Rob Wilson, Business Unit Director – Microsoft Applications at Keller Schroeder, was recently selected as a Community Champion by INETA for his contributions to the SharePoint User Group in Evansville and to other communities in our region.  INETA is a non-profit, independent organization, chartered with supporting all user groups interested in the Microsoft .NET platform.  Keller Schroeder has been a long-time supporter of technology user groups – including coordinating, hosting, sponsoring and speaking.

Information technology companies can be creative in the use of white papers, webinars, and ad campaigns to tell their success stories.  But, “Nothing speaks more credibly about us than the very words of our clients”, says Keller Schroeder President Larry May.

Those words came through loud and clear from Keller Schroeder clients in this year’s customer satisfaction survey, administered by Microsoft and required of all its leading Partners.  Keller Schroeder received an overall performance rating of 94 percent, compared to the average score for all Microsoft Partners of 65 percent.  Loyalty ratings for Keller Schroeder were 100 percent, compared to 86 percent for all Microsoft Partners.

As part of an ongoing qualification process, Microsoft Gold Certified Partners participate in an annual evaluation which includes a customer satisfaction survey completed anonymously by active clients.  “We are passionate about seeing our clients succeed,” says May, “and it is gratifying when they tell us so resoundingly that we are impacting them in a positive way.”

Since becoming the first Evansville-based Microsoft Gold Certified Partner in 2007, Keller Schroeder has seen its Microsoft business grow faster than any other segment.  While some firms specialize in infrastructure-related Microsoft tools (such as server and data management software), and others specialize in applications-related tools (such as SharePoint and .Net development), Keller Schroeder’s expertise includes the full spectrum of Microsoft solutions for businesses of any size. 

The firm’s reputation for excellence extends well beyond the Microsoft space.  Keller Schroeder received the 2007 Cisco Outstanding Indiana Customer Satisfaction Award, the 2008 Cisco Outstanding Growth Award, the 2008 Spirit of United Way Award, and was named as one of Indiana’s “Best Places to Work” in 2006.

For many years, companies have struggled to find a data collection technique that crosses platforms, facilitates data analysis, handles both structured and unstructured data, and enables business processes. In contrast to many IT challenges where there are an abundance of tools but no clear approach, in this case the tools were just not up to par. Sure you could create forms using Word and/or Adobe PDF’s – you could even allow users to fill in the blanks online and print or email the form – but actually validating that data, extracting the data out of the form for analysis or launching workflows has proved to be both cumbersome and expensive. As a result, custom web pages have often been used to facilitate simple data collection – requiring specialized programming skills and valuable IT resources for what seemed to be rudimentary requests.

Enter Microsoft Office InfoPath – Microsoft’s answer to data collection challenges. InfoPath is a power user/novice developer tool that enables forms development based on an open XML format. The benefits of InfoPath are numerous:

By integrating with SharePoint, InfoPath offers an enterprise-level forms solution complete with business process automation and legacy software integration. Additionally, you are able to build your project teams with professionals of varying skills and levels of experience.

The InfoPath client (designer and viewer) is available as a stand-alone product or is part of the Microsoft Office Professional Plus, Enterprise and Ultimate suites. The client version integrates with Windows SharePoint Services which is included free with the Windows Server operating system. InfoPath Form Services is part of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Enterprise Edition.

Contact your Keller Schroeder Senior Account Manager to learn more or discuss the benefits of implementing this technology within your environment.

Are you faced with the challenges associated with propagating information to your remote workers or business partners? Does your organization struggle with organizing or finding valuable information? Are you tired of dealing with multiple versions of a document floating around in your organization? Are you in need of a corporate knowledge sharing and collaboration strategy? Maybe you should consider SharePoint, the most widely adopted portal and collaboration product on the market today.

Keller Schroeder is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner with competencies in Advanced Infrastructure Solutions, Data Management Solutions, Custom Development Solutions and Information Worker Solutions. In addition to our years of experience with .NET, Office development and SQL Server, we are also your local SharePoint expert – having staff who have specialized in SharePoint since late 2005. Our SharePoint experts have recently created a blog to share some of our SharePoint insights. On our blog you will find information suited for SharePoint developers, administrators, power users and information workers. Our SharePoint blog is a great way to stay in touch with things we have recently done with SharePoint and to find information that is useful to your organization.

Please visit our SharePoint blog at the following URL: sharepointblog.kellerschroeder.com

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