1. Microsoft Server Product Portfolio
Customer Solution Case Study
California Corrections Unit Boosts Information
Accuracy, Speeds Delivery 400 Percent
Overview
Country or Region: United States
Industry: Government—State and local
government
Customer Profile
The California Department of Corrections
and Rehabilitation, based in Sacramento,
works to improve public safety through
evidence-based crime prevention and
recidivism reduction strategies. It has
65,000 employees.
Business Situation
The need to undertake a major
construction program underscored a
long-standing need to improve
information-sharing and collaboration
among department employees.
Solution
The department now applies content
management, workflow, and
collaboration tools in Microsoft Office
SharePoint Server 2007 to construction
programs, strategic planning, and more.
Benefits
 Publishes updated information four
times faster
 Reduces time for document approval
by 30 to 60 percent
 Saves 50 percent of time, cost of site
creation, expansion
“We’re finding that SharePoint Server isn’t just a
collaboration platform. It’s a services platform that we
turn to first whenever a new business need arises.”
Joe Panora, Director, Enterprise Information Services,
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
(CDCR) does more with less in part by giving employees
immediate access to current, accurate, and consistent
information with which to make better, data-driven decisions. To
achieve this access and availability, CDCR created collaboration
and business information portals by using Microsoft SharePoint
Server 2007. Early adopters used business analytics and desktop
productivity tools to enhance internal business processes and
increase productivity. CDCR decentralized the portals, enabling
its business units to customize workflows and document
management processes that increased operational efficiency by
400 percent compared to using hypertext webpages. The
CDCR's Enterprise Information Services division now creates and
expands collaboration team sites in half the time and at half the
cost needed with a previous web content platform.

2. Situation
The California Department of Corrections
and Rehabilitation (CDCR) includes 33
institutions, three juvenile facilities, and
about 65,000 employees across the state.
Its business and demographic information
is housed in databases on various platforms
in a range of formats within its production
systems and business units. Distributing
administrative and business information to
the right people in a timely and
comprehensive way is essential to the
prison system’s safe and effective
operation. But, given the department’s size
and complexity, that’s easier said than
done.
In recent years, information was
unintentionally kept in systems and
desktop productivity tools that did not
communicate or interoperate with each
other. Information resided in or custom
databases that were difficult to find or
access and in formats and quantities that
made it difficult for administrators to
gather the insights that they needed. At
fault was an information infrastructure that
consisted largely of email, older web
services that delivered static HTML pages,
and decentralized file servers that hosted
documentation. There was no intranet that
provided a dynamic way for staff to share
new and archived information, collaborate,
and apply business intelligence tools
throughout the enterprise.
“It was often difficult to track performance
in our divisions and facilities in a timely
way, and to identify changes in levels of
safety, security, programs, finance, and
operations,” says Andrea Rohmann, Chief
Information Officer for the California
Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation.
Because data aggregation was typically
keyed in manually, it was time-consuming
and prone to error. It was also challenging
for administrators to collaborate on
projects or plans based on the data,
because they could be working from
inconsistent or incomplete information.
“These challenges were real—but they were
also an opportunity to address our overall
internal information and collaboration
infrastructure,” says Joe Panora, Director,
Enterprise Information Services (EIS), at the
California Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation. “We had a common need
throughout the department to do a better
job managing the creation, sharing, and
use of information. We needed an equally
common solution.”
Solution
The seed of that solution had already been
sown at CDCR in the form of a small pilot
test or proof of concept of Microsoft Office
SharePoint Server 2007 (CDCR is in the
process of updating this software to
Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010). That
pilot focused on the capacity of SharePoint
Server for document management and
sharing. It also gave the department insight
into other capabilities of the software.
“The standard features of SharePoint Server
were the tools we wanted for information
and collaboration: a common document
library, team sites, announcements and
business content that could be changed
easily and frequently, team calendars—
even security that provides site access to
authorized users, such as suppliers, from
outside the department,” says Deborah
Hysen, the previous Deputy Director,
Facility Planning, Construction and
Management, at the California Department
of Corrections and Rehabilitation. “In
SharePoint Server, we saw what we needed
to manage the massive projects mandated
by the legislature.”
“We had a common
need throughout the
department to do a
better job managing the
creation, sharing, and
use of information. We
needed an equally
common solution.”
Joe Panora, Director, Enterprise
Information Services, California
Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation

3. Collaboration on Major Initiatives
Hysen’s group was among the first to use
SharePoint technology to help manage
responsibilities. It used SharePoint Server to
promote collaboration and planning with
key stakeholders on major initiatives, such
as responding to Assembly Bill (AB) 900,
Prison Construction and Rehabilitation, and
2011’s AB 109, mandating major shifts and
reorganizations in the prison population.
EIS staff worked with Enterprise Networking
Solutions (ENS), a Microsoft Partner
Network member with multiple Gold
competencies, to design and deploy that
solution—and, soon after, CDCR’s broader,
SharePoint-based intranet. “ENS
understands the challenges facing
government entities, and it understands
SharePoint Server,” says Panora. “They were
very helpful in our adoption of this
technology.”
The EIS division found SharePoint Server
easy to adopt. “Deploying SharePoint
Server was a great business decision,
because it’s the natural extension of a tool
we had already started to use,” says Bill
Buffington, EIS Manager of Enterprise Web
and Collaboration Solutions at the
California Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation.
Indicators for Performance Tracking
Divisions and offices within CDCR took note
of the early work being done with
SharePoint Server—and adopted the
technology to increase their productivity
and to disseminate timely information to
their business units. This momentum for
SharePoint Server is what led to the
creation of CDCR’s first true intranet.
One of the divisions that relies on the
intranet most often is COMPSTAT, CDCR’s
program for tracking the performance of
each institution, division, and administrative
office. Before it adopted SharePoint Server,
COMPSTAT oversaw a process in which
business managers and analysts at each of
the 33 institutions in the department
collected data in nonstandard formats and
sent it to headquarters through email, fax,
and telephones, where it was aggregated
and distributed to executive staff. The result
was incomplete and inconsistent
information.
“COMPSTAT replaced our manual process
with an automated one that uses
SharePoint workflow and business
intelligence, with the results accessible via
highly graphical SharePoint dashboards,”
says Larry J. Carr, PhD, Chief of COMPSTAT
at the California Department of Corrections
and Rehabilitation. External users, including
the Office of the Inspector General and the
State Legislature, access department-wide
data for auditing and other purposes, while
local wardens and administrators use
facility-level views to assess and manage
their facilities and inmate populations.
Strategic Planning
Another division that frequently uses the
solution is the CDCR Office of the Secretary,
which was responsible for the department-
wide 2010 strategic plan. The planning
process involved 26 planning teams, in
addition to a board committee that
consisted of about 15 top-level executives
and senior managers.
“We used SharePoint Server to achieve the
outcome-based performance management
reporting system we had long sought,” says
Lee Seale, Director of Internal Oversight
and Research at the CDCR Office of the
Secretary.
Under this management reporting system,
the Office of the Secretary identifies and
focuses its resources on key performance
indicators (KPIs) that measure progress
“We used SharePoint
Server to achieve the
outcome-based
performance
management reporting
system we had long
sought.”
Lee Seale, Director of Internal Oversight
and Research, Office of the Secretary,
California Department of Corrections
and Rehabilitation

4. toward the department’s four primary goals
and 26 underlying objectives. Executives
and managers access the KPIs through
online dashboards that were built by using
PerformancePoint Services in SharePoint
Server (Figure 1). The dashboard KPIs are
linked to the relevant objectives, so users
get at-a-glance views not only of the KPIs,
but also of overall progress on the goals
and objectives associated with them (Figure
2).
From Rehabilitation to Human Resources
Divisions and offices throughout CDCR
continue to find new uses for SharePoint
Server, making the department one of the
largest users of SharePoint technology in
California State government. CDCR uses the
technology for information gathering and
analysis in areas as diverse as substance
abuse rehabilitation programs and human
resources. In the former, it is used to
confirm that inmates are receiving the right
quantity and level of services, and that the
various service providers are delivering
their services according to contractual
requirements. In the latter, the human
resources team uses SharePoint technology
to track workload completion and
employee performance.
The biggest use of SharePoint technology
at CDCR may be for collaboration. “We
went from having no enterprise
collaboration tools to having almost 600
team sites and 5,0007,100 users, with more
sites and more users added every week,”
says Rohmann, the CIO. Document
approval cycles are expedited by CDCR’s
use of SharePoint libraries, workflows, and
notifications. Planning projects are
facilitated by team sites that bring together
relevant documentation, applications, team
calendars, and Microsoft InfoPath forms in
“one-stop” locations that are easily
accessible to team members.
Department executives envision using
SharePoint Server to further improve
information access and collaboration—such
as making CDCR’s SAP data and
applications more available to employees.
Figure 1. Through a SharePoint
Server dashboard, executives
gain at-a-glance information
on the status of key goals.

5. “We intend to adopt Duet Enterprise for
Microsoft SharePoint and SAP,” says
Rohmann. “Our executives and managers
will use Duet Enterprise to access and work
with SAP applications and data through the
familiar, easy-to-use interface of SharePoint
Server.”
Benefits
The California Department of Corrections
and Rehabilitation uses SharePoint Server
to get more accurate information—more
quickly and cost effectively—to the
employees who need it, and to give them
tools to collaborate more fully in their use
of that data, leading to greater efficiency
and effectiveness.
Publishes Updated Information Four
Times Faster
A key goal of CDCR’s adoption of
SharePoint Server was to improve
information sharing in order to boost
productivity among a growing and
increasingly dispersed organization.
How has it fared? “We are a more effective
workforce because of our use of SharePoint
Server,” says Panora. “We have the
collaboration tools we need to bring
together employees who may work in
different divisions or different parts of the
state. That’s no longer the obstacle it used
to be.”
For example, when the state of California
imposed a freeze on business travel as part
of a broader effort to control spending, the
department was able to continue work,
adopting new collaborative methods
without difficulty, according to Panora.
“SharePoint Server was one of the tools we
used to keep teams operating effectively,
even when they couldn’t get together in
person,” he says.
Department employees work with more
timely and accurate information through
SharePoint Server. Previously, CDCR
published between 150 and 200 web
content updates per month, covering
everything from inmate census data to
Figure 2. This dashboard view
ties KPIs to progress on
goals and underlying
objectives.

6. budget projections. Now, by using
SharePoint Server, CDCR has increased that
volume to between 800 and 1,000 content
updates per month, without any additional
expenditure of time or resources.
“Distributing accurate and timely
information to our employees means that
they can do their jobs more effectively,”
says Panora. “They don’t have to track
down colleagues and check with them for
unpublished updates. They can rely on the
information they get through SharePoint
Server, which helps them to keep up with
their increased workloads.”
Reduces Time for Document Approval
by 30 to 60 Percent
Buffington has observed similar benefits
through CDCR’s use of other SharePoint
Server capabilities, such as document
management and workflow. “We have seen
the elimination of duplicate and
inconsistent documents, because everyone
sees the same documentation, created with
the same publishing templates, in the same
SharePoint libraries,” he says.
The adoption of SharePoint Server has also
led to business process reengineering as
the department moves existing processes
into SharePoint workflows, eliminating
steps that SharePoint Server either
automates or makes unnecessary.
One example is the approval process for
architectural diagrams. It once included the
express-mailing of large-scale drawings,
followed by the sequential, manual review
of the drawings from office to office. Now,
diagrams are submitted electronically
through a SharePoint site and reviewed
concurrently with the help of SharePoint
Server notifications and workflows. The
reengineering of this process reduces the
typical review time by about three weeks.
Diagram reviews used to take individual
staff members months to complete. Now,
employees can review, comment on, and
approve diagrams concurrently, potentially
increasing productivity by 30 to 60 percent.
Saves Time, Cost of Site Creation,
Expansion
EIS uses SharePoint Server to deliver tools
that employees use to be more efficient
and effective, without increasing its
baseline staffing levels or budget.
For example, EIS manages the 400 percent
increase in web content updates with fewer
people than it formerly dedicated to the
process. “We’re doing more with less when
it comes to publishing content updates
because of our use of SharePoint Server,”
says Buffington. “It enables us to use a
distributed authoring and publishing model
that reduces our workload. And it’s just
easier to work with—we no longer need
specialized tools for content updates.”
The department also sets up SharePoint
sites and expands their functionality in less
time than it would take with other
collaboration platforms. Because
SharePoint Server contains so much
functionality out of the box, the EIS
Enterprise Web and Collaboration Solutions
team can do the work of site creation and
expansion itself by configuring SharePoint
functionality, rather than needing to write
the code for that functionality, or to
contract with consultants to do the work.
“We’re finding that SharePoint Server isn’t
just a collaboration platform,” says Panora.
“It’s a services platform that we turn to first
whenever a new business need arises. We
can deliver solutions faster by using
SharePoint Server. We can be more
responsive to business needs—and even
more proactive in anticipating those needs.
We use fewer people, tools, and resources,
“We have seen the
elimination of duplicate
and inconsistent
documents, because
everyone sees the same
documentation, created
with the same publishing
templates, in the same
SharePoint libraries.”
Bill Buffington, EIS Manager of Enterprise
Web and Collaboration Solutions,
California Department of Corrections
and Rehabilitation

7. and get better, faster results. That’s saying
a lot.”
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For more information about the
California Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation, visit the website at:
www.cdcr.ca.gov
This case study is for informational purposes only.
MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published May 2012
Software and Services
 Microsoft Office
− Microsoft Office SharePoint Server
2007
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