MIDLAND, Texas — Heritage USA Community Federal Credit Union wanted to give its employees a host of business productivity software tools without the IT headaches of maintaining them.
The $33 million CU is using StreetSmart, now in version 7, a Web-based on-demand IT software service from Infostreet that consists of an integrated suite of business applications to which users have access from any computer anywhere that is connected to the Internet.
StreetSmart takes the full complement of business applications–calendar, address book, e-mail and mailing lists, file and application sharing, workflow management, instant messaging, PDA and Outlook synchronization, Web publishing, and knowledge base–and turns them into interactive hosted applications. "Since it doesn't sit on your computer, you (a) don't have to have a computer, and (b) don't have to have the software," said Doug Lynner, president of McNeil/Lynner WebWorks, an IT reseller that has several dozen clients that use StreetSmart. "And you don't have to have the person who comes in to fix it when there is a problem."
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What you do have is the ability to turn any online computer into your desktop. "This takes and personalizes the Internet experience to what you need exactly, as defined by you and the people you work with," Lynner said. "It's a personalization of your browser as your actual office," said Lynner, and it's hosted at an InfoStreet Inc. data center, where data backups take place daily and 99.98% uptime is guaranteed.
At Heritage USA, Merrill sees StreetSmart's calendar–where everyone knows everyone else's schedule–as its most valuable feature. In addition, she said, "all branches can keep in touch easily. We have about 25 employees and three branches. And we don't have to print out as many paper memos."
Though Lynner has clients that use StreetSmart's intranet and extranet features, Heritage USA's system is for internal users only. "It's a must-have item if you want to keep all your employees abreast of what's going on and in touch," Merrill said. "They can go to a section and reach in and get what they need. We have a rule here that no more than three people can be off on any one day. If you want a certain day off, you can look at the calendar and see whether other people are off that day. If you're going to be out on business, it lets people know." To Lynner, the application and file sharing implementation stands out. "You're able to decide what access people can have to what documents on a document-by-document basis," he said. "You can allow customers, for instance, to have access to a certain document on your intranet and not to other information there."
Lynner is clearly one of StreetSmart's fans. "As a generality, what I would point out is you can put away your IT worries. You don't have to worry about an e-mail server. You don't have to worry about a file server. You're not waiting for trucks to deliver equipment. In one minute you're going to be up and running, because that's how long it takes. They can leave their IT headaches to people who do it everyday." –[email protected]
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