Invenergy Clean Energy Company

Invenergy began to search for a document management solution to better organize its enterprise information. The company had more than 15,000 vital documents maintained in different folders on its computer network.

“It was getting difficult for employees to find documents when they needed them,” says Jerry Levy, Vice President of Administration. “Certain drives were restricted, so multiple copies of documents were often made and stored around the network, but there was not enough organization of the folder structure, making it hard to locate information.”

The company wanted to find a better alternative for its enterprise content management that would be cost effective, easy to integrate into its existing IT environment, and that would support a strong security framework.

Invenergy evaluated several enterprise content management (ECM) solutions, including products from ImageTec and Interwoven. Ultimately, it decided to use a comprehensive ECM solution based on KnowledgeLake products.

Based on a KnowledgeLake recommendation, Invenergy worked with Rightpoint, a Chicago-based IT services firm, on the implementation.

“Our accounting system, Dynamics SL, is owned by Microsoft and we use Microsoft’s Office suite and Microsoft SQL Server,” says Levy. “Equally, important, we wanted to expand our business using SharePoint, and we saw this as a great opportunity to start that endeavor. Our timing preceded the rollout of Microsoft SharePoint 2010, which we’re now planning to deploy.”.

Invenergy also is using KnowledgeLake Connect for SharePoint, which allows common business files—including Microsoft Office documents—to be uploaded directly into the SharePoint system.

Planning for the ECM deployment took about three months. The actual system design work took another several months. “Our business environment is very complex,” says Levy. “We have more than 500 different databases due to the number of projects that we manage. It took some time to narrow down the specifics of what we needed to do with the infrastructure and then finally determine a more simplified approach to implementation. With the new SharePoint implementation, those 500 databases will ultimately be collapsed to five.”

Once the solution was deployed, the company began training employees, utilizing both group and individual training sessions. Initially, six people were trained to port existing electronic documents into the new document library, and then users throughout the company were trained on the solution.

With the KnowledgeLake ECM solution, Invenergy has better organization of its critical business documents, which helps employees work more effectively. The company expanded its use of the KnowledgeLake products beyond basic document management, and is now using it to enhance routine business processes in various departments. It is also using the KnowledgeLake products as a core component of an extensive backup and recovery system. To date, Invenergy has imported more than 35,000 documents into the Library.

Provides Fast Access to Vital Documents
With the new ECM solution, accessing documents is fast and efficient. One of the keys to Invenergy’s document management solution is the indexing system that was developed using KnowledgeLake’s tools.

“It is flexible enough to allow for growth, but precise enough to enable rapid searches,” says Levy. “We have several search filters and options to view and find documents. Most users quickly find the documents that they are searching for in a matter of minutes. Speaking for myself, KnowledgeLake’s solution for our document management library has greatly simplified my ability to find the documents that I need on a daily basis.”

Improves Business Processes
After the KnowledgeLake solution was installed and the company’s backlog of documents was indexed and ported to its new electronic document library, the Invenergy staff turned its attention to developing ways of incorporating the ECM technology into other business processes.

“We have expanded the basic solution to save our personnel and other HR records, and we’re also using the technology to scan and save journal entries and integrate them with the journal entry screen inside of our accounting application," says Levy.

Supports Backup System
Levy says that Invenergy is evaluating how it can use the KnowledgeLake ECM solution in tandem with SharePoint 2010 to create an off-site backup system that would provide quick and easy access to documents in the event of an emergency.

“We’re working with the KnowledgeLake technology to enhance our preparedness in case of disaster,” says Levy. “We are now exploring an upgrade to SharePoint 2010 and building a server farm to enable real-time replication and redundancy for disaster recovery purposes.”