iTrust – human resources services

PRO-BONO

egforit, a boutique systems integrator with Microsoft, IBM, SAP, and more, offers license sales, support, maintenance, training, and consultancy to organizations in different industries. They operate from offices in Cairo and Kent.

How

The client previously collaborated with a separate development partner for their website and application. Due to a strategic shift, the client sought a new development team. Our team was engaged to completely rebuild the website and application to meet their evolving needs.

Impact

 iTrust is proud to partner with egforit, a highly respected systems integrator with a proven track record. Their impressive client list, and commitment to quality ensure a seamless experience when referring clients for website and application development needs.

The Challenge

Unsure of how to start

Ley Hill Solutions had been aware of the extended capabilities of SharePoint and wanted to upgrade their existing SharePoint solution to ‘unlock’ its true potential. Most importantly, they wanted to create workflows within SharePoint to revolutionise and streamline their processes. They had one major issue; they did not know where or how to start, but they knew it was not a simple task.

Ley Hill Solutions had team members that were familiar with key SharePoint concepts and were quick to understand the technology of data sets, arrays, variables and so on. They had prior knowledge of SharePoint as they had been using it in their daily work processes, though they had not come across Power Automate previously.

The Solution

New workflows to manage projects and clients

We used Microsoft Power Automate’s workflow orchestration to streamline their processes and increase productivity using SharePoint. The flows that we created together with their teams are triggered from leads converting into clients and then automatically creating a new project. If the client already exists within their system, a new project is added instead.

We offered over-the-shoulder consulting to build this solution together with the client, with the side goal of building the client’s knowledge of the software stack and Power Automate.

Furthermore, we worked with them to integrate these solutions with their existing timesheet and expense logging capabilities. This enabled more accurate logging and easier work organising with project codes.

In addition to the SharePoint and Power Automate development services, our specialists organised follow-up learning sessions as part of our added value to the client. We guided their teams on using the new SharePoint workflows and built their knowledge to become self-sufficient. For the client’s team that were not confident in using SharePoint, we also offered training on basic usage such as SharePoint team management and document library usage.

The Results

Revolutionised processes

The new SharePoint workflow capabilities has streamlined processes for their project management purposes. Our knowledge building sessions were particularly beneficial to help their team in understanding and assessing the technical aspects of Power Automate.

With the low-code nature of Power Automate, the client’s teams quickly learned to modify the initial workflows we had set up for them. Plus, the drag-and-drop features meant that it was easy for all team members to take advantage of the new workflow system.

Due to the high quality of our work and positive results, the client is continuing with additional requests for our SharePoint team to further improve their SharePoint solution. One request has been to create SharePoint dashboards to report and present data to power their business decisions moving forward.

The Challenge

An outdated business system

After reviewing their current set up, it was agreed that an overhaul of their existing infrastructure was needed. The retirement of old on-premises servers, deployment of cloud-based infrastructure and new network to function alongside was essential. They were looking for a cloud based solution as they wanted all of their office workers to be able to work effectively from home.

The Solution

Modernisation and innovation

To bring them into the age of cloud computing, we deployed a new SharePoint site to host all their internal documents, which they collaborate and work together on. We also created a place for their work allocation reports and other essential documents.

We deployed a fleet of laptops to all their office-based employees, which were encrypted and protected with antivirus backups.

Then, we deployed a new network and internet connection which would allow VPN access, giving the whole team the power to collaborate and connect online.

egforit Software reduced costs and ensured uptime by modernising a mission-critical application through IBM SoftLayer to Azure migration.

Only days after the SoftLayer to Azure migration, we successfully scaled up the application’s hosting capacity without disrupting business hours. This has given the company the freedom to take on as many new clients and contractors as it desires.

On top of the benefits mentioned, moving to Azure App Service also provides intuitive Application Insights for our support team. Rather than having to trawl through log files to find issues, we can see them faster in visualisations and alerts. That extra speed on our side provides the company with better value from the support hours they purchase from us.

Overall, the decision to migrate from SoftLayer to Azure has brought increased app performance and reduced hosting costs.

egforit Software modernised a custom training management system to ensure security for sensitive data and fix its legacy code issues.

This solution combined a number of improvements, from the app upgrade to bug fixes and feature enhancements. Our app and API upgrades ensured that the company was protected against attacks on its sensitive data.

Overall, the business benefits of this new training management software were:

• providing compliance and security against cyber threats
• overcoming the limitations of a legacy application
• giving the flexibility to extend functionality as needed

Going forward, the next stage is to migrate the company’s training management system to the cloud. As Microsoft Azure cloud experts, we have planned the migration and will be assisting the client with this move in the coming months.