CASE STUDIES

Project Name: Microsoft SharePoint Extranet

End Users: Government Agency

Technology: SharePoint™ 2007, .NET™, Microsoft SQL Server, Active Directory, AJAX.NET

Problem: Users at the large government agency was using a really old client server application to manage large global shipments across a large number of transportation and freight vendors. A couple of thousand shipping requests were made on a daily basis and there was no easy way to track all of these requests and their status. Vendor notification and interaction was also limited.

Solution: The Converge Point SharePoint Consulting team was approached to provide an alternate solution using the SharePoint platform. The client had an existing SharePoint install running in house and wanted to leverage that to interact with clients. However, they did not want vendors listed within their Active Directory structure.

The Converge Point SharePoint Consulting Team architected an effective SharePoint extranet solution that would enable agency staff and vendors to manage all aspects of the shipping requests.

Agency employees from around the world were provided with an area to securely come in and put in shipping requests. Once a shipping request was put in, the appropriate vendors were notified of the shipment request. The Converge Point SharePoint Consulting Team created a SharePoint extranet solution that leveraged forms based authentication using a separate instance of Microsoft® SQL Server instead of having vendor information in the Active Directory. Custom SharePoint Web Parts were leveraged to create a strong authentication process for vendors to login and review Agency requests. The vendors only have access to their own requests and were able to process the requests. Once the requests were processed, vendors are able to notify appropriate staff members of shipment status as well as provide them with real time tracking information.
The SharePoint Extranet solution has drastically streamlined the entire shipping process and has been instrumental in reducing request processing time as well and the enhanced tracking of all requests.