Mint has successfully migrated an existing document management system in De Beers to the latest version of Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server.
The customer was specific about certain requirements for this project. Most significant was the ability to maintain a consistent pointer to a document, even when a document is moved from one folder to another.
This will allow the users to avoid attaching bulky documents to e-mails, and rather e-mail a link about the document itself. This means that when a link is attached to an e-mail, the user will be guaranteed of being able to open it, even if the document was moved in the interim.
This sentiment was echoed by Grant Hodgkinson, sales and marketing director for Mint. "Companies can plan their repositories carefully, but there are still occasions when documents need to be moved to new locations. It can be very frustrating for users who are trying to access the document. By creating a consistent URL, users are able to access the document immediately. In addition, the links and referential integrity to the knowledge repository remain intact."
The migration itself was a critical project as the system had to be accessible throughout the migration. Mint achieved this with careful planning at the beginning of the project and ensured that staff always had access to the system.
De Beers is an international organisation and had multiple portals in various locations. One of the challenges was to consolidate certain portals into one central system.
The customer was migrating from the previous version of SharePoint Portal Server, released in 2001. Even though the products carry the same name, there are changes in the application that have been introduced that necessitated careful planning for migration. The most notable was in the area of security and the document profiles that are allowed in the application. Since the two different versions of the application managed these components differently, Mint had to work with De Beers to build a mapping system for both elements, and programmatically assist with the migration of this data.
In working with De Beers, Mint was able to lend best practice migration know-how to the business in order to develop a migration process and approach that could be used within the entire organisation. By being process-driven, and working with the De Beers teams during the project, Mint has been able to empower the organisation to complete other similar migrations within the entire business.
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