Grontmij Client Extranet Portal
"I Envision... a more user-friendly external website, with an automated registration process and user management that exposes additional products and services to prospective clients.”
The Client
Grontmij is a leading sustainable design and management consultancy active in the growth markets of water, energy, transportation and sustainable planning and design. Headquartered in The Netherlands, Grontmij is the fourth largest engineering consultancy in Europe with over 150 offices across Europe, another 20 global offices, and over 8,000 employees worldwide. Their value chain of services stretches from major renewable water and energy infrastructure through designing efficient and environmentally-sensitive mobility and transportation networks to shaping urban and green living spaces. By aligning themselves with current environmental changes such as population growth, climate change and increasing urbanization, Grontmij continues to play their part in the global community.
The Solution
Grontmij currently hosts several SharePoint sites for external users. One of them is owned by the GIS department within Grontmij. GIS wanted to launch a newer version of their external website for various reasons: To adapt to new corporate branding; to automate a mostly manual user registration and maintenance process; to make the end-user experience more user-friendly, and to expand on the number of currently available products to end users. The Envision IT Extranet User Manager was deployed, which provides password management and lost password retrieval, a landing page for directing external users into the sites to which they have access, display and management of site access for users, and web-based account creation and management.
Envision IT created a self-service registration page for account creation, with a corresponding SharePoint list and alert for account approval and activation. The registration page is built as a standalone ASP.NET. The registration component is built as an ASCX control, that is used on two pages. One will be used anonymously to register for the site, and the other will be authenticated to update registration information. The new end user site is fully branded for Grontmij and translated for the predominantly Dutch audience.
The Results
- Better password and user management for clients
- Grontmij is able to extend the range of targeted clients to a broader audience
- This provides them with more information, software products, and learning
- Prospective clients receive a more user-friendly experience with enhanced functionality and more options
- The registration process is more automated, and the Helpdesk does not need to be involved in lost password retrieval and password changes
- The Extranet will easily handle growth of the intended target user group to over 2,000 end users and potential expansion to other Extranet Applications
