Boston, MA, 6th November 2010 – BrightWork Inc., leading provider of work and practical project management software on the Microsoft SharePoint platform, was recently the subject of a Gartner Research case study regarding the successful deployment of their product pmPoint in the leading financial services firm Allianz. 

The case study, written by Matt Light from Gartner Inc., takes a look at how "a leading global financial services company, implemented a collaborative solution, enhanced various project management activities and leveraged collaborative PPM tools.  For IT executives facing delays at points throughout the project life cycle, this Case Study offers important lessons in streamlining project management."

The report found that:

• IT organizations launching major transformation initiatives (for example, application overhauls) often have an immediate need to streamline project reporting for quicker issue resolution
• Typically, tools for project management, resource management, time reporting and other PPM functions are already in place
• PPM tools in place may be leveraged by companion products

Regarding BrightWork pmPoint, one Allianz PMO lead stated: “It makes PM discipline easier, providing the Programme Managers with a well-rounded view of the work – with the status of all projects available on a single page.”

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, October 14th 2010 – BrightWork has been invited to present at the SharePoint Technology Conference (SPTechCon) taking place in San Francisco from 7th – 9th February 2011.  Éamonn McGuinness, CEO of BrightWork will speak on the topic of Using SharePoint 2010 to Collaboratively Manage Projects.

Below is a description of the topic Éamonn will be presenting on:

Microsoft SharePoint 2010 has a template for managing a project and also has a list that synchronizes with Microsoft Project, so it is clear the SharePoint team mean us to use SharePoint to manage work and projects.  The question is how!  

Éamonn will:

• Walk through a sample process for managing projects in a collaborative style
• Demo why SharePoint 2010 out of the box is such a suitable platform for collaborative project management
• Demo and explain how the out of the box Microsoft Project to Microsoft SharePoint two-way sync works
• Show exactly where the limitations are with the out of the box functionality, so attendees know where they have to customize or extend
• Explain where it is best to use Microsoft Project with Microsoft SharePoint versus investing in Microsoft Project Server with SharePoint

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, September 6th 2010 – BrightWork Inc., today announced that BrightWork pmPoint, the SharePoint add-on used for managing work and projects of varying size and types is now SharePoint 2010 ready!  pmPoint for SharePoint 2010 is the most comprehensive and practical project management solution, offering a system that is rapid-to-deploy, enables broad adoption, has low ownership costs and can now be used with the all new Microsoft Project 2010 to SharePoint sync.

Out of the box, pmPoint for SharePoint 2010 contains numerous work and project management templates which can be easily adapted to correspond with all the different projects an organization is working on.  It also offers powerful reporting which can roll up data across several projects sites into highly configurable and customizable dashboards.  The reporting infrastructure in this latest release is designed for multiple usage scenarios, from team members viewing their assigned work to senior managers getting a snapshot of all projects in the organization.

Today BrightWork solutions serve customers in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia and Australia and include organizations such as Allianz, Federal Express, Novartis, Parker Drilling, Tetley, Baker Hostetler, University of Chicago and Microsoft.

Hanns Schweis, IT Manager at Thermal Dynamics Corp. is excited about this latest release from BrightWork, “BrightWork is the Bright Light that guides our SharePoint development”.

“The release of pmPoint for SharePoint 2010 will firmly maintain the BrightWork position as a leading provider of real-world applications for work and project management.  The integration with Microsoft Project 2010 is a key innovation.  We look forward to working with organizations of all shapes and sizes with this exciting new release.” says BrightWork founder and CEO, Eamonn McGuinness. 

Join us for the Official Launch Webcast on September 9th, which will demonstrate pmPoint for SharePoint 2010, its ease of deployment, customization, Microsoft Project integration and out of the box functionality.   Register Here

What to do next?
Any organization that wants to take pmPoint for SharePoint 2010 for a test drive, visit the BrightWork TrialZone Sandbox.

To see a live demonstration of pmPoint for SharePoint 2010, join BrightWork for a live webcast called “Manage Projects with SharePoint 2010 – a New Release from BrightWork” on September 9th, 2010 at 9amPST/12pm EST.  Register Here  

For further information contact info@brightwork.com or (US) +1-617-357-9000 ext. 701 / (Europe) +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

Boston, MA, 20th August 2010 – BrightWork Inc., leading provider of work and practical project management software on the Microsoft SharePoint platform, wanted to share their latest customer success story at the City of McKinney.

For the last few years, the City of McKinney's IT department worked diligently on concurrent IT projects. However, while the IT department was working hard at meeting the needs of their departments (their customers), they were falling prey to a common misperception throughout so many organizations, "IT isn't doing what I need for my department."   They decided to commission James Ewing (from Enterprise Leadership Consulting) to examine their project management processes.  James recommended implementing a SharePoint for Project Management Solution and customizing it to meet their specific needs.

"We now have deep insight into resource utilization, project cost and overrun, and accurately predict (and show to the City Manager) when we're tasked with more than we can handle, when projects can be added to the pipeline, as well as predict an actual finish date. This implementation has greatly improved our ability to communicate project dependencies across departments and has even contributed to a positive change in our corporate culture." 

James Ewing presented this informative presentation in a live webcast which includes:

• The Challenge
• Management Solution
• Cultural Shift
• Technology Solution
• Outcome

Register here to receive access to the webcast presentation and slide deck, including a copy of the 13 page whitepaper. 

Click here to view more testimonials on our Customer Success page! If you are a BrightWork customer and want to see your company included on this page please contact ckeane@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

Boston, MA, 27th July 2010 - BrightWork Inc., the leading provider of work and practical project management software on the Microsoft SharePoint platform today announced the launch of the pmPoint for SharePoint 2010 TrialZone Sandbox. This sandbox is a trial area that shows pmPoint working on SharePoint 2010 as well as the optional integration with Microsoft Project 2010. Last September, BrightWork showed an early beta of pmPoint managing work and projects of different types and sizes on the SharePoint 2010 platform integrating with Project 2010 and now the wait is finally over!

A recent webcast recording is now available which will be very informative and beneficial to anyone who wants to know more about what SharePoint 2010, Microsoft 2010 and BrightWork pmPoint have to offer for work and project management.

Click here to register to receive immediate access to the 2010 Sandbox and a guide to walk you through the steps involved in setting up a Project Office environment on SharePoint 2010.

Eamonn McGuinness, CEO of BrightWork said “BrightWork showed an early beta of pmPoint on the SharePoint 2010 platform with Project 2010 integration at the end of 2009 and we are delighted to finally launch this – it has been a busy 6 months! We look forward to working with organizations of all shapes and sizes with this exciting new release, it will really make a difference to many people.”

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In other news, we at BrightWork have recently authored an easy to follow and simple to use guide for Project Managers who are not yet formally trained in Collaborative Project Management and who may not have the time or budget to get trained. The guide describes the typical stages, steps and sub-steps involved in starting, setting up, managing and closing a typical project. The guide also has a section on Project Management Leadership style. Note, whilst experienced project managers may find the guide to be introductory in nature, they may learn something from it and might find it an especially useful starting point for creating internal training for their new project managers.

Many organizations have some project managers that are formally trained, perhaps with models like the PMI or Prince2, etc. However, the vast majority of people who manage projects are what someone recently called P-MBA's (Project Managers by accident!). It is not to say that these people are not successful or capable. They are simply not formally trained. The reality is most organizations do not have the budget or time to train project managers nor do they have a defined process or set of standards for project managers to follow.

Register here to view a recent webcast which presented a practical and simple how-to guide for project managers on the typical stages, steps and sub-steps involved in Collaborative Project Management. The guide also includes a bonus section on Project Management Leadership style. The approach presented will be invaluable for the new project manager who is not yet trained in the how-to's of project management. It will also benefit the experienced project manager who may wish to adapt the guide for use in training programs.

 

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, 30th June 2010 - BrightWork Inc., the leading provider of work and practical project management software on the Microsoft SharePoint platform have exciting product announcements to make this month! After 6 busy months, mid-June saw the release of BrightWork v9 for SharePoint 2007. While we are very excited about the SharePoint 2010 release we realize that many customers will remain on SharePoint 2007 for a good while longer and they need to be properly supported with new releases. These enhancements to pmPoint v9 will also be available on SharePoint 2010 which will be released in July. Both pmPoint releases will add considerable value to existing SharePoint project management processes and reporting. To see how you can use BrightWork pmPoint to manage work and projects on SharePoint please do view this 3 minute demo

BrightWork CEO Eamonn McGuinness said, “Even with our economic challenges, it’s been exciting to watch so many of our customers continue to push forward with the expansion of pmPoint as their work and project management SharePoint solution. The success of our customers continues to drive us to develop exciting and relevant software.”

"With pmPoint integrating easily in Kabel Deutschlands SharePoint environment we could provide an easy-to-use and effiicient project collaboration tool to our department’s numerous teams." Thilo Gelenk Project Manager, Transition Management, Kabel Deutschland Breitband Services GmbH

Would you like to learn more about the upcoming SharePoint 2010 release? Please click here to see the webcast recording from June 24th called: pmPoint for SharePoint 2010 – The Next Generation of Project Management on SharePoint.

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

Partnership Provides Aspect Clients with Access to SharePoint-based Work and Project Management Application

Boston, MA, 20 May 2010 - BrightWork today announced it has formed a partnership with Aspect, a global provider of unified communications and collaboration services and software.  The agreement will enable Aspect to sell and implement pmPoint, BrightWork’s flagship product that delivers a work and project management plug-in for the Microsoft® SharePoint platform.

“The partnership with BrightWork allows us to further deploy cost effective, powerful solutions for our customers’ project management office (PMO) and enterprise project initiatives,” said Ted Perrotte, National Practice Manager, SharePoint Solutions at Aspect.  “We are continuously dedicated to bringing benefits to our customers and having these additional capabilities available allows clients to realize increased return on investment from their SharePoint platform.”

Both BrightWork and Aspect have long standing relationships with Microsoft and share expertise in Microsoft SharePoint.  BrightWork has delivered a work and project management application for every release of SharePoint to date, while Aspect is a leader in application development and deployments for Microsoft unified communications and collaboration technologies like SharePoint and Microsoft Office Communications Server.  Through its recent acquisition of Microsoft National Systems Integrator (NSI), Quilogy, Aspect has bolstered its ability to help organizations maximize Microsoft SharePoint investments through strategically planned and developed implementations.

“Partnering with Aspect is a logical step in our company’s growth”, said Eamonn McGuinness, CEO at BrightWork.  “Combining Aspect’s expertise in developing solutions on Microsoft SharePoint with our pmPoint solution allows us to reach a greater audience and provide easy access to an unbeatable application for practical work and project management.”

About Aspect

Aspect is a global software and IT services firm specializing in applying Microsoft unified communications and collaboration to help customers achieve optimal results through enhanced business processes across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Aspect provides IT consulting, integration services and business applications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com   

# # #

Aspect and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

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

Healthcare Organizations Continue to Turn to pmPoint to Manage their Project Portfolios

Boston, MA, April 20th, 2010 – BrightWork Inc., the leading provider of work and project management applications on the Microsoft SharePoint platform, today announced a strong performance in the healthcare industry as more and more healthcare organizations worldwide deploy pmPoint to manage their project portfolios.

Eamonn McGuinness, CEO at BrightWork comments, “We are seeing a terrific response to pmPoint in the healthcare sector.  Our customers tell us that pmPoint addresses the most common challenges faced by healthcare organizations in managing project portfolios: managing resource allocation, ensuring sufficient transparency to track project progress on a timely basis, and knowing where to find additional detail on specific projects. Being SharePoint based, pmPoint is also a great fit within these organization’s IT infrastructure, is very easy to use and highly adoptable.”

Today pmPoint is enabling healthcare organizations such as Wentworth-Douglass Hospital, Arkansas Children's Hospital, Group Health Cooperative, Allscripts-Misys Healthcare, Life Care Centers of America, Novartis, Overlake Hospital Medical Center, Rutland Regional Medical Center, and MedImmune.

Here’s what some of these customers are saying about pmPoint:

Group Health - “BrightWork provided us with an economical, scalable solution for managing our project portfolio. We now have better standards for collecting project data and a intuitive tool that makes the work visible and accessible."

Amsurg - “At AmSurg, we were looking beyond project management to a tool and resource that would enable collaboration, project management and performance management. With Brightwork pmPoint, we found that solution which will enable us to initiate, plan and execute enterprise projects through our project pipeline."

Life Care Centers of America - "pmPoint’s dashboard interface is highly effective for communicating project statuses at the varying levels of detail our stakeholders need. We now have a way to efficiently roll-up departmental efforts (project and non-project tasks) and streamline month-end reporting, charting and graphing.  Plus the recent release of pmPoint version 7.0 provides resource time tracking and planning which should greatly improve our IT governance and has also impressed our annual Risk Auditors.”

Allscripts - “The BrightWork solution developed for Allscripts has been a key element in the success of our new “READY” program.  It has taken our company a quantum leap forward in customer collaboration and communication.”

Read more customer comments and case studies 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

BrightWork Customers Demonstrate How They Have Deployed SharePoint and pmPoint for Project Management

Boston, MA, March 23rd, 2010 - BrightWork Inc., leading provider of work and practical project management software on the Microsoft SharePoint platform, wanted to share some Customer Success Stories this month.  Below is a collection of webcasts presented by some of BrightWork’s customers in the Financial, Insurance and Healthcare Industries.  With these webcasts, you will learn about the value they are truly finding in pmPoint on SharePoint.

Allianz Insurance plc needed a comprehensive project management tool to manage the dynamic project portfolio in their IT department. In this webcast, Chris McNicholas, Senior PMO Analyst at Allianz, demonstrates how they embraced SharePoint for project management by deploying pmPoint from BrightWork.

Click here to watch this webcast

Allscripts deployed SharePoint and pmPoint to help manage a high volume of their projects concurrently, saving the organization time, money and increasing customer, employee and management satisfaction.  In this presentation, Andrea Waxler, Global Services Program Manager at Allscripts, demonstrates how the solution can be used to create a simple yet highly effective way of conducting project management in a customer-facing, collaborative environment.

Click here to watch this webcast  

Wentworth-Douglass Hospital chose to implement pmPoint to address the most common challenges faced by healthcare organizations in managing project portfolios: managing resource allocation, ensuring sufficient transparency to track project progress on a timely basis, and knowing where to find additional detail on specific projects.  Join Lynda Powers, Director of Information Systems at Wentworth-Douglass Hospital, and walk through the challenges, a solution and a real-life demo showing how SharePoint with pmPoint can extend and empower project portfolio management with a customizable, easy to deploy application. 

Click here to watch this webcast

Try pmPoint on SharePoint for Project Portfolio Management Today

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

Delivering Practical Project Management Solutions in the Netherlands

Boston, MA, February 18, 2010 – BrightWork, a global leader in project management applications for Microsoft SharePoint, today announced it has joined forces with Crimsonwing to serve customers in the Netherlands.  Crimsonwing is an IT Solutions company and Microsoft Gold Certified Partner with a track record of successful projects across a wide European client base.

A growing, profitable and stable organization, Crimsonwing has over 200 employees and is listed on the Malta Stock Exchange.  The company’s approach is based upon being small enough to care about its clients and be flexible but large enough to have the necessary skills and stability to deliver successful projects.  Crimsonwing’s expertise combined with BrightWork’s project management applications, delivers a turnkey solution around Project Management and SharePoint in the Netherlands.

Aad de Jonge, VP Business Development at Crimsonwing commented, “We are delighted to work with Brightwork and their flagship product, pmPoint.  We will be able to align all of our activities with the project templates to create a consistent project management platform, both for our customers, and all internal projects.”

Eamonn McGuinness, CEO of BrightWork adds, “More and more customers across the globe are using pmPoint.   BrightWork prides itself on offering first class service to our customers no matter where they are, and by partnering with only the best organizations, we ensure our customers have easy access to our solutions and are fully supported. Crimsonwing is a long established and highly reputed IT solutions provider and we are confident our combined offerings will deliver a complete and powerful offering to our customers in this region.”

To learn more about Crimsonwing, visit their website at www.crimsonwing.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

Providing Practical Project Management Solutions on SharePoint in Bermuda, New York, Quebec and South Africa

Boston, MA, January 31, 2010 – BrightWork Inc., the leading provider of pmPoint, a practical work and project management application on the Microsoft SharePoint platform, today announced partnerships with CCS in Bermuda, Gig Werks in New York, Kenterton in South Africa and MGA Concepts in Quebec. Through these partnerships BrightWork will ensure pmPoint is co-marketed and mutually supported in these regions by market leaders with proven track records.

CCS Group Limited is an Information Technology and Communications company based in Bermuda.   A Microsoft Gold Partner with over 18 years experience, they provide a variety of business solutions for the following areas; Networking, Internetworking, Software Development, Telephony and IP telephony, Infrastructure and Cabling.  They also provide a Professional Services Division which specializes in all aspects of custom application development, implementation and project management.

“CCS is excited by the opportunities that BrightWork brings to our business,” said Tom Hill, Business Development Manager at CCS.  pmPoint adds a unique dimension to our solution offerings, giving our customers a strong, scalable, easy to use platform for all facets of Project Management based on a platform that is becoming a cornerstone of their business with SharePoint.  Our customers are excited by a number of components of BrightWork’s solution, from the easy to use templates for project set-up to the intuitive dashboards and reports.  pmPoint gives them the project intelligence they need to ensure success.”

Gig Werks, based in New York, is an award winning Microsoft Gold and Field Managed Partner with certified expertise in SharePoint 2007, Business Intelligence, custom application development and advanced infrastructure. Gig Werks’ general development strategy is to exploit the full potential of SharePoint through continued developed expertise across the Six Pillars of SharePoint and to expand their offerings through partnerships. Since its founding, Gig Werks has become a Go-To Partner in the Microsoft community and one of the most well recognized and highly specialized companies in the industry.

“We at Gig Werks are extremely excited to be partnering with BrightWork”, said Richard Matzelle  Director of Marketing at Gig Werks. Their solution, along with our expertise, allows us to provide a turnkey solution to all of our clients around Project Management and SharePoint.” 

Kenterton Consulting (KC) is a South African firm specializing in Management Consulting, with special emphasis on Business and ICT Strategy, Enterprise Architecture, ICT Managed Services, Outsourcing, and Benefits Management.

Sibonelo Ngubane, CEO at Kenterton comments,“We’re happy to be a partner with BrightWork because they complement our offerings. They are in the forefront of providing solutions that leverage existing customer investments through the provision of immediate business value.  We can now walk our customers through project management maturity levels, at their own pace and most importantly, with less risk.”

MGA Concepts in Quebec, Canada, developed its own Content Management development tool which was been adopted by hundreds of customers. In 2001, MGA Concept chose to start to transfer its customer base to Microsoft Office SharePoint and has rapidly become the reference for SharePoint integration in their region since.  

“With pmPoint’s complete integration within SharePoint WSS and MOSS, along with its ability to cover a wide range of project types, it offers an easy and cost effective solution to our customers looking to manage their projects management within the Microsoft SharePoint collaboration environment”, says Carl Robillard, Business Development VP at MGA Concept.

Eamonn McGuinness, CEO at BrightWork, added, “CCS, Gig Werks, Kenterton Consulting and MGA Concepts are leaders in their space and regions.  Our partnerships are a natural fit. Their SharePoint and Project Management Service offerings combined with pmPoint provide an unbeatable solution for practical work and project management on SharePoint.”

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