Hope for the City of Hopewell — the Wonder City
When a small city has big ideas. How to meet the needs of evolving organization on a budget are the challenges faced by the IT Department of the City of Hopewell. Hopewell is an independent city surrounded by Prince George County and the Appomattox River in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Population around 30,000. The City of Hopewell has been called the “Wonder City” because of its resiliency and tendency to bounce back. Despite many past challenges, including the loss of the industry that initially built the City, and a fire that all but destroyed it in 1915, in 2016 Hopewell celebrated 100 years of incorporation. Wonder City indeed!
Dr. Concetta Manker, the IT Director needed to find a reliable and affordable collaboration software for the city’s 500 government employees — police, municipal workers, government officials etc…Employees had to log in remotely and securely access, share and collaborate on the important documents in real time. It had to be the system that can be installed on- premise as a private or hybrid cloud solution as a public cloud was not a best option for local government. It had to have a familiar user experience to get people started using the new system painlessly and quickly without a sharp learning curve. It had to work seamlessly with Word, Excel and PowerPoint file types. It had to have good customer support and it had to be affordable.
Of course, the first obvious solution was to migrate to Office365 Cloud as Microsoft’s extension to its MS Office Suite, or to use cloud storage solutions like Dropbox and Box.com. However, all online storages required migrating all local documents to the ‘public Cloud’. Most people believe that the MS Word Excel and PowerPoint is needed to work on these files types, but Dr. Manker knew that was not the case anymore. So, she searched for the alternatives toOffice365 or Dropbox.com. ONLYOFFICE Enterprise product by Ascensio System seemed to have most of the features she was looking and had good side-by-side reviews for the online editor quality compared to other online Office document editors.
How does ONLYOFFICE complement MS Office? Short Answer: Format compatibility and user experience in all modern Web browsers — at a fraction of the cost. Team Hopewell were about to find that out.
Dr. Manker and her team decided to give it a try and downloaded a free 30 day Trial Version of ONLYOFFICE Enterprise Edition. What she had found pleasantly surprised her. ONLYOFFICE featured a suite of 6 integrated office modules — Documents (DMS), Projects, CRM, Email, Calendar and Community. DMS was her priority. Lets test it out. First — cascading folder structure was familiar, self-explanatory and easy to use. Second — online document creation, editing and collaboration had proven to be the crown jewel of ONLYOFFICE. Dr. Manker knew that in order for people to work on documents online they had to look and act the same way they do in the native MS tools. What she discovered was incredible. ONLYOFFICE Editor could handle the job as good and better then the online Cloud editor we all know and use sometimes (you all know which one ). Arguably, the best online editor on the market ONLYOFFICE preserves the fidelity of even the most complex documents created. And, what is also important — it can be installed on premise in private clouds. Added to the mix are robust desktop and mobile editor apps complete the picture
What about the cost? Many small towns have a limited discretionary spending, reducing the selection to few software titles. Luckily, ONLYOFFICE offered all essential features and allowed City of Hopewell not to go through a lengthy and expensive procurement process. Dr. Manker gladly applied her team resources to other tasks, important to the City of Hopewell. The City’s IT personnel prepared the hardware, installed and, configured ONLYOFFICE for production under 2 hours as the city’s new private cloud. The entire process was quick and painless and it cost the city less than $10,000 for the year.
What was supposed to be a slow transition for Hopewell’s employees, had to be adopted quickly as a work from home (WFH) solution due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, the City of Hopewell work collaboration and share documents all virtually through ONLYOFFICE private.
Dr. Manker states, “Working in our private cloud based program such as ONLYOFFICE fosters effective teamwork, improves communication and boost productivity in one central hub. Staff does not have to use several software platforms to get the job done. Within ONLYOFFICE, employees can now share files and idea, edit files in real time and chat with others within their departments or across the organization. ONLYOFFICE has quickly changed our employees’ perception to new reality”.
Again, a Wonder City lives up to its name, adapts and survives. The City work continues virtually without any interruption. ONLYOFFICE proved to be the system they needed. And, what do you know — Projects, Calendar and CRM had proven to be useful as well.
Dr Manker states, “The COVID-19 pandemic has forced local government to changes its traditional views on how local government should work technologically. ONLYOFFICE has provided us with an affordable tool to allow small cities pursue big ideas that most big cities already enjoy.”
This year alone Wonder City had saved $30,000 by simply selecting an alternative productivity software for its employees. But the true credit belongs to Dr. Manker, for thinking outside the box, challenging the status quo and taking measured risks — all in the name of their own future survival.
ONLYOFFICE is small, but agile and resilient like the City of Hopewell. We are here to help you navigate times of uncertainty, keep your employee productive, and keep your budget affordable.
Contact info: Leo Shrayber leo.shrayber@onlyoffice.com 972–301–8440
