OVERVIEW
Due to several years of growth, Simple Getaways, Inc. (SGI) has expanded from a single California office to twelve offices distributed throughout the western United States with approximately 270 employees. Methods of communication and data storage that are currently being used were adequate for a single office but are no longer sufficient to meet the needs of Simple Getaways, Inc. This proposal will address the requirements for file storage and management, collaborative communication, information sharing within and between offices and the automation of administrative workflow.

CHALLENGES AFFECTING KEY STAKEHOLDERS
The processes currently being used at Simple Getaways for communication and the distribution of information are no longer suitable for the organization. Documents from each office are stored onsite on a Microsoft Windows file server, making it difficult for other offices to access and use the information they contain. Currently the method used to share files with other offices is via email. This results in multiple copies of the same document residing on various computers at multiple office locations. The duplicate versions are not updated when the original document is modified which leads to different versions of the same document being used. Some business decisions are being made using information from the outdated documents. For example, a document containing airline ticket pricing may be used when creating price quotes for customer travel, but the price for airline tickets fluctuates regularly. If these inaccurate prices were used in a quote, the company has the potential to lose money on the transaction and may be obligated to fulfil the terms of the quote even though it was based on incorrect information. Additionally, when a document is shared between multiple offices and they each make alterations and return the document, the process of integrating the changes into a single document is daunting and often leads to omission of information or inaccuracy in the information being merged. It is also possible that documents altered at the various SGI office locations may not be resent back to the original location thus leading to different offices using different versions of the same document.
At present, administrative tasks such as updating employee records or processing vacation requests are facilitated using paper forms. These forms are stored at each SGI office location in physical file cabinets. When SGI corporate headquarters requires a copy of one of these forms it is either faxed or a photocopy is sent via the postal system. While the “paper method” is functional, it is fairly cumbersome for the employees of Simple Getaways and leads to unnecessary delays. For example, at the end of each year SGI is required to send employees a copy of IRS form W-2. This involves removing paper records from filing cabinets to obtain mailing address information for each employee. If these tax forms are being processed from SGI headquarters the process becomes even more formidable because copies of all the required documentation need to be sent via fax or postal mail. Having single paper copies of administrative forms also has a high potential for loss of information due to theft, fire or natural disaster. In the event that a SGI office is burglarized or catches fire, there is currently no method to retrieve any lost data stored on paper other than to recreate it. It is possible that some of the data may be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to recreate. This has the potential to cost the company greatly in lost productivity.

ACTUAL PERFORMANCE VS. DESIRED PERFORMANCE
Currently, when a Simple Getaways employee at one location needs access to a document from a different office, she calls the office and asks to have a copy emailed to her. The employee from the other office is then taken away from their duties in order to find the file and send it as an email attachment. The ideal transaction would entail the original employee simply accessing the required document without necessitating interaction with any other office or employee. The file being accessed should always be the most current version of the document within the organization.
At present, each SGI office location stores its electronic files on a Windows server located at that office. This makes accessing the files difficult for other offices. The goal is to make all SGI files equally accessible to all SGI locations. When an employee wants to access a document, they shouldn’t need to worry about the location where the file is stored or have to involve other employees in the process of obtaining the document.
Presently Simple Getaways uses paper-based workflow in order to process standard administrative tasks, such as vacation requests, sick leave and employee records. The desired process involves this workflow taking place electronically. Rather than filling out a paper forms and physically delivering them to the appropriate party, computerized forms should be made available with the option to be delivered immediately.

TECHNOLOGICAL SOLUTION
There are a variety of hosted “cloud-based” services that can fulfil the document management and communication needs of Simple Getaways. The recommendation for Simple Getaways is to use a service called TeamLab Office. This service was chosen for its numerous features, ease of use, quick implementation and reasonable pricing.

TeamLab Office will be used for document storage instead of the individual file servers located at each SGI office. Storing documents on the cloud-based service ensures that they are easily accessible by all SGI staff regardless of location. Documents can be modified by more than one employee at the same time, allowing for a collaborative work effort on team projects. Documents will no longer need to be emailed between employees in order to share information. When a document is modified or replaced, the previous document is also saved as an older version. Simply opening a document will always provide the end-user with the most current document, but they have menu options allowing for the opening an older version of the same document. This allows a decision maker to view the history of a document and understand the progression that led to its current state. Employees may keep documents in the “My Documents” area of TeamLab Office if they wish to keep them private. They also have the ability to “Share” documents with other SGI employees or individuals from outside the company. Documents that need to be accessed by the entire company will be stored in the “Common Documents” area. Management at SGI can assign users and groups various permissions to the common documents, such as read-only, full control or deny access.

For the purpose of this proposal, a sample site has been established to further demonstrate the features of TeamLab Office. Several example documents and templates have been made available on the demonstration website. The site can be accessed with the following information:
Web URL: https://XXXXX.teamlab.com (“TeamLab Office”, 2013)
Username: XXXXX@wgu.edu
Password: MeetsRequirements
(Password is case sensitive)

The procedure for digitizing and automating administrative workflow will be a two part process. The first part involves digitizing the existing documents for historical records while the second portion consists of developing an online, automated method for processing the necessary information. If they don’t currently possess one, each SGI office location will need to obtain a multi-function copy machine capable of scanning paper documents. The MFC (multi-function copier) will need to be configured to save scanned documents to the local file server as PDF files, and existing administrative records will need to be scanned and appropriately named. Items that are applicable to all SGI office locations should be uploaded to the TeamLab Office site where they can be sorted into the applicable folder structure.
For sensitive information, such as employee records, a service called Natural HR will be used. Natural HR is a system for storing and managing employee related records and includes modules for time tracking and vacation processing. Each employee will also be provided self-service access to the Natural HR system so they may update their contact information and other personal records as necessary. Initially, the scanned employee records will be uploaded into the “Documents” area on the Natural HR system in a folder named “Employee Records” that only SGI management has access to view. Upon completion of scanning of all paper records, the Human Resources or other appropriate manager will need to enter employee data into the Natural HR system and create self-service accounts for each employee. Once the self-service accounts have been created, employees will be able to logon to the site and update their contact information and personal details, view the SGI corporate calendar and submit time-off requests electronically. There will no longer be a need to create, handle and store paper forms for administrative workflow.

In order to test out the Natural HR system from an employee perspective, a demonstration site and account have been created. Feel free to access the features on the site and observe how efficient it will be to process administrative tasks. The site can be accessed using the following information:
Web URL: https://www.naturalhr.com/ (“Natural HR”, 2013)
Username: XXXXX
Password: MeetsRequirements
(Use username in place of email address. Password is case sensitive)

Both TeamLab Office and Natural HR have many additional features that Simple Getaways may wish to consider using in the future, such as CRM (customer relationship management, project tracking, integration with existing Microsoft Exchange accounts and timesheet tracking. These additional features ensure that these products will not only meet Simple Getaways’ needs today, but will meet additional operational business requirements in the future.

References
TeamLab Office. (2013). Retrieved from https://XXXXX.teamlab.com Natural HR. (2013). Retrieved from
https://www.naturalhr.com/