Paris airport management uses SharePoint 2013 search tools to enhance knowledge sharing

Today's post is the first in a series spotlighting success stories from SharePoint 2013 early adopters.

Employees get fast and intuitive access to two terabytes of data

Aéroports de Paris, which owns and manages the 13 civil airports and airfields in the Île-de-France (Paris) area, wanted to make it easier for employees to search efficiently, share knowledge, and deliver faster service to airport passengers, employees, and partners.

The organization had been using Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 to run its enterprise content management system. The system contains two terabytes of data, two million objects, 1,500 sites, and 69 content databases. To help employees discover information faster, Aéroports de Paris decided to upgrade to SharePoint 2013.

"We wanted to create a better sense of community and help employees find colleagues who might have the answers to their questions," says Cedric Krouri, IT Project Manager at Aéroports de Paris.

Aéroports de Paris worked with Microsoft Services Consulting and Exakis, a member of the Microsoft Partner Network, to implement Microsoft SharePoint 2013. The migration preparation process took two weeks.

The organization is eager to take advantage of advanced SharePoint 2013 search features:

• Search results are organized according to the type of documents (such as Microsoft PowerPoint presentations) that the employee uses most often and the results that other employees have found most useful.
• When an employee hovers over an individual's name in a search result, he or she can see a contact card that provides information on what that colleague has worked on regarding the search topic.
• All information is searchable as soon as it is posted. Search results show document previews, and direct employees to the specific places within a document where the search term occurs.
• SharePoint 2013 can generate comprehensive search results even when terms or names are misspelled.

Aéroports de Paris employees can use SharePoint 2013 to help find higher-quality information, and the solution's social computing features will help employees verify quality by letting them quickly contact the author or a subject matter expert. Says Pierre Siffrin, Technical Lead for SharePoint at Aéroports de Paris, "By using the enhanced search and social capabilities in SharePoint 2013, employees will be able to locate the best documents faster."

For more on how Paris Airport Management uses SharePoint 2013 to enhance knowledge sharing, please see the complete case study.