The objective of the project was to design and develop an effective and efficient, easy to use, file maintenance and management system.

This project also defined the communication and web presence strategy to support each content development team and the overall business.

The solution comprises the following deliverables outlined below:

1. To implement a centralized intranet based digital asset strategy including file management and maintenance
2. To implement an extranet based digital asset strategy including file management and maintenance for sharing files with vendors
3. Knowledge sharing (SharePoint) web presence
4. Project tracking tool

The requirement was to design a system which nullifies the manual operations that largely consumed the resources in past without losing a personal touch or focus. Managing number of teams and their interactions and interrelations, collaboration of the data shared from amongst different teams and within individual team was a cumbersome task that someone had to do manually. This caused great delays and confusion. Moreover, collaboration of different teams was not possible and exchange of data, thoughts, and opinions remained in box leaving the value additions arising out of the discussions aside. It's the web where in people engage in managing their teams, uploading important documents for team. Central location for a news items is a great way to keep you updated over the latest happenings.

The site had to be developed using the SharePoint 2007 (RTM) server technology. Only the site customization was allowed and no new web parts could either be created or third party custom web parts be used. Only the default SharePoint server web parts were used for customizations.

Brainvisa defined two different sub systems within the Project. All projects have been separately outlined below.

Project Tracking Tool

A simple project tracking tool where the focus is primarily on tracking rather than on management. The system has a few simple forms for the project manager to fill when he/she creates a new project. The project manager would be able to regularly update the data as the releases are made. There would be some management reports which would allow the senior management to check out the status of each project and see an overall status of pending projects.

Key Roles - Program/Project manager

• Add a project/program into the system - This would allow the project manager to add any project she is working on into the system.
• Edit a Project details – This would allow the project manager to edit details of any projects
• Maintaining releases – The project manager would be able to manage the different releases of the project
• Maintaining status – The project manager would be able to manage the status of her projects.
• Reports – The project manager would be able to see various reports of her projects
• Alerts – Alerts to the project manager when she is behind schedule or there is an expected delivery Administrator
• Manage Users – Manage the users in the system
• Manage Master Data – Manage all the master data in the system Management Reports
• Project Reports – Reports on various projects and their status
• Filtered Project reports – Reports based on users or on status
• Email to Project Owner – Ability to email to project owner for information or update
• Update Reports – Report on projects which are behind schedule or have not been updated

Knowledge Sharing and Team Site

A simple structure allowing Knowledge Sharing of defined content and also teams being able to create their own team sites. The root site was redesigned with a defined theme. It also has the structures allowing for Knowledge Sharing. There is a search page allowing users to search for results within a predefined set of content.

The Learning Toolkit is also integrated with the root site allowing the Learning Toolkit to be searched. However the Learning Toolkit has a different area within the root site and its own navigation. Beyond that some standard templates are created which could be used by project owners to create their team sites. These sub sites would be considered separate and would not be part of the Knowledge Sharing structure on the root site.

Following are some of the key features of Sharepoint 2007 server (RTM) that are considered while architecting the solution

• Customized front end to make the system user friendly and intuitive in use
• Graphically rich user interface
• Customized document libraries and lists
• Customized search engine
• Integration with other existing systems
• Role based features
• Multiple site support
• Customization of Sharepoint 2007 (RTM) in-built web parts using data views
• Defining two diverse content types in a single list
• MIS Report generation