IMS Foundation

Syntapa’s Intranet Management System (IMS) is built on the Microsoft SharePoint platform and is designed to provide users with a single point of access to all of their business resources and processes, and to act as an enterprise content management system. The IMS Foundation was originally developed to meet real client needs with the following primary goals in mind:

Syntapa’s IMS portal quickly provides users with content that is relevant to them, including recent documents, upcoming tasks and events, links to common locations, as well as business data hosted externally to the SharePoint implementation.

Syntapa has developed several custom features, web parts, web services, and application pages to enhance the functionality of SharePoint as an information management system.

Some of the highlight features include the following:

• Central Portal
• Team Collaboration
• Content Management/Repository
• Client Summary
• Microsoft Integrations
• Mobile Devices

IMS creates a central portal screen which is the first thing that users see when they login to their systems. We have built the central portal to not only give each user access to the key tools that they need throughout the day, but we have also built it using the same look and feel that they are used to from the various Microsoft Office products. From this one central portal, users have access to:

• Various team and project sites based upon their role. Access is determined using your own Active Directory rules and policies
• Company Announcements
• Tasks (Pulled from MS Outlook)
• Central and team/project specific calendars
• One-click single sign-on access to any key business applications (IMS Premium Only)
• Personal & Company Links
• Recent Documents including those under version control
• …and much more

The IMS Central Portal has been set up increase collaboration among teams, and to improve user productivity by providing easy access to only the tools that they need in order to be successful.

The Syntapa IMS system not only enables, but encourages collaboration on content, projects, and ideas. We have fully leveraged the Microsoft technologies in order to create a central location where users can meet, work, and exchange information. IMS users can collaborate with internal and external contacts with the following capabilities:

• Organization wide announcements right on the central portal home screen. No need for company-wide emails to ensure announcements are seen by the full team.
• Integration with Microsoft Lync which provides Instant Messaging, Activity Feeds, Screen Sharing, Video Conferencing and even VOIP capabilities. From anywhere within IMS or any of the Microsoft applications users can quickly see others availability and easily connect with them.
• Team Specific or open forums and workspaces
• Easily configurable document/content workflows, and version controls
• Integration with existing CRM systems (IMS Premium Only)
• Sharing and assigning of tasks, meetings, etc.
• Configurable system alerts and notifications
• …and much more

One of the biggest challenges that organizations face is trying to track and manage documents and content from emails, various network drives, and on individual user computers. The impact of this is that there is inconsistent content being used both internally and externally, minimal workflow capabilities, little or no auditing capabilities, and increased time required to respond to client requests. The Syntapa IMS solution solves these issues and increases your ability to easily manage your content, and your client interactions. The following are some of the capabilities that are offered within the IMS solution:

• Standardized document, template, and e-mail management, combined with enhanced functionality for documents, tasks, events, and projects.
• Integration with MS Outlook so that users can send document as e-mail attachment directly from IMS, and incoming documents from emails added to the central content repository.
• Automatic assignment of a unique ID to all documents entered by users into the IMS system.
• A standard templates document library where templates can be created, organized and assigned to other document libraries. When a document library has a template assigned to it, the template will appear as an option from the “New” drop-down menu within the users MS Office applications.
• Enterprise search functionality. Users can quickly search any content within the IMS system, network/archive locations, entities from LOB systems (IMS Premium Only), and even the web.
• Easily configurable document/content workflows, permissions, and version history information.
• Archiving features to easily move content back and forth from secondary storage repositories.

With the constantly increasing advancement of the Internet, social media, mobile devices, and various communication tools that are available to clients today, the ability to effectively manage and respond to client requests can “make or break” a company. Many organizations fully realize that having quick access to all of their client data, historical information, communications, and project information enables them to have a competitive advantage. The Syntapa IMS system enables you to have that leg up over your competition through our Client Summary capability. From one single screen, you can easily access, and manage:

• All client contact details. (Integration with external CRM systems with IMS Premium solution)
• All client and internal communications history including quick access to project details, emails, notes, etc.
• All documents such as agreements, proposals, presentation files, spreadsheets, etc.
• Open, in progress, and completed tasks from all members of your team.

Along with full summary and search capabilities, your team also has the ability to track version histories, manage workflows, and quickly open and edit materials within their existing Microsoft Office applications.

One of the main advantages that Syntapa offers with its IMS solution is the full integrations with the various industry standard Microsoft technologies. Not only does this enable you to get the most from your current technology investments, it drastically reduces user training requirements and the time to value from our IMS solution. Core functionality of the IMS Foundation solution includes integrations with Microsoft Office, Outlook, Exchange, Microsoft Dynamics, InfoPath, and ActiveSync just to name a few.

Syntapa’s IMS solution provides a client add-on which improves integration with your users desktop and Microsoft Office applications:

• This add-on allows documents from local or network folders to be quickly added and profiled to an IMS document library.
• Through Microsoft Outlook integrations, user e-mail items and/or their attachments can be quickly added and profiled to your IMS document library.
• IMS will also synchronize relevant tasks and calendar items with Outlook’s default task and calendar folders. It is important to note that Syntapa has developed its own synchronization framework for this process in order to be able to have items from SharePoint additionally synchronize with a user’s mobile device through Microsoft’s ActiveSync – a valued feature of the IMS solution.
• The IMS client add-in enhances functionality within Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint as well. One of the key features is the ability to quickly publish and profile a document to a library within IMS as a PDF or XPS document.

Not only have we leveraged the MS SharePoint technology as the foundation for the IMS system, we also utilize the various infrastructure technologies from Microsoft including its virtualization and Threat Management Gateway during typical IMS deployments.

In today’s fast paced world, mobile devices are often one the first things we pick up in the morning, and often one of the last things that we see before turning in for the night. With the increasing number of client projects and requests coming from all parts of the world, it is vital for users to be able to access and manage client and business data from their mobile devices.

The Syntapa IMS solution enables synchronization of tasks, calendar items, and client information using technologies such as ActiveSync. As our solution is a web portal solution, it also enables users to gain full access to key data and information anytime from anywhere using the web, their mobile devices and tablet computers.

We have developed the IMS Solution into rapidly deployable components that solve real business requirements and that have an immediate impact your business. In co-operation with our team of skilled resources, deployment of the IMS solution can be done iteratively based upon your own specific business requirements.

Please contact us to learn more about our IMS solution, the various solutions that we offer, or to discuss your specific requirements.