How Habitat Planning Regained Control of Their Document & Email Management
Habitat Planning is a town planning and urban design consultancy located in Albury-Wodonga, Australia. Since 2015, the Habitat team has rapidly grown, causing several data management challenges for the firm.
In this article, you’ll see how they overcame those challenges by transitioning from File Explorer to 12d Synergy. Enjoy!
As their team grew from 2 staff members to 7, so did their volume of data and documentation: “as our team grew we lost some oversight on projects… there were issues around which documents are the most current. We would have 50 versions of the same document…there were lots of duplications and complications”.
Mitch McPherson, 12d Synergy’s National Sales Manager, recently caught up with David Hunter (Director of Habitat Planning) to learn their experiences of using 12d Synergy.
The Challenges Habitat faced:
- Maintaining quality data and document management
- Version control on all their document heavy projects
- Managing and storing email data and reports
- Implementing manual policies around document naming and filing
Common Data Environment
12d Synergy enabled Habitat to take control of their document management with a common data environment for all their active and archived projects.
By moving their years of data into one centralised repository, Habitat can rapidly retrieve, recover, and generate all their documents faster and more efficiently. This includes all their varying file types, from project reports and drawings to PDFs, emails and both Microsoft & Adobe suite files.
“The biggest benefit we’ve seen from 12d Synergy is having all our information in the same place”.
– David Hunter, Director, Habitat Planning
Version Control and File Automation
With File Explorer, Habitat’s team were at risk of working from duplicated or outdated data. With 12d Synergy, Habitat have transformed their file management with automated version and revision control.
They now have consistency in their files, being able to quickly generate documents with an audit trail of the ‘who, what & when’ behind each edit. Additionally, they can easily rollback to previous versions when needed.
Streamlined Email Management
As a town planning firm, Habitat receive and respond to thousands of emails per project. Previously, they managed their emails through individual inboxes and File Explorer which often resulted in emails being held or lost. “With File Explorer, there wasn’t a way to save emails in an automated or cohesive way”.
By harnessing 12d Synergy’s Outlook integration, they’ve been able to efficiently save, find and stamp project emails and file them into specific job folders. With 12d Synergy, information is no longer trapped in user’s inboxes, it’s accessible to the entire team.
“There’s heaps and heaps of emails coming in, if someone leaves or someone’s out all of that information is trapped in their inbox and no one can see it…. 12d Synergy automatically stores that information and gives us the emails that we’re looking for.”
– David Hunter, Director, Habitat Planning
Standardised Job Structures and Automated QA
As a town planning firm, Habitat receive and respond to thousands of emails per project. Previously, they managed their emails through individual inboxes and File Explorer which often resulted in emails being held or lost. “With File Explorer, there wasn’t a way to save emails in an automated or cohesive way”.
By harnessing 12d Synergy’s Outlook integration, they’ve been able to efficiently save, find and stamp project emails and file them into specific job folders. With 12d Synergy, information is no longer trapped in user’s inboxes, it’s accessible to the entire team.
“There’s heaps and heaps of emails coming in, if someone leaves or someone’s out all of that information is trapped in their inbox and no one can see it…. 12d Synergy automatically stores that information and gives us the emails that we’re looking for.”
– David Hunter, Director, Habitat Planning
Interested in learning how 12d Synergy can do the same for your business?
Download Free eBook: Habitat Planning and their Complete Document & Email Management Solution with 12d Synergy
