Summary:
Blue Racer Midstream partnered with HingePoint to develop a SharePoint-based intranet to migrate documents from a file server for enhanced Office 365 online collaboration. The project aimed to address disorganized files on the server, lack of easy document access, and the need for CAD document control in engineering.
The solution involved gathering requirements from each department, architecting and migrating to a SharePoint intranet, and training employees on the new CAD management and document management tools. Custom workflows were created for managing daily natural gas production logs.
Key benefits included moving all files to the cloud for faster access, enabling enterprise search for easy document retrieval, and securing and versioning CAD drawings. This improved efficiency and compliance with government regulations.
The project significantly aided the IT Director, employees, IT Managers, department leaders, Engineering CAD managers, plant operators, and safety managers. Systems integrated included SharePoint, file servers, and SharePoint Designer workflows.
HingePoint supported the rollout of intranet tools and SharePoint training and upgrades. Challenges addressed included integrating SharePoint into the company environment, creating an organized and searchable document repository, and training staff for long-term SharePoint management. The successful implementation of SharePoint Enterprise by HingePoint allowed Blue Racer to commence their construction projects efficiently and confidently.
The Challenge:
Files on the file server are disorganized, hard to search, find the right documents. IT needed help with SharePoint architecture and development and to train all their staff on the new tools in SharePoint.
Challenge One: Integrating SharePoint into the company environment.
Challenge one is a fairly straightforward process, HingePoint interviewed key players from through the company and started with architecting the SharePoint Enterprise deployment. Blue Racer being a committed partner allowed this process to be straight forward and HingePoint was able to work at an accelerated pace.
Pulling from Blue Racer executives about their vision for their SharePoint intranet while working with their IT Department, Engineering CAD managers, Safety and Compliance managers, Department Heads, and Plant Operators, allowed HingePoint to get a full scope of the pains and needs from all throughout Blue Racer.
Once a view into the entire organization emerged, HingePoint went about creating a robust SharePoint Enterprise intranet. Once the intranet was created, HingePoint migrated all of the documents and files over to their new system in the cloud.
Challenge Two: Combining files into an easy to use and searchable repository.
Challenge two would follow the SharePoint Enterprise deployment as many of the issues would be naturally addressed in challenge one. It was at this point, the decision to create everything in the cloud made much of challenge two’s issues moot.
The cloud would address the VPN timeliness and by deploying and connecting all of the various data inputs to SharePoint, the database was now searchable, consistent with the most up-to-date versions of documents that would be needed organizationally wide.
Challenge Three: Training staff on the use of SharePoint and addressing long term needs.
Challenge three of training so that Blue Racer could be self-sufficient over the long term was addressed by complete and extensive documentation and training. Blue Racer made their staff available for HingePoint lead workshops; these included basic SharePoint use from a typical employee, IT staff for maintaining their SharePoint Enterprise, and then workshops with key players addressing long term strategies for ensuring their SharePoint would be as impactful as possible.
By taking the training off of the hands of the IT staff, it allowed them to continue their typical duties while giving employees access to HingePoint knowledge experts that could address any questions or concerns they had.
Overall the partnership of Blue Racer and HingePoint proved to wildly successful. HingePoint was able to implement, migrate, and train in the designated timeline, and Blue Racer was allowed to break ground and start their projects with no setbacks.
The Solutions:
We gathered all the requirements, architected the SharePoint intranet, and document management tools. We assessed and migrated the file servers and moved them to SharePoint. We trained and mentored the employees on how to use the new CAD management and document management tools. We create custom workflows to manage the piping and pigging logs for how much natural gas they produce every day.
Ongoing Benefits:
Moved all files to the cloud. No more slow VPN access to files! Enterprise search makes finding documents easy. We built out and trained staff on the intranet so IT didn’t have to do it. Secured and versioned the CAD drawings in a CAD Vault concept. Secured all files for government regulators.
Who Was Helped:
IT Director, Employees, IT Managers, Department leaders, Engineering CAD managers, Plant operators. Safety managers.
Other Details:
We support them and teach and train and help with the rollout of the Intranet tools, and SharePoint training and upgrades.
Blue Racer is a company that constructs oil and gas plants with the need to be able to verify and share a vast array of documents including plans, contracts, and CAD renderings to facilitate the actual building and comply with local, state, and federal regulations. Blue Racer adopted SharePoint as a solution to be able to collaborate and give access to multiple departments to the same documents.
In addition, their files repository was not organized and posed challenges to quickly find documents. The lack of a central database with all documents related to any given project lead to documents being used that did not have the most up to date information and VPN times at a slow pace, creating delays in critical stages of facilitating the development and starting of construction.
HingePoint identified a couple of challenges that would need to be addressed to create an efficient system for Blue Racer to keep their projects on the proper timeline and for long term use. The first challenge was integrating SharePoint into the company environment. The second challenge is getting all of the files into an easy to use and searchable repository that would allow employees to search and find the necessary documents they need. The third challenge would be to train staff on the use of SharePoint and address long term needs for maintaining their environment as new projects come online in addition to managing updates from SharePoint and other systems.
Blue Racer’s SharePoint Enterprise has allowed them to be more efficient, more confident in their collaborations, and overall more organized when approaching their future projects.