Case Study

Blakes SharePoint Intranet

Replatforming an Intranet for one of Canada’s seven sisters

About Blakes

For more than 150 years, Blakes has served many of Canada’s and the world’s leading businesses and organizations. The Firm has built a reputation during that time as both a leader in the business community and in the legal profession – leadership that continues to be recognized to this day. Blakes was named “Law Firm of the Year: Canada” for the third time by Chambers and Partners and “Canada Law Firm of the Year” for the fourth consecutive year by Who’s Who Legal.

Challenge

Blakes had several legacy intranets serving different stakeholder groups within the firm:

Multiple legacy intranet platforms including LawPort & a custom intranet built intranet
Poor search experience making information difficult to find
Outdated and irrelevant content across legacy intranets
Confusing information architecture
Interface design that was not aligned with internal brand position
Unable to manage content in two languages (French & English)

Solution

V51 conducted a planning process that included interviews with over 50 users in 5 offices across the country and the formulation of an intranet strategy that culminated in:

Extensive configuration of SharePoint
Integration with firm’s Master Data Directory using Timer Jobs
Creation of a robust Firm Directory using the User Profile Service and faceted search Web Parts
Mapping user’s location on Floor Plans leveraging enterprise location and coordinates
SharePoint Variations to support the translation of the entire Intranet in multiple languages
Team Sites to support team collaboration and knowledge sharing
Publishing sites to enable firm administrators to document and distribute firm policies and procedures to targeted audiences
Meeting & event workspaces to manage the firm’s 20 plus calendars
Roll-ups of calendars into a single view with faceted search filters