Partner Success Story
friendWorks & Portal Systems: a partnership that connects – SAP, DMS and Microsoft 365
With Shareflex, friendWorks connects the worlds between SAP, classic DMS and Microsoft.
Partner Success Story
With Shareflex, friendWorks connects the worlds between SAP, classic DMS and Microsoft.
friendWorks is a company with many years of experience in the field of document management, with particular strengths in SAP and classic DMS systems. One of the three founders is Michael Eisler. Looking back on the company’s development, he explains: “We have been using Microsoft 365 ourselves for some time in conjunction with Teams. At some point, we got the idea that Microsoft might be a promising theme for the future to expand our portfolio.” As a result, they began to explore the possibilities of running a document management system (DMS) on a Microsoft 365 platform, Eisler explains.
“We started with an open research,” says the managing partner, describing the decision-making process. “We have been in the DMS market for a long time and the directors have known many of the suppliers for decades, including Portal Systems.” A colleague without much experience in the DMS market was also tasked with finding suitable DMS providers.
Based in Straubing, Germany, friendWorks GmbH is a service provider specialising in document management. The company offers solutions in the areas of archiving, workflow optimisation, digital files and document recognition and acts as an implementation partner for well-known manufacturers such as Portal Systems. With a team of 24 employees, all from the region, friendWorks supports its customers from planning to support. The company has extensive experience in Microsoft 365, SAP integration and independent DMS solutions. Since its foundation more than 11 years ago, friendWorks has maintained a high level of staff retention and relies exclusively on its own specialists.
“When Portal Systems was also included in his results, the decision was relatively quick,” recalls Michael Eisler, “after all, we have known Portal Systems for a long time.” And because the two parties had known each other for so long, a relationship of trust was established right from the start, without any reservations. “We also quickly realised that we were a good match in terms of our solution portfolios and processes.”
Through this cooperation, friendWorks hoped to add a third pillar to its portfolio in the Microsoft world. The existing SAP expertise and the classic DMS business were to be followed by a seamless DMS integration into existing Microsoft 365 environments. The initial idea came from the company’s founders and a long-time employee with extensive Microsoft experience. “We wanted to do something in the Microsoft world,” says Michael Eisler. “And we are doing that with Shareflex because we believe that it is a very good solution that will continue to be a source of great joy for everyone involved in the future.”
But how do you make such a decision based on solid facts? “First of all, you look at the functionality of the available solutions,” says Eisler. “And then you check whether the solution is already in use somewhere under real conditions, or whether it has only been developed under laboratory conditions.” In this way, they discovered that friendWorks and Portal Systems were already serving common customers. “Portal Systems had implemented a DMS solution in the company – and we had an archiving and SAP invoicing solution.” They also checked in with these customers to see how the solution was working and how the relationship with Portal Systems was going in general. “We quickly had a good feeling about Portal Systems.”
In the period that followed, Michael Eisler was particularly impressed by the pragmatism with which further coordination took place. “You don’t have to go through endless rounds in different committees, but you can sit down, talk about something, make a decision and be sure that it will work,” he sums up. Of course, all this was laid down in contracts, which is only right, “but it was very straightforward, and we need a certain amount of flexibility to achieve our common goal, which is to successfully implement projects – and Portal Systems lives by these values as much as we do.”
Agreement on a partner contract was reached quickly. And for a specific reason: “There were no clauses that had to be checked by lawyers,” says Eisler. “It was tightly worded, went back and forth once or twice, and the partnership was decided. The same goes for the services Portal Systems has to provide as a supplier.” There were no sticking points. But this was certainly also due to the fact that, as a reseller, one was already experienced and familiar with concluding such contracts.
So what exactly does a Portal Systems partner do? “Of course, we want to acquire customers ourselves and implement projects with a Portal Systems solution,” explains Michael Eisler. friendWorks therefore buys licences from Portal Systems, implements Shareflex on the customer’s Microsoft tenant and takes over the entire service. All this without having to meet fixed sales quotas. “In addition, we now also support Portal Systems and other Portal Systems partners with services, for example when there are resource bottlenecks,” adds Eisler.
The collaboration with Portal Systems is characterised by partnership and goal orientation. friendWorks particularly appreciates the high level of expertise and flexibility of Portal Systems. “We set ourselves very high quality standards – and our partners at Portal Systems deliver this quality”, is how Michael Eisler describes the shared fundamental virtues.
“We were pleasantly surprised by the level of co-operation and the speed of feedback when you need something.”
Communication is also open and honest: “And that includes being open, not least with the customer, if something doesn’t work.” The basis of trust is simply there, and that is very important. The two companies have been in partnership for three years. “We have not once been disappointed,” concludes Michael Eisler.
Since the start of the partnership, the integration of Portal Systems’ solutions has expanded the range of services offered. “We have certainly won contracts that we would not have won otherwise,” reveals Michael Eisler, “because we can serve a clientele that we could not have served before.” As an established DMS company, the biggest benefit of the partnership is that it extends the friendWorks service portfolio, he concludes.
And: “Since then, we have also been able to connect the worlds of SAP and Microsoft, which was not possible before,” adds Carina Gold, who works in sales and marketing at friendWorks. “We have projects where we’re mapping an invoice verification process in SAP and using Shareflex as an archiving system,” says Michael Eisler, giving an example, “and that’s a very unusual constellation, but only because no one has done it before.” He explains: “If you ask someone if they work with teams, almost 100 per cent of them will say yes.” So they use SharePoint Online. “This gives them the infrastructure to implement such solutions and to marry these two worlds.” The SAP world with a Portal Systems solution and Microsoft 365.
At friendWorks, the partnership with Portal Systems was very well received internally from the outset, partly because it was communicated very early on. “We communicate very openly in our company. We mentioned the partnership as soon as it was in the offing, because the input of our colleagues is important to us,” explains Michael Eisler. “It’s been positive throughout, because of course everyone sees the market power that Microsoft now has – and whether you like it or not, you can’t get around Microsoft. If it feels like every company is working with Microsoft and I can fit into that, then it’s perfect.”
From an employee perspective, Carina Gold says: “The issue wasn’t just brought into the company, and then we were told to go for it. In fact, new employees were recruited specifically for this area.”
“No one felt that the partnership with Portal Systems had created extra work for them. We approached it in a very structured way internally. That’s one of the reasons why the whole process hasn’t raised any concerns among the staff.”
Are you interested in a cooperation, solution or technology partnership? Are you looking for a DMS/ECM solution that perfectly complements your portfolio as an ERP system provider (e.g. in the Microsoft Dynamics 365 BC environment)? Or do you have an idea for a new business application or industry solution based on Shareflex?
Then learn more about our partner programme and make an appointment to discuss your requirements. We look forward to your questions!
And how did the training sessions go? “As the colleagues who took on this topic already had in-depth Microsoft know-how, we didn’t have to start from scratch,” says Michael Eisler, describing the conditions, and adds: “Of course, we were able to draw on the resources of Portal Systems and received excellent support.” Initially, he sums up, they built up the know-how internally and then started with projects. “We didn’t take the opposite approach and look for customers to see what happened. That’s not our philosophy.”
A further collaboration with Portal Systems is firmly on the agenda at friendWorks. “We are also in contact with other Portal Systems partners to exploit synergies and provide support, especially in the SAP area.” He explains that many Portal Systems partners receive enquiries from companies that use SAP, but are unable to serve them because they do not have in-house SAP expertise regarding DMS topics. “And besides SAP, there are other vendors, such as IFS or Sage, as well as other software systems that we can connect via our specially developed Shareflex REST API. We are also familiar with the non-Microsoft ERP world and can provide support there as well. We are very much looking forward to working with the Portal Systems family.”
Patrick Carl
Chief Sales Officer
Email: info[at]portalsystems.de