Secure Portal Delivers Content To 7,000 Users

Luckily for VARs, end users often want the best of both worlds: a product from an international company and service and support from a local integrator. For content management integrator Perficient, Inc. (www.perficient.com) (Austin, TX; Chicago; Minneapolis; Toronto; St. Louis), that desire was the key in developing a relationship with Maritz Inc. (Fenton, MO).

A longstanding target account for Perficient, Maritz is a $1.5 billion provider of outsourced corporate services such as market research, performance improvement, and incentive-based programs. Each of Maritz' 15 business units was operating an independent intranet, which was expensive and cumbersome from a management standpoint. Because employees in various departments couldn't share information effectively, sales opportunities were being lost.

Maritz researched potential solutions and determined to build a centralized intranet based on the VIP Platform from Gauss Interprise (Irvine, CA). The plan called for user access via a personalized portal that would simplify access to relevant data across the enterprise.

According to Perficient CTO Andy Sweet, the VIP Platform eased integration because it conforms to the J2EE (Java 2, Enterprise Edition) standards already in use at Maritz, including the IBM WebSphere Web server. As the local integration partner, Perficient was recommended by Gauss to finalize the design and provide integration services.

In a four-phase implementation plan that began in mid-April 2002, user information from the separate business units was gathered in a centralized database. For the most part, that involved converting legacy documents to a standard format with attached metadata (data that describes the content). Perficient engineers designed a metadata validation agent to aid with that process by verifying that the content matched defined lists and other business rules. This reduces "dirty" data, which could create retrieval problems.

Security models were set up based on group and role permissions, a process that required consultation services. What business unit a user is part of (e.g. human resources) as well as job function (e.g. supervisor) define the portal view and access to certain documents.

"They had some robust requirements about content security," comments Mike Minkler, project manager at Perficient. "Traditionally, security can be very complex. It's easy to meet the requirements, but tough to maintain them." Providing a tool that allows end users to control security settings themselves means Perficient spends less time on-site, but that's a key part of its business strategy. "As an integrator, we don't want to become part of the furniture, so we try to deliver value quickly," says Minkler. "If a customer spends too much on services, it keeps them from having the money to undertake new projects."

Concurrent Training Contributes To Project Success
Perficient's philosophy of quick implementation extends to training as well. Maritz employees were an integrated part of the development team throughout the entire process. The integrator has found that when the end user plans to maintain long-term support of a system, a sudden transition is more likely to fail. Perficient stayed on-site about a week to make sure everything was running smoothly before turning the portal over to Maritz entirely. Though the customer originally considered a custom-developed administration tool, Maritz found that the integrated administration tool in the VIP Platform met all requirements. The end users at individual desktops were simply sent an e-mail directing them to the URL (uniform resource locator) of the appropriate business unit.

Even before Perficient was involved in the project, Maritz had a vision of how the portal would work. Much of the requirements analysis had already been performed as well. As a result, Maritz set a very aggressive timeline for implementation. The detail design, architecture design, process planning, and implementation took about 10 weeks. Throughout the process, Perficient's engineers worked closely with Gauss engineers to discuss methods for how to best meet Maritz' requirements. "When validating the design and revisions, Gauss was heavily involved," notes Sweet. "When that was finalized, their role became more advisory." In addition to e-mail and conference calls, engineers from both groups also met at the customer site for joint application development. "Gauss' support extended all the way to the developers of the actual software," says Sweet. "If we had a question, we could go back to the person who actually wrote the code. The benefit is we can get problems solved quickly, which gives us credibility with the customer."

Deliver ROI by Increasing Efficiency, Reducing Costs
With the centralized portal solution, Maritz' 7,000 users no longer have to search through various files for information that is important to job functions. Since nearly all corporate data is stored in a unified way, users can also search against content across the enterprise. Employees are more productive because they spend less time trying to guess where content might be on the network. Since salespeople can more quickly view customer data across departments, cross-selling and up-selling opportunities are easier to recognize.

The portal solution has also slashed administrative costs for Maritz. Previously, each department required a content administrator. With standardized procedures for posting content, the enterprise-wide system can be managed by just a couple of employees.

Organizing centralized access to content through portals is applicable to a number of industries, according to Sweet. Perficient has found that solutions similar to the one at Maritz can meet the needs of customers in healthcare, financial services, and commodities. As user-facing Web services gain acceptance, Sweet believes the cost-justification of content delivery through a portal will be even clearer and integrators will reap the benefits.