The Versatility And Value Of WorkPoint 365 Explained By Pieter Kops, Microsoft Specialist
Pieter Kops from ACA is an IT veteran and a Microsoft specialist with a wealth of experience. He spent the early part of his career working on servers and hardware before becoming a SharePoint consultant in 2007. At that time, Pieter was unfamiliar with SharePoint – but he quickly grew to love it.
Not long after his introduction to SharePoint, Pieter and his colleagues spotted a gap in the market for a project management tool offering a SharePoint site per project. They envisioned a platform where project information, documents, and dashboarding were seamlessly integrated. For one reason or another, their concept never made it into production.
Fast-forward a few years, and Pieter has his first encounter with WorkPoint 365 – a platform with the versatility and added value he’d been looking for. Here’s his take on what makes WorkPoint 365 so unique.
When I first saw WorkPoint, I thought: this is the exact same idea I had – only much better evolved. I immediately clicked with the product.
The value of versatility
The value of WorkPoint 365 is double-sided. From a technical perspective, WorkPoint 365 has a powerful engine behind it. Pieter’s technical team can use it to configure standardised solutions for projects, cases, and quality management leveraging ready-made and easily-customisable components.
Not only can WorkPoint 365 be tailored to the needs of different industries, but it can also be implemented across different departments within the same organisation. Often what happens is that after the platform lands in one business unit, word spreads, and it quickly expands into other areas. To demonstrate its versatility, here are five use cases:
1 Local government
Many aspects of local government, such as planning applications, are project-based. They tend to involve multiple stakeholders across a range of disciplines from engineering to law.
Whilst experts in their own field, sometimes stakeholders are not necessarily tech-savvy.
Many people, particularly those on-site in the field, need to use tablets to access documents and data related to projects. WorkPoint makes this possible. Everything is in one place, and they don’t need to look for it. People can also follow the progress of a project on the fly.
2 Product manufacturing
In today’s world, many companies design, develop, and test products in one country and then ship the designs to a manufacturer elsewhere in the world. For example, right now China is a popular global manufacturing hub. In some cases, companies run 5 to 10 projects per day with a lifespan of a month or so.
WorkPoint gives a large project a team of designers, quality managers, and a number of project managers, clear oversight of an ever-changing and quickly expanding portfolio of projects. At a glance, they can see projects, tasks, and deadlines. It helps create an overview. It even integrates with more specialised tooling like Microsoft Project.
3 IT consultancy
ACA uses WorkPoint 365 for all kinds of internal projects. Anything from security to migrating file servers to the cloud to creating intranets. Consultants use the ERP system Microsoft Dynamics to record their hours, but Dynamics doesn’t have a collaborative environment where team members can communicate and share information with each other.
Our solution? We’ve built a connection between Dynamics and WorkPoint 365, so when a new project is created in Dynamics, a new project is automatically created in WorkPoint 365. This helps information stay where it’s relevant. Customer information lives in Dynamics, but it’s viewable in WorkPoint 365.
Now, consultants spend most of their time in one environment – WorkPoint 365. It’s also a collaborative space where ACA can add stakeholders – including customers – to create a team environment. When a project ends on the project side, it’s moved to the customer side so that customer services and sales teams have access to all the past projects and information to support the customer.
4 Multi-site operations
Many businesses operate out of multiple locations across different countries. Each site might have localised processes and ways of working but share people and expertise. WorkPoint 365 enables companies with multi-site operations to standardise project management so that everyone in the company can work on projects in the same way, no matter where they’re located. It also gives them the ability to create dashboards and visualise project data in meaningful ways.
5 Legal departments
Law is one field where WorkPoint can really enhance case management systems. While it’s common for Microsoft-based legal teams to use a file server connected with Outlook, this isn’t always the most robust or secure approach.
When you’re dealing with lots of different cases containing personal and sensitive data, WorkPoint 365 offers a great solution for keeping information safe. In fact, it’s possible to set up a complete dossier system with appropriate access levels, that give relevant stakeholders a clear overview. Templates also help to streamline and standardise document generation.
The WorkPoint Express plug-in even allows case-related emails to be saved into the relevant dossier – there’s no need to forward emails to people working on the case. It’s all in one place.
One platform that solves multiple challenges
The customisable components of WorkPoint make it easy for IT consultants like ACA to create standardised document, project, and case management solutions for their Microsoft-based customers. For these reasons, innovative new use cases come along all the time.
The challenge for IT consultants can sometimes be communicating the true versatility and value of WorkPoint 365. Instead of thinking of it as a project management solution in itself, a better description might be as a platform for building out those solutions.
To discover more about ACA IT Solutions, visit their website: https://www.aca-it.nl/