La solution AvePoint
After testing several third-party solutions, St .Pölten UAS chose to implement DocAve Connector – part of AvePoint’s DocAve Software Platform for SharePoint migration, management, and protection. “DocAve addressed our needs perfectly,” Kern said. “It allows users to access all of our file share content from one place. This was essential in making sure our employees actively use SharePoint moving forward.”
With DocAve, St .Pölten UAS was able to connect 2 TB of file share data directly to SharePoint. Allowing users to collaborate on legacy file share content through SharePoint helped the university drive platform adoption by providing a single point of access for employees. DocAve also helps the university minimize the amount of data stored on its content database, reducing the burden on its SQL Server and maintaining optimal performance. “Our remote workers previously had difficulty accessing network drives from outside the office,” Kern said. “With DocAve, our users have the ability to work with data living in the network drive from anywhere via SharePoint.”
By connecting file share content directly to SharePoint, DocAve also helped the St. Pölten UAS IT department avoid what would have been a disruptive, month-long migration project. “Every employee considers data to be important in different ways,” Kern said. “Migration would have meant interrupted access to data. Even for a limited time, that was not a feasible option for us. We also did not have the time to coordinate a migration of this size. DocAve saved us one month of work that would have been spent on migration, and there was no interruption for users.”
With DocAve’s rapid file share integration capabilities, St. Pölten UAS was able to increase SharePoint user adoption, leverage the platform’s document management functionalities for its legacy content, and boost productivity. The ability to retain all data in file shares meant that IT could rest assured that no content would be lost. “By connecting our data instead of migrating, we were able to prevent any loss of information, especially data in archive,” Kern said.
DocAve also allowed the St. Pölten UAS IT team to maintain its complex permissions structure as it existed in the network drive. Since SharePoint does not have the ability to retain file share permissions on a one-to-one basis for users, the team would have had a very difficult time overcoming this challenge without an external solution. “AvePoint’s technical support team was very helpful in adapting our permission structure to SharePoint and making sure everyone had the correct permissions, meaning work could continue seamlessly on the new platform,” Kern said.