Customer Solution Case Study
/ / PSE&G Enhances Collaboration with Notes-to-Microsoft Migration
Overview
Country or Region:United States
Industry:Utilities
Customer Profile
Public Service Electric and Gas Company (PSE&G), headquartered in New Jersey, has approximately 10,500 employees. In 2004, its revenues totaled U.S.$10 billion.
Business Situation
The company's Lotus Notes–based collaboration environment was costly and difficult to support, and lacked the features the company wanted.
Solution
PSE&G and Avanade migrated two core Notes-based software applications to the Microsoft collaboration technology.
Benefits
Expected cost savings
Enhanced functionality
An experienced technology partner / “Moving from Notes to SharePoint Portal Server 2003 enabled my department to put more control in the hands of our users.”
John Lombardini, Public Affairs Manager, PSE&G
Public Service Electric and Gas Company (PSE&G) serves millions of customers in the New Jersey area. The company relied on IBM Lotus Notes for electronic mail and collaboration, and to host more than 250 software applications. When rising licensing costs and an increasing number of support issues led the company’s IT department to announce it would no longer support Notes, PSE&G sought a new collaboration platform. The company worked with Avanade to migrate two Notes applications to the Microsoft®collaborationtechnology as a proof of concept for migrating its entire Notes environment in the future. The migration has provided users with greater functionality and tighter integration with other systems than the Notes environment provided. In addition, users can now view and customize their data more effectively. PSE&G anticipates significant cost savings from the switch.
Situation
Public Service Electric and Gas Company (PSE&G), a subsidiary of Public Service Enterprise Group, delivers gas and electrical service to several million New Jersey customers living in a 2,600 square-mile territory. The company employs approximately 10,500 people. In 2005, PA Consulting Group awarded PSE&G its ReliabilityOne award for the third year in a row, for reliably delivering electrical energy to its customers.
For several years, PSE&G used IBM Lotus Notes as the platform for its applications. The Notes environment hosted more than 250 software applications used by the company’s business units. Recently, however, the company had supportability issues with Notes and sought additional functionality. In addition, the licensing costs of Lotus Notes had increased. When the company’s IT department announced that it would soon stop supporting the Notes platform, the PSE&G business units knew that they had to find a new platform to support their needs.
Solution
After researching the available options, PSE&G decided to conduct a review comparing Lotus Notes with the Microsoft collaboration platform. The company contacted Microsoft, which recommended Avanade as a partner to help compare the two platforms. Once the business units were satisfied with the results, PSE&G wouldmigrate its Notes-based software applications to Microsoft software solutions.
Avanade first conducted a thorough assessment of the existing Notes applications to determine the costs and benefits associated with migrating them to the Microsoft software solutions. The project group used the Avanade Notes Application Assessment Tool, which compiles information gained through Microsoft Data Collector, Microsoft Data Analyzer, and Avanade Application Analyzer. Avanade quickly learned the size and complexity of the Notes-based applications, determined the appropriate architecture for the new environment, and made its recommendations for each of the Notes applications.
Based on these results, the project group decided to begin by migrating two key Lotus Notes applications to the Microsoft software solutions. This migration would act as a proof of concept for moving the remaining PSE&G applications to versions built on Microsoft technologies.
The first application moved was Notes Tracker. This program captured and tracked day-to-day research data used by the Library and Information Resources Department at PSE&G. Avanade migrated the program’s Notes database forms to Microsoft Office InfoPath® 2003 information-gathering program forms. Avanade hosted the new InfoPath forms on Microsoft Office SharePoint®Portal Server 2003.
Avanade then migrated a second Notes-based program used by the External Affairs Department at PSE&G to manage computer-related requests and track significant issues. This application was moved to an intranet site built using SharePoint Portal Server 2003.
Avanade also trained PSE&G staff on the new technology, tools, best practices, and processes being used for both applications.
Benefits
Faced with higher costs and support issues for Lotus Notes, PSE&G and Avanade replaced two core Notes-based business applications with solutions built using the Microsoft collaboration technology. The migration was fast and easy, and the results have confirmed the predictions contained in the Avanade assessment: the new applications integrate better with other systems and provide new features that enable PSE&G employees to work more efficiently. PSE&G expects the move to a Microsoft collaboration technology to result in significant cost savings in the future.
Expected Cost Savings
The reduced costs that PSE&G expects will come primarily from the presence of a more consistent, standardized, environment. Also, the Microsoft architecture designed by Avanade requires fewer applications and databases to perform the same functions as the software in the Lotus Notes environment. These factors will help lower IT costs by making the overall environment easier to support and requiring fewer software licenses.
Enhanced Functionality
The new features in the migrated applications haveenabled users to work more effectively and productively. John Lombardini, Public Affairs Manager at PSE&G, says, “Moving from Notes to SharePoint Portal Server 2003 enabled my department to put more control in the hands of our users. They’re now able to create their own customized views of their data, and to change and update reference data by themselves without having to go to the IT department for assistance.”
Notes Tracker required active management on the part of its users to function; it also required several Notes databases, applications, and discussion boards. Now that the application has been moved to SharePoint Portal Server 2003, users spend less time creating and editing forms and maintaining the application.
Both of the new applications are accessible from the PSE&G intranet. This makes the data easier to access, and provides more flexible reporting capabilities through the Web interface.
An Experienced Technology Partner
Avanade drew on an in-depth knowledge of both Lotus Notes and Microsoft environments, as well as vast experience in conducting similar migrations, to make this project a success. The time-tested assessment and migration assets and tools that Avanade used enabled the project group to perform the Notes migrations with exceptional accuracy and efficiency. During this engagement, Avanade was able to expedite the migration from a standard four-week period to only a few days.
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About Avanade
Avanade is the leading technology integrator specializing in the Microsoft enterprise platform. Our people help customers around the world maximize their IT investment and create comprehensive solutions that drive business results. Avanade was founded in 2000 as a joint venture between Microsoft Corporation and Accenture.
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