Eliot Sinclair: Document Management

Christchurch company Eliot Sinclair led the charge and implemented 12d Synergy with all of their staff, both technical and administrative to manage their project files, tasks and email correspondence.

12d Synergy is designed to be a single repository for all important information or as Managing Director Dr Lee Gregory describes it, ‘your single source of truth.’

“The research and development of 12d Synergy has occurred through a highly consultative approach to understanding the unique requirements of each individual client. As a result, 12d Synergy is now at a stage where it can be rolled out to the wider market and we’re excited to see the market response” – Dr Lee Gregory

We caught up with Elliot Sinclair & Partners to conduct the following interview as seen in Survey Quarterly magazine.

What Attracted you to take up 12d Synergy at such an early stage?

It was by chance that we sat at a meeting with 12d Solutions when they were first introducing the idea of 12d Synergy as a collaboration and document management system for Civil Engineering design and Surveying.

We were amazed by the features that extended to correspondence and email management. We were also impressed by the management of CAD drawings together with revision control.

Being on the bleeding edge of technology can be challenging but the rewards are systems like Synergy.

Having ten years experience with 12d Solutions products, mainly 12d Model, we had a lot of faith in the final product. It has been a pleasure working with Dr Lee Gregory and Richard Stoliar so closely for the last year and seeing the product take shape.

How has 12d Synergy impacted the way Eliot Sinclair operates?

We were on a brink of needing a document management system that could integrate with 12d Model. We had a correspondence data base system and separate file storage, but nothing that linked the two or allowed us to collaborate on projects quickly and easily.

After the earthquakes in Christchurch our IT focus changed towards future proofing and ensuring recovery after a disaster to minimise impact on our business. Going away from paper based files or at least ensuring all documents are electronically stored is the first requirement. Our data storage has grown by 20% since introducing 12d Synergy while time to retrieve data reduced by 50%.

What features do you find the most practical, attractive and why?

From the IT system’s point of view, the integration within modern Windows based servers is excellent. Active directory and SQL platforms together with remote access and ease of administration of permissions, makes this system extremely easy to manage.

From a user’s point of view the integration into Microsoft office products, email client and 12d Model is seamless. At a click of a button emails are stored and retrieved and documents checked in and out from the database. Being able to access the information stored from any computer that has the client application installed and connection to the internet is brilliant. The task scheduling features that allow assigning work to team members and to send out reminders and track progress are one of the latest additions.

What does 12d Synergy offer the marketplace?

The features it promises are targeting the 12d user’s needs. 12d Synergy is what we come to expect from 12d Solutions, just like 12d Model 10, it arrives slowly but as intended is feature packed with goodness from top to bottom.

Find out how 12d Synergy can help your business, book an obligation free demo.