contacts offer information to every member in the team. With versioning facility employees can make certain they are working with the latest version of documents, and check-in/check-out technology helps team members to collaborate on document creation. For employees it will be a whole new way of collaborating with team members.

It could also be used as a news channel for the company, broadcasting companywide information and news from other divisions. It isn’t just a file management system, as it can be seamlessly integrate with other Microsoft technologies and they will work together to improve collaboration. With SharePoint, the company can change the way people collaborate forever.

Smart meter customer self-service portals

February 17th, 2012 Upeksha

For decades, utility companies had to send out their employees to collect most of the information required to provide electricity. These employees have to read meters, look for equipment that aren’t functioning and measure voltage. Although majority of the devices utility companies use to supply electricity have not been automated nowadays, there are many products available to the electricity industry to develop it.

“Smart grid” commonly denotes the technology people are using to take electricity delivery systems into an advanced level by means of computer-based remote control and automation. These systems were developed with the help of collaborative communication technology and computer processing that has been used for years in many other industries. And it is being started to be used on electricity industry as well. They provide numerous advantages to companies and consumers and especially, when it comes to energy efficiency there is a great development.

Large electric distribution utilities who are adopting the smart grid technologies are looking for a successful web application that permits utility customers to effortlessly access and realize time of day utility consumption rates and pricing, or in other words a smart meter customer self-service portal. And such a portal could be made possible with Microsoft SharePoint.

A smart meter customer self-service portal is accessible and available to any authorized customer with a computer and an internet connection. And it allows them to securely access their personal usage statistics and optimize energy usage based on consumption patterns and utility rate schedules.  Customers can control costs and save energy through an online management Portal that is easy-to-use. Customers can also subscribe to email or text message alerts and receive notifications on power outages and comprehensive reports on consumption. Customers have access to complete cost savings reports on their partaking in demand response programs as well.

The smart meter portals help in reducing the burden on call centers as public awareness in smart meter technology develops. By designing a simple-to-navigate interface, high level of user adoption can be promoted. Finally, this solution will make the lives of utility consumers much easier and it’s highly rewarding in terms of energy conservation.

Standardizing Workflows with SharePoint

February 1st, 2012 Upeksha

WorkflowsUpstream oil and gas companies are engaged in discovering and developing new reserves, with operations that range from exploration to drilling. The success of these companies largely depends on the skillful workforce, extensive knowledge and use of cutting-edge technology.

In an upstream oil and gas company, there are various teams working simultaneously on assessing prospects, carrying out pre-drill activities, and scheduling rigs to drill a well. And these teams produce a massive amount of data, frequently creating a bottleneck in the operation. That’s why it’s important for these upstream oil and gas companies to find the right technology solution for their geologists, geophysicists, land managers, and engineers to manage these high volumes of data.

And that should be a solution that can simplify data management and improve collaboration. The solution also needs to be flexible enough to standardize and automate different workflows of each team, while collecting and amalgamating data from numerous sources. Real-time collaboration is another concern of the company as they want to update everyone with the fast changing progresses in the field. 

These energy companies who insist on finding a better solution to manage their pre-drill work processes expect to decrease costs and speed up drilling time. To achieve these objectives, the business needs an enterprise knowledge management and collaboration solution that can standardize each important stage of a well’s life cycle. A browser-based, collaborative portal that is built on SharePoint would streamline all pre-drill activities. And a solution built on Microsoft SharePoint would integrate with the existing infrastructure as well.

With streamlined common workflows, an employee can study a prospect that is going to be drilled quickly and easily. Once he logins to the system, he can view all documents and maps related to a specific well or geographical zone. Whereas it could be complex and time consuming for them study it with numerous spreadsheets maintained by each team with information about each prospect. With standardized workflows the company can avoid costly mistakes and optimize their profits.

A SharePoint solution for Document Management & Record Management for the energy vertical

January 27th, 2012 Upeksha

A SharePoint solution for document and record management enables an organization to control the life cycle of documents, right from the point the documents are created, reviewed, published, to the point they are finally disposed of or archived. And it is capable of satisfying diverse needs in different departments within an organization including Compliance Management, Contracts Management, HR Management, Project management and Accounts Management.

Companies in the energy vertical deal with many vendors, suppliers and service providers in their day to day operations. And they have to manage a myriad of contracts with these parties. And SharePoint offers the perfect platform to create the right Contract Management solution. HR Management is another frantic function in energy companies. With a SharePoint based solution, it is possible to automate all the main HR functions and processes in an energy company including applicant tracking and recruiting, training and development, appraisals and evaluations, absence management and  policies & personal file management. Accounts department is another area that can be largely benefitted by the document and record management capabilities of SharePoint. It serves as a document repository for countless invoices, bills, and vouchers that account department is dealing with. For those employees involved in project management a SharePoint solution can simplify the entire process of storing and sharing various project related documents.

Security is a very important aspect of document management. Security requirements for some documents can be complex. In SharePoint the organization can clearly define security rights to SharePoint sites, libraries and documents. These rights involve permissions assigned to individual users or groups and authorization levels vary from read-only to full control. Another area of concern is searching for documents and ease of use. With search & navigation techniques in SharePoint like search, metadata, indexing, retrieval mechanism and categorization employees will find it to be very user friendly as they can easily locate any document they want. And when it comes to versioning, it allows users to keep a track of the changes to a document over time. After a new version of a document is saved by a user to a document library, the older version is also available enabling many people to make changes to the same document. And SharePoint comes with several basic workflows to quickly request feedback on a document or get approval. And these workflows can be used to route documents from person to person where each of them will complete their tasks, such as reviewing, approving as authorized by the system.

Many companies in the energy sector select SharePoint platform for document management because of its reputation as a comprehensive and robust document management system.

SharePoint for Improved Collaboration

January 16th, 2012 Upeksha

CollaborationEnergy companies want to make it easier for its employees, who are located in many countries across the world, to access and share information. This is a common need of the companies who go through mergers who then happen to have a global operation with many regional offices. They expect a solution that can provide its users with access to information at any time, help improve efficiency, and make sure the integrity of the company’s information.

 If the company relies on a basic and outdated solution for collaboration, inconsistent connectivity and slow system performance can cause inefficient global operations. When employees are required to travel often between the regional offices, they need to stay connected with the corporate network, and access the documents they need. They might also experience information loss and other security issues.

Companies who wish to have a secure and effective solution to improve collaboration to help their dispersed employees to share information more easily can switch into Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 technology and reap the benefits of its remote collaboration features. Those who have already invested in Microsoft SharePoint Server products and technologies can take advantage of its existing investment. And those who invest it in for the first time will discover a whole lot of benefits as SharePoint can be used to resolve problems in other operational areas such as public facing websites, regulatory compliance, contract management and health and safety management.

Using the advanced metadata features of SharePoint Server 2010, such as the Term Store Management Tool to create and manage metadata terms, employees will be able to manage documents without any hassle. And features like out-of-the-box SharePoint enterprise search will help them find the data they want faster.

With SharePoint Server 2010, it’s easy to share information and it provides a single place to store information. It is a reliable collaboration platform that will facilitate organization’s worldwide operations, and enable them to achieve improved information management and greater efficiency.

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