Office 365 Transition, Consolidating Licenses Saves City Time & Money

The City of Indian Wells has 30 employees who represent the city’s entire population – nearly 10,000 residents at peak season. As things continue to move more online, the organization looked to Agile IT to help transition to Microsoft Office 365, saving the city both time and money, and allowing it to stay at the forefront of technology.

The City of Indian Wells wanted to stay ahead of the curve with technology and find a stable solution that would allow its employees to quickly respond to residents and easily use the programs with which they were already familiar. For the organization, which was using 2010 versions of Microsoft Outlook and Office, it was time to upgrade its platform and renew its licenses. “For an organization our size, it seemed to make more sense to move our product off-premise and put the onus of that on a large carrier like Microsoft,” said Nick Werner, the city’s IT manager.

Werner had some initial concerns moving to a new platform since the city still needed to be able to fulfill public record requests in compliance with a variety of regulations. However, upon successfully completing and archiving a couple of public records requests with ease after moving to Office 365, Werner said his initial concerns have dissipated. “I don’t see any roadblocks in front of us now.”

Combining open license agreements for the Microsoft Office Professional Suite products and going with Office 365 ended up being the city’s biggest money saver. “Looking at and pricing out a new server and all the equipment, on top of the licensing, was going to cost me almost twice as much,” said Werner. “I was pleasantly surprised with the low cost of the subscription and in partnering with Agile IT.”

After searching online for partners to assist in the migration, Werner said one company name kept coming up over and over – Agile IT. “Once I heard about the number of mailbox moves that Agile IT has performed and the level of regard that Microsoft holds them in, I thought it was a great company to partner with for this project,” he said.

With the help of Agile IT, the City of Indian Wells quickly migrated to Office 365. Agile IT not only successfully transitioned to the new solution, but also explained in plain terms what it was doing throughout the process. “The team was professional, diligent and good at managing my project and conversion – they answered my tedious questions and explained exactly what it is they were doing and laid out the path for our Cities success,” said Werner.

While one of the key benefits and initial driver to switch to Microsoft Office 365 was financial savings, the amount of time saved by moving to the new platform was also substantial, giving Werner time to focus on IT infrastructure projects and other tasks that help the business be more efficient. “I’m the only IT member on staff. The time saved for me managing a mail server was great because mail always seems to require the most attention.”

The migration to Office 365 was so seamless to the city’s employees, Werner said some of them even had to ask him if the migration was complete because it was so non-disruptive and similar to what they were already using.

For more information about the City of Indian Wells, visit CityOfIndianWells.org.