The Association of Waterworks in Denmark creates a safe hybrid workplace with iGlobe's Office2SharePoint for Outlook and Microsoft 365

Ensuring high-quality drinking water for consumers across Denmark

The Association of Waterworks in Denmark, Danske Vandværker, provides legal counsel, technical advice, education, and communication support to its 1,800 member cooperatives responsible for delivering water to about 40 percent of the Danish population. 

In 2019 DVV’s CEO wanted the company to digitize its document filing and sharing processes – unknowingly preparing the company for a hybrid workplace model in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. DVV now offers its employees the option to work from home two days a week. 

“Before we decided to digitize our filing and document management, there were no clear guidelines on how to file or manage documents or emails,” said Susanne Witten, IT and administration consultant, DVV. “This meant that people mostly saved their important correspondence in their own Outlook emails, but if they left the company, this important documentation was lost. Most files were either saved in an unorganized filing structure in a common folder or just on people’s own desks. A change was in order.”

After reviewing four vendors, DVV chose Microsoft partner iGlobe, as DVV could see the benefits in using its Microsoft 365 investment more optimally and that together with the Office2SharePoint for Outlook app, it could provide a secure setup for a hybrid workplace.

Headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, iGlobe strives to ensure employees do not work in a silo by enabling them to leverage collective intelligence to get work done faster and smarter. Microsoft 365 add-ins from iGlobe are designed to empower employees to work in the same way they communicate in their personal lives – digitally, in real time, and without boundaries.

According to Witten, “Office2SharePoint for Outlook is a Microsoft 365-certified app, which was important for us as this certification confirms that a solution is compatible with Microsoft technologies, compliant with cloud app security best practices, and supported by Microsoft. 

“Security is extremely important for us, as we handle confidential information from our members that we need to keep safe, as well as a need to stay within all GDPR regulations. Now we can rest assured that our setup is 100 percent secure and compliant.”

A hybrid workplace powered by Office2SharePoint for Outlook and Microsoft 365

DVV employees now save their Outlook email correspondence directly from Outlook into a designated topic folder in SharePoint, making it easy for other employees to find the email under the specific topic.  

“Our journalist came to me and praised the new setup,” said Irene Blak, graphic designer, DVV. “Now she can find all the information about our members and services she needs when writing a press release or talking with the press. Before she had to hunt down this information by calling a lot of people but now, she can find it directly in SharePoint.”

Blak and Witten worked tirelessly for weeks reorganizing the SharePoint folder structure from scratch with inspiration from the Microsoft SharePoint look book. 

“It makes me happy that all the work and many hours we spent restructuring our SharePoint and intranet and implementing the Office2SharePoint for Outlook app actually made my colleagues' work life so much easier with the heightened transparency and easy access to their colleagues' files and emails,” Blak said.

A more effective use of Microsoft 365 together with the Office2SharePoint for Outlook app helped DVV secure a collaborative workspace that saves employees time while increasing productivity.

“Now we can all be safe in the knowledge that the right files, documents, and emails are stored correctly in the designated folder for full transparency and collaboration,” Witten said. “No files are stored twice in different versions or accidentally deleted. The time saved from not having to ask our colleagues for the information is tremendous, perhaps up to 30 percent saved, once the new workflows are fully implemented.”

“Together with using, for example, Teams in our online meetings where we only use the exact time it’s set for, I believe we are up to 50 percent more efficient during our meetings.”