Summary
As part of their digital transformation journey, a global tech company that develops and supplies a broad portfolio of airborne, land and naval systems and products for defense, homeland security and commercial aviation applications worked with Intelogy to identify their collaboration and communication requirements through the implementation of Microsoft 365 in a highly secure manner.
Intelogy designed and implemented an intranet, business management system, a group of organizational team sites, bid and project management portal and a basic document management structure that was reusable while adhering to defense sector information classification requirements.
Challenge
As the organization works on highly secure government and defense-based projects, the need for adherence to strict governance and rigorous security configuration was of paramount importance.
Additionally, the ownership of multiple subsidiary organizations, all operating in different IT environments with different levels of access to Microsoft 365 products and services, created a challenge around governance and information protection as some subsidiary users were required to have the same level of access as internal staff.
Finally, the Bids and Projects collaboration solution had to be implemented in such a way that external collaboration was only possible with pre-approved individuals with security clearance. Approval of documentation prior to release to external clients was a key requirement in the solution design.
Strategy
SharePoint was chosen as the core platform for the solution, as it provides a secure back-end which is globally accessible across multiple devices and met the strict requirements of the client to ensure data is kept secure and encrypted at all times. Furthermore, the ability to restrict sharing of data externally to only authenticated external users provided reassurance that information would not be shared with users who should not have access. For the Bids and Projects solution, heavy permission customization was required to ensure only certain users could access specific content within the site, and with external users being invited to collaborate on an ad-hoc basis to core areas only.
Power Automate was used to provide a structured approval process whereby documentation would be moved across to an externally shared document library only once the file had been fully reviewed and approved by a senior internal team.
To assist with auditing and further assurance that data is not shared with users who have no security clearance, Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policy settings were configured to run based on custom metadata tags applied to each document across all sites. An override option was then made available to internal members of the organization only. This further ensured that no data was visible or accessible to external parties unless the override was applied to a file.
Finally, Intelogy created an easy to use form in Power Apps that enabled internal users to request the creation of new bid and project sites.
Results
Following multiple training workshops to ensure a high user adoption rate, the release of this solution was a success.
The capability to collaborate with their subsidiary organizations without emailing documentation around has resulted in a pragmatic “one version of the truth” documentation management process. Furthermore, the ability to co-author on documents has resulted in a faster turnaround on project deliveries to external clients.
Implementation of process automation has added value to the business and assisted in utilizing time spent preparing documentation for release to external clients. This increased efficiency in the way of working and defined business processes has further matured the organization to allow focus on other core areas.
Finally, the ability to confidently state that the organization is now fully OS compliant will assist when bidding for future work.
