Optos is a pioneering medical technology company specializing in the design, development, and manufacturing of ultra-widefield retinal imaging devices. Committed to advancing eye care worldwide, Optos continually adopts the latest technologies to support optomap as a standard of care, aiding eye care professionals globally in preserving sight and saving lives.

Challenge

Optos operated a complex SharePoint 2007-based intranet serving as a significant document repository and project management staging area. The system included a unique business logic gating system with custom event handlers for process automation. The challenge was to migrate their 2007 farm to newer versions while managing the transition from on-premise to cloud infrastructure and coordinating with their overseas office. The migration needed to progress through SharePoint 2010, 2013, and finally to 2016, all without causing business downtime.

What We Did

Our approach was methodical and staged over several years to ensure stability and continuity:

  • 2007 to 2010: We built a new three-tier SharePoint 2010 farm and initiated a cloud host, focusing on archival of outdated data, site pruning, and database health optimization.
  • 2010 to 2013: We conducted multiple test migrations to SharePoint 2013, each revealing more about third-party components and database irregularities. Each issue was remediated at the source, followed by another test migration and evaluation.
  • 2013 to 2016: The final migration brought their system up to SharePoint 2016. We achieved this upgrade with zero business downtime, continuing to maintain and optimize their SharePoint farm.

Additionally, we developed custom applications to streamline their engineering processes:

  • Engineering Change Request (ECR) App: Replaced an older InfoPath form, documenting a previously challenging process. This app includes a workflow that automatically generates tasks for each approval step, updating statuses and enabling new ECO generation based on existing ECR data to avoid duplication.
  • Engineering Change Order (ECO) App: Replaced a paper-based system, reducing data duplication and enhancing the transparency of the approval process. This app leverages data from the ECR to populate related lists and libraries, minimizing data entry errors and redundancy.

The Result

The migration strategy not only modernized Optos’s SharePoint environment but also ensured that the transition was seamless, maintaining operational continuity throughout the process. The custom apps we introduced transformed their engineering change processes, making them more efficient and reducing the potential for errors. This overhaul has allowed Optos to continue focusing on its core mission of advancing eye care technology while leveraging a robust, modern intranet environment to support its global operations.