Axceler ControlPoint Success Story

State Government Agency

The Business Challenge

In a busy government bureau in one large state, over 2,000 employees rely on SharePoint for collaboration and for staying up to date with information that is continually changing as policies are updated and new legislation is passed. SharePoint adoption was high and growing, but the very success of the implementation was placing additional burdens on an IT staff that was already in over-demand.

“While we’re the administrators for SharePoint, the way our organization is structured, my team and I do not have direct access to the bureau’s servers,” the bureau’s SharePoint administrator said. “As a result, we were often put in the position of having to tell our users ‘I can’t do that directly.’ We’d then have to get a hold of the LAN group in IT, and have them take care of something for us. This ‘middleman’ position was frustrating for us, and wasn’t the most efficient use of the LAN group’s time, either.”

While the SharePoint administrator knew that he needed a way to delegate some responsibilities back to himself and his team, he also realized that he was going to need the ability to delegate some responsibilities out. With several dozen site collections, he wanted to be able to empower site owners by giving them access to their own permissions.

The Axceler Solution

Having evaluated several SharePoint administration solutions, the SharePoint team chose ControlPoint. “With some of the other products we looked at, I felt we were being ‘oversold.’ We wanted a SharePoint administration tool. Period. The other vendors were pushing elaborate suites that were going to end up being shelfware,” the adminstrator said. “With ControlPoint, things were more straightforward. And because we were only buying what we needed, the price point was right.”

“And personally,” the administrator added, “I was sold on Axceler’s support and their commitment to enhancing ControlPoint. The commitment Axceler has to the tool is very impressive. With each regular release, we know that we’re getting some very beneficial functionality.”

Taking Advantage of ControlPoint

ControlPoint’s reporting gives the SharePoint team a view into the sites they couldn’t see before. They also uses ControlPoint to move and copy sites, and to set and copy permissions.

“One of the things I make a lot of use is the farm hierarchy,” the administrator reported. “That little control is very useful. It gives me a 90,000 foot view at our entire environment. I get to see the big picture in one look, and drill down on any areas that need investigating.”

The SharePoint team is also planning on rolling use of ControlPoint out to individual site owners – one of the primary reasons they chose the Axceler solution. “Getting the business communities to own their sites is key for us,” he said. “Not only will having some autonomy be beneficial for them, it also lets my team focus on those general initiatives that provide the greatest value to the greatest number of our employees.”

The Results

While still early on in their use of ControlPoint, a key benefit that the SharePoint team is realizing is the ability to split out the tasks from one group to another. “We no longer have to rely so heavily on our LAN group,” the administrator reported. “And I no longer find myself having to say ‘I can’t do that.’ This is a win for my team, a win for the LAN group, and a win for our users. Things just work much more efficiently.”

“In our Bureau,the SharePoint environment will continue to grow and improve,” the administrator added. “And working with Axceler, I have a good feeling that ControlPoint will continue to grow and improve as well.”