Barleans is a renowned manufacturer of a range of organic products, leveraging technology to support its sales, marketing, and operational insights.

Challenge

Barleans heavily utilized their SharePoint 2007 portal across various business functions, particularly in sales management. Additionally, they employed an external cloud service for business intelligence (BI) tasks. With aspirations to enhance their capabilities, Barleans aimed to develop a cutting-edge, internal BI system within SharePoint 2013, emphasizing the necessity for zero business downtime during the transition.

What We Did

To meet Barleans’ needs, we established a new SharePoint 2013 farm hosted on a cloud platform, conducting multiple trial migrations to address minor issues from their existing SharePoint 2007 farm. This migration process utilized a database detach-attach method facilitated by a loaner server that supported both SharePoint 2007 and 2010 environments. We synchronized data between the 2007 and 2013 systems to ensure continuity and minimal disruption.

For their BI needs, we implemented the full SQL BI stack, including Excel Calculation Services and Power Pivot, to create interactive, embedded SharePoint pages for dynamic visualizations. This integration allowed users to interact with complex reports and dashboards directly within SharePoint, streamlining their workflow and enhancing decision-making processes.

The Result

The migration to a cloud-based SharePoint 2013 farm was executed flawlessly with zero downtime, impacting business operations minimally while offering several significant enhancements:

  • Cost Savings: Transition from a third-party dashboard service to an in-house solution resulted in substantial cost reductions.
  • Enhanced BI Capabilities: The new BI dashboards connected to real-time data facilitated more agile operations.
  • Modernized User Interface: An updated interface improved compatibility with modern browsers, enhancing user experience across the organization.
  • Smooth Adoption: The transition was seamless, with users quickly adapting to the new system thanks to our strategic implementation and support structures.
  • Branding and User Experience: Inspired by their public-facing website, the new SharePoint branding received immediate approval from stakeholders, praised for its cohesive design and functionality.

Additional enhancements included the deployment of user-friendly UX apps like Mega Menus, Simple Tabs, and Slide Panels to improve navigation and user interaction within the portal.

“Best consultants I have ever worked with! SimpleSharepoint was instrumental in helping Barleans launch its updated portal in SharePoint 2013. Their quick responsiveness to changes during the design and development process, and deep knowledge of the SharePoint technology was critical to the success of the project.” – Michael Flittie, CIO