Multi-Site Collaboration in Secure Cloud

With offices in various locations in the South of England and South Wales D+R Maintenance Solutions are authorised contractors to some of the largest organisations in the UK. These include the food and drink sector, petrochemical companies, hospitals, universities, facilities maintenance/management companies and local authorities.

With a workforce spread across various locations in England and Wales the need was to keep communication happening quickly, efficiently and securely. D+R Maintenance had already for many years been forward thinking with their use of software to solve this task by making use of a CRM package called Goldmine. The pros of Goldmine was they could synchronise their client communications to a server from their PC or laptop, the cons were they had to manually sync with the server which meant the information was never as update as it needed to be. A second problem was the software was expensive to maintain and run, it also had a lot of unnecessary features that D+R did not need or use.

Hans Rip the Sales Director was tasked with finding a system that was fast, more cost effective and had better features suited to their business.

“Our aim was that every member of staff could be kept constantly up to date with the latest client communications, marketing activities and have access to all relevant company files in a convenient and secure system.”

As D+R already had their email in Microsoft 365, this was the first place we would look for a solution to their problems.

The first solution was to make use of SharePoint so we could move all their documents securely into the cloud. SharePoint allows for real time collaboration on documents by staff members regardless of location. Security was always a number one priority and SharePoint ticked all the boxes for compliance and privacy. An additional benefit was the ability to securely share documents externally with clients whilst retaining total control over the files.

The second part of the solution was to make use of Microsoft Teams for its chat and video meeting capabilities. This allowed for more regular meetings between the employees of D+R Maintenance, whilst also saving hours of travel time and reduce fuel costs. It was also an added option for hosting meetings with clients to enhance client relations.

The third and final part of the solution was to build a custom CRM app in Microsoft PowerApps. This was a custom branded CRM app that had all the functionality that they needed from Goldmine, as it was custom built, we were able to add any functionality they required. This gave D+R live access to client communications from any device with an active Internet connection. It also integrated with other Microsoft 365 systems such as SharePoint, Email and Calendars.

Not only were we able to hit all the required targets of the brief but we were also able to add even more functionality to help benefit the business. In addition to improving operational security and efficiency we were also able to reduce annual software and business costs!

This has resulted in better and faster internal communications within D+R Maintenance and improve communication with their clients.

We continue to work with D+R Maintenance Solutions in developing their custom app to help in more areas of the business. They are extremely happy knowing they can have whatever functionality they require at a fair and reasonable cost.