Over the last 30 years, Care Network has grown into one of Cambridgeshire’s leading charities, specialising in providing community-based social assistance. The charity works to improve the quality of life for older or vulnerable adults returning home following hospital stays.
- Offering free, practical and emotional support in the home
- Helping provide information and guidance to access community-based services and activities
- Bridging the gaps in services and assisting local communities to bring like-minded individuals together with new groups and activities
The Challenge
We assisted with establishing the technologies best suited to secure and future-proof the charity. The team, comprised of employed staff and volunteers, also needed it to meet the practical demands of remote working.
The current infrastructure comprised of:
- Physical servers containing all company data based at their head office
- Mitel MiVoice 250 small business phone system based at their head office
- Predominately older Windows 7 laptop devices
- VPN connectivity between their local offices and head office to provide access to company data and Mitel phones
- Majority of staff rotating between offices and working out in the local communities
As their IT and telecoms provider, we used our in-depth understanding of their working practices to design and implement the correct solution to suit their requirements.
The Solution
After further consultation, we presented a technical solution that improved on their recent Office 365 email migration, without impacting their day-t0-day operations.
It comprised of several milestones:
- Project management and implementation of new Windows 10 laptops as part of the End Of Life decommissioning of existing Windows 7 devices
- Auditing, compliance and delivery of Cyber Essentials Certification to highlight the charity's proactive approach to cybersecurity and to demonstrate to the NHS and other major partners its paramount importance.
- Leverage the true freedom of working in any location by migrating their company file data into SharePoint 365
- Modernising their telecoms using Microsoft Teams Voice, untethering each member from the telephony restrictions of their previous, on-premise-based phone solution
- Decommissioning of their old, on-premise infrastructure once all data and services were in Office 365
The Results
Working with Care Network we were able to project manage and deliver all these solutions with minimal disruption at each milestone.
In addition to future-proofing the charity, we provided productivity and communications enhancements that work consistently across all devices and users.
It is perhaps this quality their team members now most enjoy – working untethered from any location, securely and safely accessing company data, resources – leveraging Teams Voice for telephone calls and video meetings.