NATO SharePoint 2010 Case Study - Web Content Management - Procurement Improvements and easier content management by Power Users and Business Users

1. Customer Solution Case Study
NATO Agency Updates Website to Reflect
Technology Expertise, Support Procurement
Overview “Our mandate is to assist NATO in moving forward
Country or
Region:Belgium/Netherlands technologically. SharePoint Server 2010 helps us
Industry:Government agencies enhance and expedite the process of acquiring
Customer Profile leading-edge partners and technology—that is
The NATO Consultation, Command
and Control Agency (NC3A) provides important work.”
technology support for the North Steven Janis, Project Manager, NATO Consultation, Command and Control Agency
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). It
relies on many technology services and
The NATO Consultation, Command and Control Agency (NC3A)
products from the private sector.
of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) needed to
Business Situation
improve its website to better reflect its position as the core
The NC3A needed to improve its
website to better serve its NATO NATO technology provider. The agency relied on an aging
customers. It also needed to streamline
website platform that required a manual process for content
web content management processes.
updates. NC3A chose Microsoft SharePoint 2010 for Internet
Solution
Sites as the foundation for a new website that provides
The NC3A chose Microsoft SharePoint
2010 for Internet Sites as the prospective technology partners, NATO customers, and others
foundation for its new website, taking
with current information about the agency‟s services. Using
advantage of centralized content
management, search, site templates, SharePoint 2010, the agency launched its new site in less than
and interoperability with other
two months, has streamlined site management while expanding
systems.
functionality, and has given content owners the tools they need
Benefits
to update the site easily. The solution is also highly
Enhanced website appearance
Streamlined development, interoperable, allowing the NC3A to incorporate electronic
management, administration
procurement and e-commerce capabilities in future phases.
Flexible, extensible platform

2. “Our agency is the Situation easily interact with our suppliers,” says
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization Steven Janis, Project Manager at NC3A.
technical leader at (NATO) is a 28-country alliance from The former NC3A site was largely static,
North America and Europe that works to wasn‟t up-to-date with current NATO
NATO, but our site safeguard the freedom and security of its branding, and its search functionality was
wasn‟t conveying a member countries through political and limited. “Our agency is the technical
military means. The NATO Consultation, leader at NATO, but our site wasn‟t
leading-edge technology Command and Control Agency (NC3A) conveying a leading-edge technology
supports NATO and its mission through image. It was a very basic portal that
image.” the research, acquisition, and used a lot of HTML code,” says Janis.
Steven Janis, Project Manager, NATO development of advanced technology. “The site had very little wow factor.”
Consultation, Command and Control The agency was created in 1996 by
Agency combining the SHAPE Technical Centre The former site provided basic
and NATO Communications and information about the NC3A; information
Information Systems Agency; and, as the about the agency‟s contractors, including
outgrowth of those groups, is at the contact details, descriptions of services
center of NATO consultation, command, offered, and pricing; an area for
and control. contractors to view requests for
proposals (RFPs); and an area for
One of the main missions of the NC3A is customers to view prenegotiated NC3A
to procure commercially available BOA contracts with contractors from all
Command, Control, Communications, 28 NATO nations. But to better facilitate
Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, interaction with customers and
and Reconnaissance (C4 ISR) capabilities contractors, the NC3A needed to
from more than 600 private companies, incorporate electronic procurement (e-
or business partners, who contract with procurement) and e-commerce
NATO. The NC3A provides these C4 ISR capabilities. For instance, it needed to
capabilities to its “customers”—the implement secure self-service tools that
NATO alliance and partner nations. NC3A would allow contractors to update their
purchases on behalf of its customers a information on their own and submit
range of C4 ISR products including bids and respond to RFPs online. It also
computer hardware, software, and office needed to enable customers to easily
machinery, as well IT support, search for products and services based
engineering, and maintenance services on their technology or business needs,
for NATO commands. NC3A also and to make purchases online.
provides a suite of services, and offers,
through its Basic Ordering Agreement In addition, the agency wanted to raise
(BOA) business partners, the ability for its awareness for and offer services and
business partners to purchase items from solutions alreadydeployed for NATO
the BOAs for NATO projects. missions and commands to NATO
alliance nations. “Essentially, we wanted
The NC3A had outgrown its current to be able to have all of the NC3A
website in light of its need to keep up business—from updating product and
with strategic projects. “We needed a service information, to bidding, invoicing,
better way to showcase our technical and „reselling‟—all go through the
capabilities and innovation to agency‟s website,” explains Janis.
prospective customers, and also, to more

3. an upcoming conference or to feature a
current project. “We wanted to be able
to create new sites easily, without a lot of
IT involvement,” says Janis. Finally, the
NC3A needed to update its website in a
short time frame. “As NATO‟s technical
leader, our Internet presence was well
behind other technical and NATO
organizations, so the need to promptly
refresh our image was considered
mission-critical.”
Solution
Figure 1. New home page of the
In May 2010, the NC3A evaluated several
NC3A site, based on solutions, including Microsoft SharePoint
Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 for Internet Sites. The agency relied
2010. on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server
2007 for its intranet, and the platform
also was widely used by NATO at large as
the basis for an extranet that linked its
The agency made limited use of member nations. Thus, the NC3A was
connection to file shares and databases convinced of the merits of SharePoint as
to feed information to the site, but for a platform for Internet sites and
the most part, the content updating collaboration, was familiar with
process was manual and time-intensive. SharePoint Server administration, and
For instance, to repurpose content such was experienced in Microsoft .NET
as RFP information from the NC3A Framework development. For all these
intranet to the public website, an reasons, “we felt that moving
employee had to download, reformat, immediately to the SharePoint platform
and republish the information. was a natural progression. It also offered
Employees created new content in so much out-of-the-box functionality
Microsoft Word and then added the that we could take advantage of,” says
HTML markup language to it before it Janis.
could be published. It took the full-time
efforts of five employees to manage the The NC3A embarked on the first phase
site. “It was effort-intensive and the risk of its deployment at the end of May.
factor was high,” says Christophe Opitz, With the help of a web design
Business Information Analyst at NC3A. consultant, NC3A redesigned its website,
“One little formatting mistake and an and, with the help of Microsoft Services,
entire page or area of the site could be installed Microsoft SharePoint 2010 for
broken. We needed a web content Internet Sites and migrated its existing
management environment that didn‟t content from the old site to the new. The
require coding skills.” site was launched at the end of July 2010
(see Figure 1). “Our goal was to quickly
The NC3A also needed more flexibility to launch the new look and feel and
create subsites, for instance, to advertise progressively add more functionality to

4. the site, and to integrate the e- The agency will also use out-of-the-box
procurement and e-commerce aspects SharePoint Server 2010 workflows to
by fall of 2011,” explains Janis. initiate website updates and to ensure
that content is published in a consistent
Out-of-the-Box Tools manner. With SharePoint Server 2010
In the second phase of its deployment, integrated workflow, any change that is
in-house and external developers are made to the site is automatically routed
using Microsoft ASP.NET 4.0, part of the to a designated series of approvers,
Microsoft .NET Framework, and the which may include copywriters, editors,
Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate designers, and marketing managers. The
development system to customize and agency plans to fully implement these
incorporate new functionality to the site. aspects of its new web content
The agency also engages many out-of- management environment when the
the-box features of the Microsoft second phase of the deployment is
SharePoint Server 2010 platform, complete, in July 2011.
including web content management
features such as master pages and page Collaboration Environment
layouts that include official NATO design The NC3A will also take advantage of
and branding guidelines. To update SharePoint Server 2010 built-in
existing content or create new content, collaboration tools such as profile pages,
NC3A content owners will use a web- which contractors can use to display
based text editor to modify site content. information about their company‟s
The editor includes the familiar Ribbon products and services. The agency also
feature, part of the Microsoft Office plans to implement SharePoint Server
Fluent user interface, and with it, users 2010 forms-based authentication to
can add or edit site content, for example, enable contractors to create “public” and
update bidding opportunities or RFPs for “private” profile areas. For instance, a
contractors on a Bulletin Board area of public area could be used to advertise
the site, without help from the IT contact details, services offered, and
department. To further simplify the involvement in NATO projects, while a
content management process, the private area could be used to publish
agency is creating a central repository in project schedules and pricing. Forms-
a SharePoint list, to store all digital based authentication would be invoked
assets, including graphics, logos, and to automatically validate user‟s
multimedia files. From the repository, credentials against information in the
content owners can select assets to Active Directory Domain Services
include on a given webpage. directory service. “We are evaluating our
security needs and the full range of
The site templates also allow the agency potential solutions, but the built-in
to quickly and easily deploy new subsites security capabilities of SharePoint Server
to advertise upcoming conferences, or 2010 will play a key role in our initial
feature current, high-profile NC3A environment,” says Janis.
projects such as its involvement in the
construction of the new NATO Central Site Taxonomy
headquarters. To enhance the site‟s search
functionality, the NC3A will take
advantage of SharePoint Server 2010

5. Future Plans
Finally, the NC3A intends to integrate
comprehensive e-procurement and e-
commerce capabilities, including online
bidding, online RFP submissions, and
transactional capabilities, into the site by
October 2011. “We are currently
evaluating e-commerce platform choices,
including Microsoft Dynamics [business
management software],” says Janis.
“SharePoint Server 2010 will allow us to
create an interoperable environment
regardless of which platform we choose.”
Benefits
Figure 2. NC3A news page on Using SharePoint Server 2010, the NC3A
SharePoint Server 2010 with quickly enhanced its public image with a
embedded video broadcast. new, compelling website. During a
phased rollout, in which it will add
functionality to the site through October
managed metadata capabilities to 2011, the NC3A is experiencing faster
centrally define taxonomy for its website development and easier management
content and to easily manage and apply and administration. The agency is
tags to content, including its complete confident that it has adopted a platform
catalog of contractor services and that will allow it to scale and expand its
products. Contractors will use online online presence.
forms based on InfoPath Forms Services
in SharePoint Server 2010, which can Enhanced Website Appearance
include preset metadata, to add, delete, The NC3A deployed a new, updated
or adjust items to the catalog of website that better reflects its position as
products and services. The agency also a technology leader. “With SharePoint
plans to implement the Microsoft FAST Server 2010, we were able to quickly
Search Server 2010 for Internet Sites to build a modern-looking site that
enhance its capability to deliver context- enhances our public image. Our site now
sensitive search results to users. “We reflects who we are and what we do,”
want site visitors to get suggestions and says Opitz. Master pages and page
ideas based on relevance to their search layouts will ensure that all changes made
term,” says Opitz. The agency is also to the site abide by NATO brand
considering building a comprehensive guidelines, and simple, straightforward
database using Microsoft SQL Server tools for including audio, video, and
2008 data management software, and graphics make for a more engaging,
invoking Microsoft Business Connectivity interactive user experience (see Figure 2).
Services in SharePoint Server 2010 to
connect to stored product catalog data. A stronger, more technology savvy and
modern image also helps the agency
attract new contractors and propel the

6. “Knowing that we mission and success of NATO. “Our scalable solution that supports
mandate is to assist NATO in moving connection to other applications is a
have a flexible, forward technologically,” says Janis. huge advantage,” says Janis.
scalable solution that “SharePoint Server 2010 helps us
enhance and expedite the process of
supports connection acquiring leading-edge partners and
to other applications technology—that is important work.”
is a huge advantage.” Streamlined Development,
Management, Administration
Steven Janis, Project Manager, The NC3A is taking advantage of out-of-
NATO Consultation, Command and the-box SharePoint Server 2010 features,
Control Agency its existing Microsoft .NET development
expertise, and SharePoint Server
administration knowledge to create and
maintain a web content management
environment that vastly streamlines daily
work efforts. The site was created quickly,
in less than two months, and the agency
will progressively implement new
features and functionality, including e-
procurement, e-commerce, and a site
refresh through fall of 2012.
With a web-based text editor that does
not require coding, centralized digital
assets, site templates that include
prebuilt brand images and guidelines,
and integrated workflow, the NC3A will
significantly reduce the time it takes to
perform site updates. It will also ensure
that updates are done accurately and
without undue reliance on the IT
department.
Flexible, Extensible Platform
With SharePoint Server 2010, the NC3A
has a website platform that it can expand
to meet many business needs.SharePoint
Server 2010 is interoperable with many
different products and technologies,
such as e-commerce software, enterprise
resource planning software, and other
database-driven solutions. “We will soon
incorporate full e-procurement and e-
commerce capabilities into the website,
and knowing that we have a flexible,

7. For More Information Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010
For more information about Microsoft Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 is the
products and services, call the business collaboration platform for the
Microsoft Sales Information Center at enterprise and the Web.
(800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the
Microsoft Canada Information Centre For more information about Microsoft
at (877) 568-2495. Customers in the SharePoint Server 2010, go to:
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contact your local Microsoft subsidiary.
To access information using the World
Wide Web, go to:
www.microsoft.com
For more information about NATO
Consultation, Command and Control
Agency products and services, call (32)
2 707 84 40 or visit the website
at:www.nc3a.nato.int
Software and Services Technologies
Microsoft Server Product Portfolio − Active Directory Domain Services
− Microsoft SharePoint 2010 for − InfoPath Forms Services
Internet Sites
− Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010
− Microsoft FAST Search Server 2010
for Internet Sites
− Microsoft SQL Server 2008
Enterprise
This case study is for informational purposes only.
MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published July 2011