Migrating towards better collaboration with SharePoint online

Who are they?

PSA International (PSA) is a leading port group and trusted partner to cargo stakeholders. With flagship operations in Singapore and Antwerp, PSA’s global network encompasses over 50 locations in 26 countries around the world. 

The Group’s portfolio comprises 60 deepsea, rail and inland terminals, as well as affiliated businesses in distriparks, warehouses and marine services. 

Drawing on the deep expertise and experience from a diverse global team, PSA actively collaborates with its customers and partners to deliver world-class port services alongside, develop innovative cargo solutions and co-create an Internet of Logistics.

The challenge

PSA International selected Microsoft 365 suite of solutions as its established software of choice across the organisation, including collaboration tools such as Microsoft Teams to provide a consistent, high-performance way for the whole business to communicate. Microsoft SharePoint, a feature of the Microsoft 365 suite, offers accessible and secure document sharing from any device. Due to the company’s previous on-premise SharePoint version receding into end-of-life, the IT team was looking to migrate to SharePoint online. 

The company invited Telstra Purple to tender for the project, having worked successfully together on its SD-WAN implementation. Telstra Purple’s track record of successful migrations was key to being selected as PSA’s partner in the SharePoint online migration.

“There were a number of challenges in our migration from SharePoint on-premise to SharePoint online. First, we identified many additional sites that were not previously linked to the on-premise portal, we needed to ensure that they would be linked after the migration progress,” explained Vijaykumar Shah, Assistant Vice President (Group IT), PSA International. 

“We were also under some time pressures as the solution itself was heading towards end-of life, and we wanted to conduct the migration earlier to avoid managing it under crash conditions. Migrating from SharePoint on-premise to SharePoint online was a discovery process and was only made possible by the support we received from the Telstra Purple team.”

Solution

Working as partners to ensure the project migrated successfully required flexibility across both the PSA and Telstra Purple teams, to avoid roadblocks and to finish the project on schedule. 

In addition to migrating nearly 500 of PSA’s pages, Telstra Purple automated repetitive tasks through PowerShell scripting to reduce the project timeline. To ensure that PSA’s SharePoint service would be supported by PSA’s IT team into the future, Telstra Purple developed three custom web parts – controls within a SharePoint page – specific to the company’s needs, as well as offered education and training services.

Telstra Purple worked with us to create a customised out-of-the-box solution that was aligned to our needs and develop our skills so that we can manage it in the future. They also delivered streamlined operating structures, ensuring we were able to meet our project timelines.

- Vijaykumar Shah, Assistant Vice President (Group IT), PSA International.

As part of the process, Telstra Purple:

• Migrated nearly 500 PSA SharePoint on-premise pages to SharePoint online
• Created a customised solution with controls specific to PSA International’s needs
• Educated the PSA team on future SharePoint management

“The solution that the Telstra Purple team developed for PSA has helped to enhance our ability to share vital business information across our internal network, such as our global corporate response to the COVID pandemic, our green initiatives, and health and safety information,” said Vijaykumar.

“The response from users across the business has been very encouraging. Previously, SharePoint access required a VPN. But now users can access information from anywhere and on any device. We also linked all our sites to the SharePoint portal, which means that our staff members can search for information across the wider site network – making it much more usable and providing a greater library of valuable information, which is accessible to everyone.

“We built a great working partnership on the migration – each side was pushing the other forward, which resulted in us meeting all of our objectives in terms of budget, scope, and timeline.”

Migrating towards better SharePoint collaboration online - Telstra Purple case study (PDF, 372KB)