Webb Henderson Implements MacroView's SharePoint-based Document Management System

Australasia News

05
Sep
2016

Editor

International legal firm Webb Henderson has partnered with MacroView to create a Document Management solution that enables their widely-distributed users to work collaboratively on documents from virtually anywhere – a situation which is the ‘new normal’ for many workplaces.

Their new DM solution is based on Microsoft SharePoint. By extending and enhancing the integration of Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Office, MacroView DMF has become the enabler of Webb Henderson’s distributed workplace.

Thanks to MacroView DMF, Webb Henderson users are able to perform all their DM activity while working in familiar applications such as Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Word, Windows Explorer and Adobe Reader, while at the same time taking advantage of the web-based nature of a SharePoint document store.

Webb Henderson were attracted to SharePoint because it offered cost-effective, web-based document management, but rapidly determined that an out-of-the-box SharePoint deployment would not provide the document management experience that their staff expected or required. After considerable research and an extensive evaluation process, Webb Henderson chose the winning combination of Microsoft SharePoint and MacroView DMF.  

MacroView DMF plugged a number of gaps in out-of-the box SharePoint functionality and user experience:

• Drag and drop saving of emails from Outlook into SharePoint.
• Searching based on metadata AND content for documents stored in SharePoint, without needing to leave familiar applications such as Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
• Checking-out and versioning made simpler and more functional.
• Document numbers to look and work like they would in a traditional DM system.

Of particular importance to Webb Henderson was the way the new solution facilitated collaborative editing of documents by multiple users in different locations and time zones. The ability to see changes made by other users and to communicate instantly with those other users was essential given the tight client deadlines often associated with Webb Henderson advice assignments.

Webb Henderson report good levels of user satisfaction with and adoption of the new MacroView + SharePoint DM solution. A key success factor in this regard was the good performance of the new solution, which Webb Henderson achieved through a combination of high quality links for each of their offices, Riverbed WAN optimization and performance-oriented configurations of their SQL and SharePoint servers.

Ara Margossian, partner at Webb Henderson, notes “Document management has changed so much from when I first started as a lawyer. With MacroView DMF and SharePoint, we have been able to deliver a first rate document management solution to our team. The functionality and flexibility of the solution, along with its ability to support collaborative working from virtually anywhere, are the big drawcards”.

The MacroView Professional Services team handled the migration of existing documents from the previous DM solution at Webb Henderson. The MacroView Professional Services Team also delivered a custom Microsoft Office template solution for automated document generation. This solution was purpose designed for a multi-location, distributed workplace.