Migrating 45+ business processes to the cloud

Challenge: Significant impact of cloud transition

WSH provides centralized business administration for eight separate companies. The organization is constantly looking for ways to improve its services for the benefit of all the businesses in its group. Following an internal IT review, the company took the strategic decision to migrate from Microsoft SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint Online and gradually transition all its core business systems to the cloud. Naturally, this decision had significant implications for the company’s business processes.

For more than eight years, WSH had been building automated workflows using a combination of a competitor’s forms and workflows, InfoPath forms, and standard SharePoint functionality. As a result, it had around 60 automated processes for HR, finance, legal, health & safety, and purchasing that needed to be transitioned to the new cloud environment.

Solution: Only 8 months for 45+ processes

Initially, WSH considered staying with InfoPath and another workflow solution. However, WSH opted to replace these both with Nintex K2 Cloud, a secure online platform for creating bespoke business processes. “[Nintex] K2 Cloud provided a single business process automation platform, capable of transforming all our existing processes and forms in the cloud,” says Lisa Saint, SharePoint Developer at WSH. “[Nintex] K2 Cloud also offered a lot of flexible functionality for developing workflows within and outside of SharePoint Online.”

Using Nintex K2 Cloud, it took just one developer at WSH only eight months to migrate 45 separate business processes from the existing on-premise platforms to the cloud, with 15 more in development. The transition to SharePoint Online and Nintex K2 Cloud was almost imperceptible to users, who continued to use their business processes as usual. Now, day after day, the updated processes perform remarkably, with some automated workflows and forms handling hundreds of requests every month.

The enhanced functionality of Nintex K2 Cloud has reduced the complexity of some processes and made them easier for employees to use. The company’s smart resourcing process makes all the relevant information about employee availability for work visible to managers in one place. Everyone in the process adds information to the same form, eliminating the need for additional details to be passed back and forth in emails and separate workflows.

Nintex K2 Cloud has also allowed WSH to streamline several processes, saving time for employees. The company’s accident reporting process, for instance, shows employees only the information they need, at a specific point in time, to enable them to fulfill their tasks more quickly. “Not all our employees are desk based, so the more time we can free up for them to work in their restaurants and hospitality businesses, the better it is,” Saint says.

Saint used online tutorials to learn how to use Nintex K2 Cloud at her own pace. “Their support team was really responsive and great for providing extra help when I needed it,” she added.