Amplifying Visibility and Access with a Document Management Platform

The customer needed to modernise their legacy applications and document management system, with a strong focus on cost‑effectiveness, scalability, and ease of support. Drawing on its consultancy and migration expertise, Arrk helped the customer shape and deliver future IT initiatives through a comprehensive suite of application support and maintenance services.

The customer is a constituent of the FTSE 250 and operates across multiple global regions, serving strategic markets including automotive, aerospace, energy (covering manufacturing and engineering), electronics, and medical. With a market capitalisation exceeding £2 billion, the customer is recognised for helping manufacturers solve complex design and engineering challenges. For more than four decades, they have supported a diverse range of industries, delivering high‑quality solutions.

With limited scope for further development within the organisation’s legacy applications, the customer decided to migrate their in‑house document management system to the cloud, removing dependencies on on‑premise infrastructure and licensing. As part of a wider digital transformation initiative, a widely used and secure SharePoint application was selected for migration. Arrk worked closely with the business to:

• Enhance the user experience
• Reduce infrastructure costs
• Improve ease of maintenance
• Align with the organisation’s cloud roadmap
• Resolve existing application issues

Arrk put together a consulting team consisting of a SharePoint consultant, technical architect, and business analyst, who collaborated closely with users across multiple business functions to conduct a focused mini EmbArrk™ workshop. This collaborative exercise enabled the Arrk team to develop a clear understanding of the customer’s day‑to‑day document management challenges, identifying key pain points and business requirements.

Through detailed interviews with key business stakeholders, Arrk identified gaps between business needs and the existing IT landscape, as well as opportunities to improve the overall IT environment. Based on these findings, Arrk developed a comprehensive proposal aligned to the customer’s IT roadmap for cloud adoption.

Drawing on its experience in migration projects and relevant Microsoft competencies, Arrk designed and executed a detailed migration plan for Phase One, focusing on moving on‑premises applications to SharePoint Online.

Within the three‑month delivery timeframe, Arrk completed the migration with zero data loss, using the ShareGate migration tool to ensure accuracy, reliability and business continuity.

In Phase Two, Arrk redesigned and redeveloped several custom functionalities to enhance automation, governance, and user experience:

• Automated document management and review reminder workflows using Microsoft Flow (Power Automate) and REST APIs.
• Custom context menus developed with jQuery, CSOM, Microsoft Flow, and REST APIs.
• Automated email ingestion, enabling emails to be copied from Outlook to SharePoint Discussion Boards using Microsoft Flow.
• A custom audit scheduler, designed and deployed using C# and Azure Functions.

By automating core processes and using managed services, Arrk significantly reduced ongoing maintenance costs while improving usability and end‑user satisfaction.

Throughout the engagement, Arrk conducted regular and effective checkpoint meetings with the customer and proactively highlighted technical and operational prerequisites well in advance. This approach improved coordination, reduced risk, and strengthened collaboration between Arrk and the customer teams.

• Delivered a significant transformation in team operations, improving efficiency and collaboration.
• Simplified and accelerated the document sharing and approval process, reducing turnaround time.
• Implemented an automated document management solution that eliminated critical manual interventions and errors.
• Achieved reduced infrastructure costs by modernising the platform and moving away from heavy on‑premises dependencies.
• Enabled accurate, real-time reporting through Power BI, supporting informed decision making.
• Provided seamless integration with modern web technologies and enabled flexible cloud application deployment.
• Established a scalable architecture for developing rich applications (both SharePoint‑hosted and cloud‑hosted) without the ongoing cost of managing on‑premises infrastructure.
• Successfully completed the customer’s first offshore outsourcing initiative, leveraging Arrk’s expertise and significantly increasing confidence in the offshore delivery model.
• Overall, the initiative resulted in improved document management, stronger security, and better governance across the organisation.

Arrk successfully enabled the customer’s move to SharePoint Online through effective discovery, migration and targeted automation. The solution streamlined document management, reduced costs, improved security and reporting, and delivered a scalable cloud platform. The project also strengthened the customer’s confidence in Arrk as a trusted offshore delivery partner for future transformation initiatives.