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When you're solely responsible for IT support in an organisation that has networks in three geographically distant locations covering close to 100 workstations what you are looking for are reliable, secure and functional systems.
For Alan Keegan, IT Manager of packaging company Ire-Tex Group, this meant turning to Novell and its GroupWise 6 messaging software when the company recently decided to upgrade its mail package from cc:Mail.
"I was looking for a variety of things from the software that I considered," says Alan Keegan. "The first was that it fitted in nicely with our operating system and the second was that it was cost-effective. The final and most important quality was reliability. As I am the only person in Ireland looking after IT support I needed a simple, but compact system that wouldn't let me down."
Ire-Tex, which produces a wide range of packaging mainly for hi-tech, pharmaceutical and food industry companies, employs around 300 people in Ireland in three different locations. The first to have GroupWise 6 installed was its head office in Leixlip, Co Kildare, with the time from planning to installing the product on nearly 50 workstations and training the staff taking less than a month.
The installation and training was carried out by Synopsis Consulting Ltd., a Novell Business Expert accredited company. Alan Keegan was not only impressed by their professionalism, but also how smoothly the process went. "Testing and implementation took just three days, which meant there was very little downtime," he remarks.
The installation of GroupWise in its Leixlip headquarters took place in July, 2001, and next on the list is the Limerick office, which has close to 30 workstations. The company says the roll-out of GroupWise within the Irish operation should be completed by the end of the year with Belfast being the third and final facility to benefit from the system.
The company was already seeing benefits just a few months after the installation of GroupWise 6. "We are trying to reduce the amount of paper in the offices and it is company policy that staff keep diaries," he explains. "The calendar function in GroupWise means that employees can see each other's diaries and invite colleagues to meetings at times that suit all the participants. Or they can be alerted to the fact that their attendance is requested at a meeting at a certain date and location, all with just a few clicks of the mouse. And GroupWise's scheduling function also allows them to book the rooms for such meetings. These tools are making life around here a lot easier."
GroupWise can also be accessed by Ire-Tex staff via a dial-up interface which has become popular with the company's sales force. "Our sales people are constantly travelling around the country and, as such, are all equipped with lap-tops. They use their dial-up account to collect and send emails while on the move and have found it to be very reliable," comments Alan. "Also, because they can create e-mails with attachments while offline and then dial-up into the system, which then sends them on the mail and collects the messages in their inboxes, we can reduce call costs, particularly as many staff regularly travel to the Far East to visit our Malaysian operation."
Although Ire-Tex doesn't currently plan to introduce GroupWise's wireless elements, Alan Keegan says the company will be considering their adoption within the next 12 months. GroupWise Wireless, which runs on any device that supports WAP, allows "mobile" workers to take advantage of GroupWise 6's collaboration tools.
And it's these collaboration tools that Paul Fleming, Sales Manager in Synopsis Consulting Ltd. says gives GroupWise its edge over other messaging systems. "There is more to GroupWise than just e-mail and that was what Ire-Tex was looking for. It wanted a system that could make work processes more effective and improve external and internal communication," comments Fleming.
One such collaboration tool that will be utilised shortly by Ire-Tex is "Proxy" access. This allows people working together to view each other's diaries or task lists. Depending on the level of access, an employee can let a colleague view their diary, but not make entries to it. On the other hand, if allowed, a PA can, for example, make changes to the diary of the person they work for and the changes can then be viewed or printed out instantly.
Another tool in GroupWise 6 that Ire-Tex has already taken advantage of allows users to manage their "to do" lists through the messaging system, and the business will also in the near future be implementing the system's fax facility, which will see individual PCs being able to send and receive faxes.
With all these additional tools, companies might be concerned that GroupWise could be difficult for users to get a handle on. However, Alan Keegan stresses that one of the system's strengths is that despite all the add-ons, employees have taken to it well. "I was looking for a system that was relatively simple for the staff to use, as well as being functional, and I found that in GroupWise," he says.
Ire-Tex and Novell have quite a long relationship. When Keegan joined the Ire-Tex Group three years ago the company's networks were running on Novell's NetWare 3. Within a year, all three networks in Dublin, Limerick and Belfast were upgraded to NetWare 5 to take advantage of Novell Directory Services and full Internet Protocol support.
According to Alan, the reliability of Novell's network operating system has given him some much needed peace of mind, and has freed-up his time and resources to tackle other IT issues within the business.
"I have absolutely no complaints about NetWare 5," he comments. "There is very rarely any downtime at any of the three sites and, for instance, I usually only have to visit Belfast to carry out routine maintenance work. And with NetWare and GroupWise installed, any downtime will be further reduced. It is a great feeling to know that when I come into work or leave at the end of the day, I won't have to worry about system failure."
For further information visit Ire-Tex at www.iretex.com; www.novell.com and Synopsis Consulting Ltd at www.syncon.ie.
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