BrightWork Grows and Thrives in 2009

Boston, MA, December 21st, 2009 - In 2009, despite the current economic environment, leading companies and government organizations from around the world chose to invest in BrightWork pmPoint.  pmPoint delivers a work and project management plug-in on SharePoint that is ideal for organizations with work and projects of varying structure and types.  Available in multiple languages, pmPoint now serves customers in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia and Australia, and includes organizations such as Federal Express, Microsoft, Tetley Group, Time Warner Cable, Vodafone, and the US Army.

2009 saw the release of pmPoint versions 7.0 and 8.0, which featured new SharePoint project management templates, rich gantt reporting, a new end user report editing capability, advanced project scheduling, resource tracking, visual key indicators, charting, KPI’s, improved Microsoft Project integration, and much more!

2009 also saw the introduction of pmPoint Online - delivering pmPoint as a low cost monthly subscription service and pushing the solution past the technical barriers experienced by some companies.

Here’s what some of pmPoint’s customers have to say about the value they are truly finding in pmPoint on SharePoint:

“After looking at many different approaches and products, we chose BrightWork pmPoint because it fit well with our enterprise-wide SharePoint strategy, was very easy to implement and provided us with a tool that could be mastered quickly by our project managers.” PA Office of the Attorney General, USA.
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“Implementing pmPoint for SharePoint enabled Tetley's project managers to co-ordinate high quantities of projects, assign work items and set timelines all in one place. Critically, visibility into overall project status has been vastly increased, with top level management now able to push project information from across the entire department into a single report that can be scheduled to arrive at specified times.” Tetley, UK.
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"It was well worth the investment and I would recommend this product to other companies trying to manage their projects. My customers love the idea of a “one stop shop”. The templates are so easy to use and have a lot of functionality common to everyone running a project.” Serenic Software, USA.
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“Thanks to pmPoint, we can now use SharePoint to manage all our projects in one place, from business projects to finance projects to IT projects to customer projects.” Columbus IT, Norway.
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"pmPoint adds many great project management capabilities to the SharePoint platform that would have cost us a fortune to build and maintain (e.g. Customizable Reports, Project Structure, Visual indicators, Project Schedule, Graphs and Charts, Resource reporting, etc.).” Microsoft Enterprise and Partner Group, USA.
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"pmPoint delivers customizable SharePoint templates for managing different project types and also for managing across many projects. This gave us a very fast yet flexible starting point." Northamptonshire County Council, UK.
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“We now use the one SharePoint solution (pmPoint) to manage all our work and projects: small work items, requests for new projects, small projects and large projects.” RACQ, Australia
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"BrightWork provided us with an economical, scalable solution for managing our project portfolio. We now have better standards for collecting project data and an intuitive tool that makes the work visible and accessible." Group Health Cooperative, USA.

2010 promises to be stellar year with the releases of SharePoint 2010 and Project 2010.  The next pmPoint release will be a dual release with a version for SharePoint 2007 and a version for SharePoint 2010. This will be in the second quarter of 2010 - timed to coincide with the SharePoint 2010 and Project 2010 releases.  With this strategy BrightWork aims to serve those customers who want to go to SharePoint 2010 and Project 2010 immediately and also to serve those customers who want to stay with SharePoint 2007 and Project 2007 / 2003 for a while longer.

In the meantime, BrightWork wishes all our customers a very Happy Holiday season!

About BrightWork:
BrightWork is the leading provider of innovative SharePoint applications for collaborative project management and enterprise rollup reporting. Leading companies and government organizations around the world rely on BrightWork solutions to help them better manage their work, projects, and processes including FedEx, Microsoft, Tetley Teas, Skanska, Del Monte and University of Chicago.

Press Contact:

Claire Keane
ckeane@brightwork.com
+1 617-357-9000 Ext. 713

Advanced Reporting Capabilities and New Solution Templates Deliver Unmatched Project Visibility and Control

Boston, MA, November 4th, 2009 – BrightWork, Inc. (www.brightwork.com), a leading provider of work and project management software on Microsoft SharePoint today announced the availability of version 8.0 of its flagship product, pmPoint.  Ideal for work and projects of varying structure and types, pmPoint version 8.0 is highlighted by significant enhancements to its Gantt reporting, a new end user report editing capability, additional work and project management templates, enhanced scheduling, improved Microsoft Project integration and considerable productivity improvements.

Current pmPoint customers have been test driving version 8.0 and sharing their feedback.

Chris McNicholas, Senior PMO Analyst at Allianz Insurance comments, "The ability to customize the Gantt chart in pmPoint version 8.0 is a real bonus and combined with the new report editor makes this a great choice as a Portfolio Management tool."

Bob Kreha, Managing Partner at Fifth Discipline adds, “The new customizable Gantt chart added to pmPoint version 8.0, along with the new work and project management report editor for SharePoint, make pmPoint an extremely practical work and project management plug-in for the SharePoint platform.”

“Version 8.0 was developed in partnership with our customers”, says Eamonn McGuinness, CEO of BrightWork.  “These customers are daily users of pmPoint, solving real world problems in highly competitive industries.  They need to be able to efficiently manage the varying types of work and projects across their entire enterprise, and we support them by providing continuously improved product that is highly adoptable and affordable. The optional integration with Microsoft Project is proving very important to our customers.”

pmPoint is now available in multiple languages and serves customers in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, Russia, and Australia.  With pmPoint version 8 customers will benefit from the following capabilities:

• Rich and interactive Gantt reporting that includes the ability to render data from across sites and lists
• New Report Editor that enables report creation and customization without the need for coding
• Advanced project scheduling features that include enhancements to the built-in work breakdown structure, the ability to easily turn off features and columns through check boxes, and automated order numbering options
• New out-of-the-box work and project tracking templates to get started faster and leverage for future projects
• Custom Visibility Settings that allow users to hide columns from forms or views
• Project Site Filters where users can now limit the reported data to only those project site(s) work items they wish to see in a report

Screenshots of the main highlights can be seen here.

Want to get your hands on Version 8.0?

Any organization that wants to learn more about this release today can visit the BrightWork TrialZone and take pmPoint version 8.0 for a test drive!  For further information contact info@brightwork.com or US: +1 (617) 357-9000 Ext. 712, EU: +353 91 514 492.

Version 8.0 is available at no cost to all customers who are on a BrightWork Annual Support and Upgrades plan.  Customers who wish to upgrade should contact support@brightwork.com.

About BrightWork:

BrightWork is the leading provider of innovative SharePoint applications for collaborative project management and enterprise rollup reporting. Leading companies and government organizations around the world rely on BrightWork solutions to help them better manage their work, projects, and processes including FedEx, Microsoft, Tetley Teas, Skanska, Del Monte and University of Chicago.

Press Contact:

Claire Keane
ckeane@brightwork.com
+1 617-357-9000 Ext. 713

Las Vegas, NV, October 19th, 2009: Today at the Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2009, BrightWork is announcing and demonstrating a working version of pmPoint on Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010. pmPoint is BrightWork’s flagship product and delivers a work and project management plug-in for the Microsoft SharePoint Server platform serving customers in North America, Canada, Mexico, Europe, Russia and Australia. The latest release of pmPoint features new work and project management templates, web parts, resource tracking capabilities, advanced cross projects reporting, KPIs, charting, and much more!

BrightWork is a long time Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and has delivered a work and project management plug-in on every version of Microsoft SharePoint Server since its launch in 2001.

“In line with BrightWork’s mission to provide real-world applications for work and project management, the combination of pmPoint and SharePoint Server 2010 give our customers a very fast yet flexible starting point for managing different project types of all sizes”, says Eamonn McGuinness, CEO of BrightWork. “The new features and functionality in pmPoint and SharePoint Server 2010 enables BrightWork to provide a highly adoptable yet affordable solution to manage work and projects across an entire company and deliver real value to our customers”, adds McGuinness.

“We at Microsoft are very pleased that BrightWork has demonstrated SharePoint Server 2010 and pmPoint integration so early in the 2010 release cycle,” said Tom Rizzo, Senior Director of SharePoint, Microsoft Corp. “This technology makes it easier for customers to manage and report across all of their work and projects in one SharePoint Server environment.”

Attendees at the conference can visit with BrightWork at Booth # 1100.

Also at the Microsoft SharePoint Conference this week, BrightWork is announcing and demonstrating the upcoming release of pmPoint version 8.0. Scheduled to release later this month, current BrightWork customers have been test driving version 8.0 and sharing their feedback.

Bob Kreha, Managing Partner at Fifth Discipline comments, “The new customizable Gantt chart added to pmPoint version 8.0, along with the new work and project management report editor for SharePoint Server, make pmPoint an extremely practical work and project management plug-in for SharePoint Server 2010.”

Version 8.0 is available today in the pmPoint TrialZone. Click here to take your test drive right now!

On October 28th, BrightWork presented a live webcast titled “Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 – What’s Coming!” Register Here to view the recording.

About BrightWork:

BrightWork is the leading provider of innovative SharePoint applications for collaborative project management and enterprise rollup reporting. Leading companies and government organizations around the world rely on BrightWork solutions to help them better manage their work, projects, and processes including FedEx, Microsoft, Tetley Teas, Skanska, Del Monte and University of Chicago.

Press Contact:

Claire Keane
ckeane@brightwork.com
+1 617-357-9000 Ext. 713

Phoenix, AZ, September 16th, 2009:  Today at the 2009 Microsoft Project Conference, BrightWork is announcing and demonstrating a working version of pmPoint using the new Microsoft Project 2010 synchronize-to-Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 feature.  pmPoint is BrightWork’s flagship product and delivers a work and project management plug-in for the SharePoint platform serving companies in North America, Canada, Mexico, Europe, Russia and Australia.  The latest release of pmPoint features new SharePoint templates, web parts, resource tracking capabilities, advanced cross projects reporting, KPIs, charting, and much more!  Since the first release of Microsoft SharePoint technologies in 2001, BrightWork has delivered a work and project management plug-in on every version of SharePoint technologies. 

“BrightWork is excited to use the new out-of-the-box Project 2010 to SharePoint 2010 synchronization in our pmPoint product”, said BrightWork CEO Éamonn McGuinness.  “Today with pmPoint on Office SharePoint Server 2007, BrightWork customers can import and export from Microsoft Project 2007, but with this new functionality, pmPoint customers will be able to synchronize Project 2010 tasks and pmPoint project sites in SharePoint 2010.” 

“We at Microsoft are very pleased that BrightWork have shown Project 2010 and pmPoint integration working so early in the 2010 release cycle,” said Seth Patton, Senior Director of Product Marketing for Microsoft Project. “We do believe that the ability for customers to see a dashboard of reports in SharePoint that reports across many project sites with data synchronized in from Project Professional 2010 will be very appealing, and will provide a natural stepping stone to the full capabilities of Project Server 2010.”

Conference attendees can hear more from Eamonn McGuinness on Wednesday, September 16th, where he will be presenting on the topic of ‘Opening SharePoint to Project 2010’ (1pm to 2:15pm).

Also at the Microsoft Project Conference this week, BrightWork is announcing and demonstrating the upcoming release of pmPoint version 8.0 for SharePoint 2007. 

“The new customizable Gantt chart added to pmPoint version 8.0, along with the new work and project management report editor for SharePoint 2007, make pmPoint an extremely practical work and project management plug-in for SharePoint 2007,” said Bob Kreha, Managing Partner, Fifth Discipline. 

Attendees can visit with BrightWork at Booth # 910.  Scheduled to release in October, 2009, a sneak peek at version 8.0 is available today in the pmPoint TrialZone.  Click here to take a test drive right now!

About BrightWork:

BrightWork is the leading provider of innovative SharePoint applications for collaborative project management and enterprise rollup reporting. Leading companies and government organizations around the world rely on BrightWork solutions to help them better manage their work, projects, and processes including FedEx, Microsoft, Tetley Teas, Skanska, Del Monte and University of Chicago.

Press Contact:

Claire Keane
ckeane@brightwork.com
+1 617-357-9000 Ext. 713

New Partnership Delivers SharePoint based Work and Project Management to Healthcare Industry

Boston, MA, August 28th, 2009 – BrightWork Inc., a leading provider of work and project management software on the Microsoft SharePoint platform, announced today that OTB Solutions has joined the BrightWork Gold Partnership Program.  Based in Seattle, Washington, and with consultants working from several United States locations, OTB Solutions provides IT consulting services to Fortune 500 companies in the healthcare, life sciences, and high technology industries. 

The partnership provides OTB Solutions’ customers with access to pmPoint, BrightWork’s flagship product that delivers a work and project management plug-in for the Microsoft SharePoint platform.  Already serving customers in North America, Canada, Mexico, Europe, Russia and Australia, the latest release of pmPoint version 7.2 features new SharePoint templates, web parts, resource tracking capabilities, advanced cross projects reporting, KPIs, charting, and much more! 

As a BrightWork Gold Partner OTB Solutions will also deploy and use pmPoint in their own organization to support the management of their work and client related projects.

OTB Solutions’ co-founder, Douglas Coutts, is a strong believer in keeping solutions simple and easy-to-use. “Most SharePoint solutions delivered today include custom-coded components. Most of ours do not. OTB Solutions has pioneered approaches to use advanced configuration techniques and created business alliances with leading software vendors, and BrightWork is a key partner for us. These investments enable us to help our clients avoid the pitfalls of custom code embedded in complex SharePoint configurations. The benefit to our clients is reduced total cost of ownership over the life of the solution,” he states.

Coutts says estimates are that up to seventy-four percent of all IT projects fail, come in over budget, or run past the original project deadline. “Tools like BrightWork pmPoint that help to prioritize initiatives, manage budget, and assign resources are key to running an efficient enterprise Project Management Office (PMO).” He adds, “We have found that pmPoint, along with the intuitive portal functionality of Microsoft SharePoint Server, provides a user-friendly, integrated way to provide key data across the organization, leading to cost savings and project success for our clients in all industries.”

OTB Solutions was one of Microsoft’s first Certified SharePoint Deployment partners. OTB team members have worked with Microsoft to define and enhance the methodology for effectively deploying SharePoint, which is now the standard in use by SDPS certified partners. The firm has a patent pending for a solution accelerator for SharePoint—Knowledge-Driven Solution Accelerator (KDSA).

“SharePoint continues to be a strong and growing collaboration platform globally. OTB Solutions has an excellent reputation as well as vast experience in the Healthcare industry and having them as our partner is an exciting step for BrightWork”, says Eamonn McGuinness, CEO of BrightWork.  “We wanted to provide SharePoint users in Healthcare with easy and efficient access to pmPoint and through OTB Solutions pmPoint will deliver efficiency in the daily operations of organizations of all shapes and sizes in the industry.”

About OTB Solutions:

Founded in 2002, OTB Solutions is dedicated to helping enable information workplace experiences that matter to your people and that help them to create meaningful connections with their colleagues and customers. OTB Solutions offers services in four key areas: Business Intelligence, Enterprise Content Management, Project Leadership, and Composite Applications and Systems Integration on MOSS (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server). Our core team members are all experienced ex-“Big 5” consultants.

OTB Solutions has entered in select strategic partnerships with vendors that offer pre-configured add-on solutions to SharePoint. We believe that these solutions often are a quicker more cost-effective approach than developing custom solutions. We are selective in our partnerships ensuring that their solutions leverage SharePoint‘s native capabilities rather than replacing them with their own customizations. For further information, visit www.otbsolutions.com.

About BrightWork:

BrightWork is the leading provider of innovative SharePoint applications for collaborative project management and enterprise rollup reporting. Leading companies and government organizations around the world rely on BrightWork solutions to help them better manage their work, projects, and processes including FedEx, Microsoft, Tetley Teas, Skanska, Del Monte and University of Chicago.

Press Contact:

Claire Keane
ckeane@brightwork.com
+1 617-357-9000 Ext. 713

Boston, MA, July 31st, 2009 – BrightWork, a leading global provider of project management software on the Microsoft SharePoint platform, announced today that it will be presenting at the Microsoft Project Conference being held September 14th-17th, 2009 in Phoenix, AZ.  The session is titled “Opening SharePoint to Project 2010” and will be presented by BrightWork’s CEO, Eamonn McGuinness. 

Mr. McGuinness will present the challenge of managing work and projects effectively and propose a solution that will:

1. Present a reusable real world process model for managing work and projects of various types and sizes. 
2. Demo how Project Desktop and SharePoint can sit well together. 
3. Explain and demo a simple but pragmatic process to use Project, Office and SharePoint for the flexible management of work and projects.

At the event, BrightWork is also looking to meet potential partners to expand its international partner network. The conference, now in its fifth year, remains the most important in the EPM area. This year’s event will exclusively disclose the powerful capabilities included in Microsoft Project 2010 and Microsoft Enterprise Project Management (EPM) Solutions while providing real world guidance on how Microsoft Project 2007 and Microsoft EPM Solutions are helping customers today.

We look forward to seeing you there! 

For more information on the Project Conference click here

About BrightWork:

BrightWork is the leading provider of innovative SharePoint applications for collaborative project management and enterprise rollup reporting. Leading companies and government organizations around the world rely on BrightWork solutions to help them better manage their work, projects, and processes including FedEx, Microsoft, Tetley Teas, Skanska, Del Monte and University of Chicago.

Press Contact:

Claire Keane
ckeane@brightwork.com
+1 617-357-9000 Ext. 713

Newest Release Introduces Out-of-the-Box Templates for Work Tracking, Small Projects’ Management, Project Requests Approval, Scrum Project Management and More!

Boston, MA, June 30, 2009 – BrightWork, Inc. announced the availability of pmPoint v7.1, which delivers a practical project management solution on the Microsoft SharePoint platform. Ideal for projects and programs of all types and sizes, this latest version extends pmPoint with the launch of a new set of work and project management templates.

Delivered right out-of-the-box, the existing templates and new value-added templates (listed below) provide a fast start for pmPoint customers to manage work and projects of varying degrees of process and complexity from the relatively simple ‘Work Tracker’, through to the well defined ‘Scrum’ process template.

Work Management Templates:

• Work Tracker: Manage work items that exist outside the formal structure of projects, such as tasks, activities, support requests, bugs, issues etc.
• Work Manager: Capture ‘work requests’ in a central repository, filter and dispatch the requests to the appropriate place for action.

Project Management Templates:

• Business Project Manager (WBS): A simple work breakdown structure (WBS) complements the existing business project management templates and includes task dependencies and child items.
• Scrum: The unique features in pmPoint are utilized to provide a Scrum solution that includes Sprints, Stories, Tasks, Backlogs, Burndown charts, and all the capabilities necessary to run a Scrum project.

Program Management Templates:

• Projects Tracker: Track and manage small projects that require very little process.
• Project Office Portfolio: A cross-project reporting template that includes multiple collections of dashboards (Projects, My Work, Work, Issues and Resourcing).

Project Requests Templates:

• Project Request Tracker: A simple but transparent approach to managing incoming project requests.
• Project Request Manager: Provides multiple lists, reports, workflows and dashboards to manage the pipeline of new project requests.

“In line with BrightWork’s mission to enable practical project management on the SharePoint platform, these new templates in pmPoint give our customers a very fast yet flexible starting point for managing different project types of all sizes”, says Eamonn McGuinness, CEO of BrightWork. “In this economic climate, companies need to be able to efficiently manage work and projects across their entire company, and BrightWork commits to leading the way in providing highly adoptable, affordable solutions that deliver real value.

About BrightWork:

BrightWork is the leading provider of innovative SharePoint applications for collaborative project management and enterprise rollup reporting. Leading companies and government organizations around the world rely on BrightWork solutions to help them better manage their work, projects, and processes including FedEx, Microsoft, Tetley Teas, Skanska, Del Monte and University of Chicago.

Press Contact:

Claire Keane
ckeane@brightwork.com
+1 617-357-9000 Ext. 713

The Challenge:

The NCC Programme Management functions oversee a number of programmes and projects across the Council. It is important for effective governance that senior management and key stakeholders have access to programme and project information via a single source. 

There is a fundamental requirement to improve the effectiveness of programme and project performance reporting whilst down-scaling the level of overhead required to manually collate and produce reports for management information.

The ‘Project/Portfolio Management Solution’ project was a discrete project designed to commence the process of building and cementing commonality across NCC Programme management functions without impacting any strategic vision. By implementing a shared project management solution grounded in the PRINCE2 project management approach, all programme/project management functions would work off a common MS platform and benefit from a comprehensive management and performance reporting solution.

NCC IT and change projects are managed and delivered within programmes rather than as disparate projects throughout the organization. In aggregate the change programme will transform how the Council’s services are delivered, reducing unit costs and so continually delivering increased value for money. This requires significant changes to business processes, systems, organization, premises, etc. - not just making a series of incremental adjustments to the existing organizational model.  The magnitude of the change demands a rigorous approach to programme management, helping to mitigate risks and add pace to the delivery.

Following an internal review it was proposed that SharePoint solutions should be assessed against the requirements for a project portfolio management solution, the Project team would develop business and technical requirements and design and implement a central portal for all NCC programmes and projects.

The Solution:

BrightWork pmPoint has been deployed gradually within NCC for use by existing PMOs and Project Managers.  An initial license purchase of 100 user licenses was made with an intention to expand this to an organizational license once fully rolled out to the Council. 
The main use is currently with the Project Managers and Management Team within IT and is being used in 3 distinctive ways:

1. The most basic form of use is as a central location for sharing relevant project documentation; this is recommended for existing projects whilst Project Managers are familiarizing themselves with the functionality available within the solution.
2. Through the use of tailored reporting functions to offer summary views and reports to the Management team and publicise progress on specified tasks/work lists. 
3. The most comprehensive use is when Projects are managed entirely within the solution through the use of customized lists.  Main lists in use include those for monitoring and managing risks and issues, changes and scheduling etc, along with tracking of IT work package progress with all IT teams and all documentation is shared using versioning and check out tracking. this is recommended for all new NCC IT projects

Additional instances of the solution have been made available to the Change Programme team and to the ERP team who are currently in the process of learning the new system.

The use of BrightWork pmPoint on SharePoint 2007 has been declared the corporate standard toolkit for managing NCC projects from April 2009.

Benefits and Supporting Metrics

A library of standardized project reporting templates that enables data to be extracted and populated within in one common format, which fits with the data structure of the proposed project management system.

All Council (IT & Business change) programmes and projects to be consolidated into a central portal, accessible by project members and stakeholders.

An integrated project management system enabling the Council’s change functions to effectively consolidate project performance reporting and aggregate Programme level reports and plans.

About Northamptonshire County Council:

Northamptonshire is a large rural county in the United Kingdom with a population of 630,000. Northamptonshire County Council (NCC) is a traditional 2 tier shire authority, which means that it is responsible for Education, Social Services, Highways and the like but does not have responsibility for Bins, Housing, Revenue and Benefits which are covered by the district and borough councils. The Authority employs 18,000 staff.  For more information visit: http://www.northamptonshire.gov.uk

About BrightWork:

BrightWork is the leading provider of innovative SharePoint applications for collaborative project management and enterprise rollup reporting. Leading companies and government organizations around the world rely on BrightWork solutions to help them better manage their work, projects, and processes including FedEx, Microsoft, Tetley Teas, Skanska, Del Monte and University of Chicago.

Press Contact:

Claire Keane
ckeane@brightwork.com
+1 617-357-9000 Ext. 713

Version 7.0 Features SharePoint Project Management Templates, Resource Tracking, Advanced Cross Projects Reporting, Charting, Graphing, Visual Key Indicators, Microsoft Project Import/Export, Easier Portfolio Reporting, and more!

Boston, MA, April 7th, 2009 – BrightWork, Inc. today announced the availability of version 7.0 of pmPoint, which delivers a complete solution on the Microsoft SharePoint platform to manage projects and programs of different shapes and sizes.  Featuring SharePoint project management templates, resource tracking capabilities, advanced cross projects reporting, KPIs, charting, and much more, version 7.0 represents the most significant release of pmPoint since its introduction in 2001.

“The release of version 7.0 will firmly maintain BrightWork’s position as a leading provider of real-world applications for project management," says BrightWork founder and CEO, Eamonn McGuinness. "The features and functionality announced in version 7.0 today are geared toward helping our customers support the varying project management needs (from small to large projects) of the entire enterprise in one SharePoint based environment.”

“pmPoint has been a breath of fresh air”, comments Bryon Campbell, CIO of the Van Andel Institute.   “And because of our SharePoint infrastructure and the product’s flexibility, it became the obvious tool for us to implement.  pmPoint has been enthusiastically adopted by departments across the Van Andel Institute as the project management platform that genuinely addresses their need to plan, control and report on projects of all sizes.   The major enhancements in the upcoming version 7.0 that improve visual reporting, project schedule calculations and resource planning will be welcome additions to an already useful and well-architected platform for collaborative project management.”

Today BrightWork solutions serve customers in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, Russia, and Australia and include organizations such as Federal Express, Novartis, Parker Drilling, Fresh Del Monte Produce, Cox Communications, Illinois State University, and Microsoft.

With pmPoint version 7.0 customers get:

• Enhanced out-of-the-box project and program management templates to get started faster and leverage for future projects
• Resource Planning and Tracking
• Intuitive Project Scheduling and Estimation
• Microsoft Project Import, Export and Publishing
• Custom Reports Configuration
• Charting and Graphing for single lists and across multiple lists and sites
• Visual Key Indicators for single and multiple projects’ status reporting
• Portfolio Picker to easily add projects to portfolios for flexible cross-project and cross-list reporting

What to do next?

Version 7.0 is available at no cost to all customers who are on a BrightWork Annual Support and Upgrades plan.  Customers who wish to upgrade should contact support@brightwork.com.

To see a live demonstration of Version 7.0, join BrightWork on April 14th, 2009.  Register Here or Save the Event to your Calendar.

Any organization that wants to learn more about this release today can visit the BrightWork TrialZone and take pmPoint version 7.0 for a test drive!  For further information contact info@brightwork.com or US: +1 (617) 357-9000 Ext. 712, EU: +353 91 514 492.

About BrightWork:

BrightWork is the leading provider of innovative SharePoint applications for collaborative project management and enterprise rollup reporting. Leading companies and government organizations around the world rely on BrightWork solutions to help them better manage their work, projects, and processes including FedEx, Microsoft, Tetley Teas, Skanska, Del Monte and University of Chicago.

Press Contact:

Claire Keane
ckeane@brightwork.com
+1 617-357-9000 Ext. 713

Columbus IT is a global value-added reseller of Microsoft Dynamics® business management solutions. Rapid growth made standardizing on a single project management system difficult. Although most of Columbus IT’s subsidiaries used Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2003 to collaborate on projects, a lack of uniformity in the kinds of documents used to manage implementation processes delayed execution of critical tasks.

After an extensive search, executives chose to implement Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007 and pmPoint for Sure Step, an end-to-end project management solution from Microsoft Gold Certified Partner BrightWork based on Office SharePoint Server technology and featuring built-in Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step implementation guidance and templates. Now, Columbus IT benefits from improved customer service delivery, increased productivity, and enhanced capacity for growth.

“Now that we have this all-in-one Sure Step solution, we spend less time planning and more time executing on tasks with fewer mistakes. With greater efficiency, we can take on 30 percent more projects”, said Richard Bruvik, IT Director, Columbus IT Norway.

Read More on Microsoft Case Studies site…

About Columbus IT

Columbus IT operate in 30 countries, have over 1100 employees, provide 6,000 customer hours every day, and have implemented Microsoft Business Solutions for over 19 years.  They have the best track record in the industry, with over 5,000 successful implementations in 101 countries.  Columbus IT was awarded the Axapta Excellence Award in 2004, Global Partner Award in 2005 and membership in the Inner Circle and President's Club, several years in a row.
http://www.columbusit.com/

About BrightWork:

BrightWork is the leading provider of innovative SharePoint applications for collaborative project management and enterprise rollup reporting. Leading companies and government organizations around the world rely on BrightWork solutions to help them better manage their work, projects, and processes including FedEx, Microsoft, Tetley Teas, Skanska, Del Monte and University of Chicago.

Press Contact:

Claire Keane
ckeane@brightwork.com
+1 617-357-9000 Ext. 713

The Royal Automobile Club of Queensland (RACQ) provides motoring services and insurance policies to customers in Queensland, Australia.  Establishment of RACQ’s Project Management Office (PMO) in late 2007 signified the organisation’s desire to formalise its project management practices and improve project performance.  A baseline assessment of project management capabilities taken at that time revealed that project execution would benefit from implementation of a consistently applied project management methodology, standardisation of templates and processes, and implementation of project management software to support project delivery.  

RACQ were seeking a software solution that could not only support these current needs but also provide the flexibility to adapt to changes over time as capability for project management increased.  The solution would also need to cater for projects of different sizes and a wide variety of types, ranging from small local initiatives, to large corporate-wide programs.  The variety of project types ranged from standard software development and deployment, e-business, marketing systems and campaigns, and even roadside services.

Using Pcubed as local implementation partner, RACQ embarked on a selection process reviewing a number of potential solutions including Brightwork’s pmPoint.  This assessment was made using in excess of 100 defined criteria under categories including PM Lifecycle support, portfolio management, and project scheduling.

Tim Healy, Executive Manager – PMO, RACQ, said, “Whilst other solutions may look stronger than pmPoint in some criteria, the pmPoint solution provided the greatest breadth of support across our requirements. In addition, pmPoint’s support for textual project information was seen as highly valuable and in line with RACQ’s PM approach.”

The implementation took approximately 8 weeks from decision to pilot (including development of the PM methodology and configuration of pmPoint).  Progressive roll-out of pmPoint post-pilot is now underway on a project by project basis and in line with PMO resource availability to ensure project team support.  pmPoint is currently being used by up to 250 people, supporting 19 corporate (major) projects and 76 local projects.

The benefits of deploying pmPoint in RACQ include:

• Easy customization and integration of RACQ’s project management methodology, templates and reports.  The system acts as a training tool to roll-out this methodology, which occurred concurrently with the implementation of pmPoint.
• Support for applying a scalable methodology to include the different types and levels of management, of projects at RACQ.  
• Built-in notifications and reminders on providing project updates eg. alerts on tasks due soon, late etc.
• Provision of a project site for publishing project information and relevant documentation to the project team and general staff.
• Good support for textual project information.
• Provision of Roll-up reporting based on program, portfolio, organisational structure, portfolio segmentation.
• Replacement of the manual aggregation Status Reporting process.
• Provision of an organisation-wide view of corporate and local project activity.
• MS Sharepoint-based. Natural collaboration and an easy-to-use web-based interface.
• Natural promotion of project management as a discipline, across RACQ.

About RACQ:
In 1905 twelve motorists formed the Automobile Club of Queensland (ACQ).  From these humble beginnings the ACQ received its Royal Charter in 1921 and become the Royal Automobile Club of Queensland (RACQ). RACQ Insurance provides motor vehicle, household, compulsory third party insurance (CTP) and pleasure-craft at competitive premiums, backed by a “speedy claims” service.
RACQ Insurance is, arguably, the largest provider of motor vehicle insurance in Queensland and the second largest provider of household insurance. In total, RACQ Insurance provides cover to over 1.4 million policy holders throughout Queensland and northern New South Wales.  For more information, please visit http://www.racq.com.au/

About BrightWork:

BrightWork is the leading provider of innovative SharePoint applications for collaborative project management and enterprise rollup reporting. Leading companies and government organizations around the world rely on BrightWork solutions to help them better manage their work, projects, and processes including FedEx, Microsoft, Tetley Teas, Skanska, Del Monte and University of Chicago.

Press Contact:

Claire Keane
ckeane@brightwork.com
+1 617-357-9000 Ext. 713

Low Cost, Low Risk, Instant Success!

Boston, MA – January 13th, 2009 - BrightWork, a leading provider of project management software on the Microsoft SharePoint platform today announced the release of pmPoint Online, a complete project management solution on SharePoint available as a low cost, low risk subscription service.

“Through pmPoint Online we broaden our reach, providing innovative SharePoint based project management functionality on a hosted platform,” said Eamonn McGuinness, CEO of BrightWork.

Powered by NetConnect’s TeamPortal.com, pmPoint Online is available in two editions: The ‘Project Manager’ and the ‘Program Management Office’. The Project Manager edition extends SharePoint to provide the functionality needed to consistently manage single projects while the Program Management Office edition enables the capabilities on SharePoint for comprehensive multi-project lifecycle management. With these configurations, customers can choose the edition they need based on the degree of project management process and structure they require.

“The distribution of pmPoint Online through TeamPortal.com helps push our project management solution past the technical barriers,” adds McGuinness. “We are committed to enabling companies improve their operations and reach their business goals through project management collaboration anywhere.”

“We are very pleased to have a partnership with Brightwork,” says Rolf Larsen, CEO of NetConnect.  “With TeamPortal.com, we provide a robust SaaS platform to give customers an easy on-demand access to BrightWork’s project management software. Based on this partnership, we aim to significantly grow the community that uses BrightWork pmPoint.”

Prices for pmPoint Online range from as little as US$49/€38 to US$5/€4 per user per month depending on the edition, the number of users and the hosting period. Getting started is as simple as clicking on a subscribe button!

Any organization that wants to learn more about pmPoint Online can watch a webcast recording which was held on Wednesday, January 14th , where Eamonn McGuinness, CEO of BrightWork and Rolf Larsen, CEO of NetConnect did a live presentation and demonstration.

Register Now! for this webcast recording.

To experience pmPoint Online free for 30 days Click Here.

About BrightWork:

BrightWork is the leading provider of innovative SharePoint applications for collaborative project management and enterprise rollup reporting. Leading companies and government organizations around the world rely on BrightWork solutions to help them better manage their work, projects, and processes including FedEx, Microsoft, Tetley Teas, Skanska, Del Monte and University of Chicago.

Press Contact

Claire Keane
ckeane@brightwork.com  
+1 (617) 357-9000 Ext - 713