Wortell

							                                             Microsoft Office System
                                             Partner Solution Case Study




                                             Dutch Schools Tap Expertise to Deploy
                                             Education Portals at Reduced Cost


                                             “With the Microsoft framework, our customized
Partner: Wortell
Web Site: www.wortell.nl
                                             templates, and our expertise, schools not only get
Partner Size: 100                            online learning, they also get one centralized place for
Country or Region: The Netherlands
Industry: Education—Primary and
                                             administration and collaboration.”
secondary schools                            Tim Heuperman, Sales Account Manager, Wortell

Partner Profile
Founded in 1987, Wortell is a Microsoft®
                                             Schools in the Netherlands often want to deploy education portals
Gold Certified partner that builds           but lack the expertise and budgets to do so on their own. Wortell, a
innovative solutions based on Microsoft
unified communications and collaboration
                                             Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner, helps schools achieve their
technologies.                                educational and administrative goals with portals based on the
Software and Services
                                             Microsoft Learning Gateway framework. With specialized templates
 Microsoft Office                           and customizations from Wortell, schools get comprehensive, cost-
  − Microsoft Office SharePoint Server
    2007
                                             effective education portals with on-site or hosted deployments.
 Microsoft Server Product Portfolio
  − Windows Server 2008 Standard
  − Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Standard       Business Needs                                  many school districts struggle with having
                                             Like their counterparts in other countries,     sufficient resources and staff to integrate
                                             Dutch primary and secondary schools need        information and communications technology
                                             to provide enriched learning experiences and    (ICT) into their operations. They frequently
                                             to extend learning beyond the classroom. In     lack the budget to purchase the hardware
                                             addition, school boards and district            and software for education portals that
                                             administrators in the Netherlands want the      would support e-learning, and increased
                                             tools to communicate and manage their           communication, collaboration, and
                                             institutions more effectively. They need to     opportunities for more parental involvement.
                                             demonstrate accountability to parents and       “As technology becomes more complex,
                                             the community and to communicate                schools may also lack the expertise to
                                             efficiently, especially when schools are        perform the integrations and customizations
                                             geographically distant from each other.         that are required to adapt education portals
For more information about other Microsoft   Schools also often seek a centralized place     for their individual needs,” says Tim
customer successes, please visit:            to share lesson plans and materials so that     Heuperman, Sales Account Manager for
www.microsoft.com/casestudies                valuable knowledge can be shared. However,      Wortell, a Netherlands systems integrator.
Solution                                                                for them. The customizations that Wortell             the Microsoft framework, our customized
Many schools in the Netherlands have turned                             has created include a map for one district’s          templates, and our expertise, schools not
to Wortell to help them take advantage of ICT                           home page that showed the location of each            only get online learning, they also get one
to fulfill their educational and administrative                         of its schools. For other schools, Wortell has        centralized place for administration and
goals. As a Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner,                          developed a form builder, a digital portfolio         collaboration,” says Heuperman.
Wortell specializes in the deployment of                                for primary education, a training-and-
education portals based on the Microsoft                                workshop builder, and a personal                      Administrators can use the portal to
Learning Gateway framework.                                             competence evaluation tool.                           monitor teacher and student progress.
                                                                                                                              Students can work together on projects,
The foundation of the framework is Microsoft                            Benefits                                              and parents become more involved
Office SharePoint® Server 2007 and Microsoft                            More than 720 schools and 100,000 users               because they can view their children’s
SQL Server® 2008 data management                                        in the Netherlands now take advantage of a            achievements online. Schools also get a
software, which run on the Windows Server®                              Learning Gateway solution from Wortell.               centralized repository for a knowledge
2008 operating system. Wortell also provides                            Schools can reduce costs and gain an easy-            base of lesson plans and best practices. In
Microsoft Live@Edu, a suite of applications                             to-use, comprehensive portal.                         addition, with e-mail messaging they can
that works together with Office SharePoint                                                                                    improve communications throughout the
Server 2007 to support communication and                                   Expert assistance, reduced costs. By using        school community. “Many companies offer
collaboration.                                                              the Wortell Learning Gateway, schools can         an e-learning portal,” says Heuperman.
                                                                            overcome two challenges—high                      “But to my knowledge, Microsoft is the
The company calls its solution, which includes                              implementation costs and the lack of ICT          only vendor that can deliver a
the enhancements to the Microsoft                                           expertise to deploy and manage the                comprehensive, customizable, end-to-end
framework, the Wortell Learning Gateway.                                    education portal. With an on-site                 solution like the Microsoft Learning
                                                                            deployment provided by Wortell, schools           Gateway.”
Schools that use Wortell to create their                                    can save time and reduce their portal
education portals also receive specialized                                  expenditures. For other schools, the             Fast adoption, streamlined management.
templates developed by Wortell for a school                                 obvious choice is a Wortell-hosted portal.        Because it is based on familiar Microsoft
Web site, an intranet site, and an e-learning                               “Schools get the solution they need               interfaces and technology, teachers,
portal, along with Web Parts to modify the                                  without having to manage it,” says                administrators, and students quickly learn
content, appearance, and behavior of Web                                    Heuperman. ”They can easily add to their          how to use the portal with only a little
pages. Teachers can use the Microsoft                                       portal as needs change. That’s really the         training. Management is simplified, too.
SharePoint Learning Kit (SLK), as well, to                                  most cost-effective solution.”                    For schools that have on-site ICT staff, the
create course plans and assignments and to                                                                                    education portal can be easily managed
store and manage the content in SharePoint                                 Quick deployment, comprehensive                   along with the rest of the school’s
document libraries. And with Live@Edu,                                      solution                                          Microsoft infrastructure. A hosted
teachers, administrators, and students can                                  Wortell makes deployment fast for both            implementation is even easier. Wortell
get a free e-mail account that is associated                                on-site and hosted implementations of             takes care of the management of a rich,
with their school.                                                          Learning Gateway. The hosted                      extensible education portal so that
                                                                            deployments are an average of 80 percent          schools can focus on their educational
Wortell provides both on-site and hosted                                    faster than the on-site implementations,          and administrative priorities.
deployments. It relies on another Microsoft                                 typically taking just three hours for full
partner for training in on-site deployments.                                deployment, provided the hardware is
                                                                            available.
Because each school is unique, Wortell works
closely with school personnel to learn about                                Schools get a more comprehensive
their specific needs and customize a solution                               offering than with other solutions. “With




This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published March 2009