Writtle College
Established in 1893, Writtle College is one of the oldest specialist institutions in the UK and offers a range of land-based, design and sport courses at various levels of academic study including Postgraduate, Undergraduate, Further Education, Short Courses and Apprenticeships.
The unique facilities and resources are used to enhance the learning experience, enabling students to gain both theory and practical skills whilst studying.
Challenge
The critical challenges for Writtle College were:
- Local power cuts causing interruptions to email services
- Unsupported MS Exchange 2003 platform, with 5,500 account users
- Their email system had no mobile phone platform
- Increasing costs for IT management and infrastructure
- Reduce the burden of email service on their infrastructure
Solution
The solution created for Writtle College included:
- Microsoft Active Directory remediation
- Microsoft Office 365
- Microsoft PowerShell MIS integration script for new user creation
- Microsoft PowerShell script to manage license allocation
- Technical consultancy and strategic advice
- Removal of around 1,500 lapsed and unused accounts
- New platform for up to 5,000 students and 500 staff
- Custom scripts to automatically on-board students
SysGroup’s solution helped Writtle College with:Result
Our migration to MS Office 365 has been a resounding success. Even if we suffer a power cut onsite, email is still available. Students could still access email when the entire eastern region suffered a major JANET outage recently. As usual, the SysGroup technical team handled the design, planning and deployment very well. We work collaboratively and I really like the blend of skills and flexibility across their entire technical team. Ultimately, the quality of their proposal and technical design of their solution really stood out from the crowd.
Mike Coe IS&T Manager
