Implementation of SharePoint Online based Knowledge Hub for Oxera
Solution Summary
Oxera, a leading economics and finance consultancy, is highly dependent on the management of information and data. Their clients benefit from the wealth and breadth of their knowledge and as such, they have worked with Intelogy to implement modern digital workplace solutions to help their clients continue to gain an advantage. These solutions need to be secure, efficient to use, and effective for supporting core activities.
Intelogy brought a good team to the project – varied experience, willingness to challenge ideas and make sure they understood our vision and the problem we were trying to solve. They also bought, as requested, some of the dynamism and drive needed to keep the project moving forward and necessary project controls so we knew where we were and when we were straying ‘off piste’.
– Orlando Milford, CIO at Oxera
Challenges
Oxera have been established for 40 years. Natural staff churn, growth and international expansion was making it increasingly difficult to contain and share knowledge across the organisation.
Solution overview
Three core solutions were designed and developed to help Oxera use its assets more efficiently.
The Vault
The Vault is a large set of records which are the key documents resulting from decades of professional service projects. It consists of tens of thousands of documents spread across thousands of different engagements.
The Vault required an initial information analysis which consisted of over 40 years of historical unstructured data. Once the analysis was completed, Intelogy had to recommend and define an appropriate information architecture that would be future proof whilst ensuring future project information could be easily integrated into the solution. Some challenges around confidential data also had to be taken into consideration during this process.
Having designed and implemented the architectures for each of the three solutions, our team focused on ensuring an efficient search experience. Each repository was provided with its own dedicated advanced search capability, complete with keyword search and refinable metadata.
A key part of the engagement saw us working closely with a third-party AI specialist, whose role was to process the large volumes of data and identify the most valuable content as well as extract and define keywords and other project information which could then be associated to content during the migration process. This allowed us to promote the files that had been identified within the architecture of the solution, enabling significantly improved access to legacy corporate knowledge. Once the key data was defined, we worked with Oxera to help map metadata requirements which could then be incorporated into the advanced search configuration. This step was vital to ensure user adoption and successful deployment as users required the ability to logically search for key project information and any associated assets.
The Collection
The Collection consists of a hand-picked curated selection of the most valuable content created by the organisation. We introduced advanced metadata and search requirements to allow users to not only see the file but also all associated metadata as well as suggest other relevant files. We implemented and utilised a document viewer query web part to allow users to view documents in the browser and combined this with the use of PnP Search web parts to pull through the rich metadata associated with the file. This provided users with a complete search and document viewing experience all within the browser and same page.
Research Database
The Research Database is all of Oxera’s research assets collected through the years and contains many purchased or created research reports. The assets may be in digital format or also in physical form in one of Oxera’s libraries. All assets are tagged with metadata which enables users to identify more information about the research asset.
Previously the Research Database was in a legacy Lotus Notes application, which was approaching end of life. We worked with Oxera to gather their requirements and migrate the data. Afterwards, we moved the data into a purpose-built SharePoint Online site we had custom designed.
This site was search-driven using PnP Modern Search web parts. Users can now quickly search the whole research database including content in files and filter search results to find the right assets to help them complete their current research.
To tie together all three solutions, our team conducted a user experience exercise to capture user needs and wants. An overarching search solution was designed and implemented to provide a simple and consistent approach across all three solutions.
Results
Intelogy designed and implemented a SharePoint Online based corporate knowledge hub for Oxera that improved the access to corporate knowledge. Just over 38,000 records were migrated using a migration script and the search experience for all three solutions has been facilitated with a unified search portal.
We are now working towards the implementation of a new project onboarding process for capturing all relevant information about a project ensuring this information is retained for the foreseeable future.
There has been a tangible benefit in less time spent looking for past material, but other benefits include a better understanding of how we work and what is important to us. Interestingly, it has been recognised positively by the business, that we did NOT try and build a perfect solution but went with the something that was good enough and a big help rather than spending a lot more time and money to add an extra bell or whistle that wasn’t really needed.
– Orlando Milford
