Background and needs
IIS plays a key role in Internet Sweden and is perhaps most known for administering the Swedish top domain .se. Additionally, the foundation promotes Internet usage in Sweden through various initiatives and services. Among the more well-known of the many initiatives from IIS are Webbstjärnan and Bredbandskollen. The first is an exciting and educational competition open to all grade school and high school students in Sweden. The task is to build a website based on a school project chosen by the students. The latter is an independent, web-based consumer tool that helps in testing and evaluating Internet connections. IIS also arranges Internet day events, publishes free Internet guides and administers the Internet fund, from which millions are annually distributed to projects that promote further development of the Internet in Sweden.
Everything is a project – what do we need?
“We conduct a large portion of our operations in project form”, says Michael Winberg, project manager at IIS. “It's not just a matter of new initiatives, but also administration of our existing systems and services.” Michael goes on to mention that a few years ago, a skills enhancement program was conducted by implementing the PPS project model from Tieto, but during 2013 it became obvious that a modern and web-based project tool was also needed.
“We understood that Antura Projects with the add-on Antura Projects for PPS could be an attractive alternative for us,” says Michael Winberg.“We quickly realized after a few initial meetings that Antura Projects could resolve our problems within project administration, resource management as well as collaborative functionality. We consequently decided to start an implementation project with Antura Projects.”
Security in focus
During the spring and summer of 2013, Antura Projects was configured based on IIS's various operational needs. The objective was to be able to configure IIS's portfolios in various ways and view them from different perspectives, something that quickly became popular among the users of the portfolio functionality in the product.
“For a company like IIS, it's essential that the systems we buy and use fulfill our stringent security requirements,” says Michael Winberg. “We commissioned an independent IT security company to evaluate Antura Projects' security and the results were very satisfying. It would be disastrous if a company like IIS drew the attention of the media due to deficiencies in Internet security. But the results from the tests gave us the assurance and information we needed to move forward.”
Usage increased during the autumn of 2013 and the project organization, with a staff of more than 50, now uses the system more or less full out.
A big step forward for operations
An important benefit with Antura Projects for IIS is being able to plan and prioritize resources. During business planning, which is carried out during the autumn, plans are made concerning the following year's administrative needs and project ideas. Administrative managers and project managers specify their resource requirements and in this way, management staff can see how their personnel will be utilized. This provides a long-term indication of which skills need to be strengthened as well as a departure point for setting priorities between various initiatives.
Another important step in use is the integration with the Hogia accounting system, which was put in production at the beginning of 2014. The integration enables project managers to view actual financial results directly in Antura Projects.
“The integration is very important from the perspectives of the project managers and service administrators. They now obtain information from one and the same place, which makes their work significantly easier. We expect to be able to obtain improved prognoses, follow-ups and control of our operations”, says Michael Winberg.
“We're already seeing major operational benefits as a result of implementation of Antura Projects. I can view resource utilization, identify resource conflicts and I even get an excellent overview – and it's only going to get better. Antura Projects is really a big step forward for our operations!”