Microsoft SharePoint Case Study - Riverside Technology, inc.

Challenge

The Platte River Recovery Implementation Program (Program) began in 2007 as a collaboration between Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, and the Department of the Interior. The goal of the Program was to recover identified endangered species — the whooping crane, piping plover, interior least tern, and pallid sturgeon — in the central and lower Platte River basin. The Program conducts numerous and diverse application research projects, uses monitoring programs and assessments, and manages land and other asset acquisitions. Collectively, these activities generate volumes of information including reports, documents, images, and geospatial data. The Program needed a modern, state-of-the-art solution to fulfill its requirements for an easily accessible and usable information management system.

Solution

A centralized collaboration portal and knowledge database to gather, manage, and disseminate data collected by contractors, cooperators, agencies, and Program staff.

Riverside Goes to Work

Riverside developed a web-based collaboration portal using Microsoft® SharePoint® 2007 linking it to an underlying knowledge database built with Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008. The system was developed with the following goals in mind:

• To standardize spatial and related environmental data
• To provide centralized, security-controlled shared data to its users at various levels
• To provide web-based data extension and access options

The new website and database were completed and launched in May 2010. Riverside continues to develop additional features and functionality and will provide on-going support and maintenance of the operational system for the next decade.

Results

The program now uses SharePoint as their central hub for communicating with the public and coordinating numerous internal committees and projects. SharePoint is used to deliver the public facing internet website as well as the secured intranet for the Program. Riverside also developed an integrated system to present geospatially relevant information in an interactive online map application built using Google™ Maps and populated using SQL Server’s Spatial functions. The system allows users to collect, analyze, manage and distribute information all from a single easy-to-use internet portal. The data tools allow for collection, visualization, analysis, and cross-referencing of data from various formats in multiple locations.