Executive Summary
Since 1997, Alberta Conservation Association (ACA) has encouraged Albertans to enjoy the outdoors. Fish, wildlife, and habitat conservation keeps the province of Alberta a beautiful and balanced place. With most ACA employees working in the field, the non-profit organization needed a cost-effective way to continue using Microsoft Office 365, while also ensuring users had access to current Public Folder contacts and calendars. With a complex work culture and technology, came challenges.
Challenges
One challenge was accommodating for the organization’s staff, ranging from full-time to seasonal office and field workers. Since 2015, ACA has allowed staff to “bring your own device” (BYOD) to alleviate another challenge of providing devices for 15–20 seasonal staff each summer. As such, these individuals’ contact information also needed to be added to and removed from business accounts seasonally. ACA’s Information Technology (IT) department reached out to Microsoft to see if this process could be automated, as entering it manually is time-consuming. However, they discovered that Microsoft Office 365 doesn’t support automated updates from Public Folders. Determined to find a solution, ACA reached out to CiraSync with this issue. Not only was CiraSync able to bridge the gap and automate their process, they also helped ACA reallocate their time, energy, and money toward conserving Alberta’s land.
“I contacted the friendly and helpful Cira Apps support staff to help me set up CiraSync, and we were up and running right away. Now, adding and deleting lists is a piece of cake. We should have done this a long time ago.”
Dil Thapa, Systems Analyst, ACA
Solution
Dil Thapa, Systems Analyst at the ACA, was determined to find an automated, secure, fast, affordable software solution that could bridge the contact syncing gap for employee smartphones. As most of the staff used Apple or Samsung smartphones, he started researching options online. He found CiraSync and saw the great reviews that the secure, Azure-based SaaS solution had received from happy customers. While initially skeptical, he signed up for the one-month free CiraSync Enterprise Edition trial and found that on the 10 phones he set up, all 10 flawlessly synced on his first try.
“I contacted the friendly and helpful support start to help me set up CiraSync, and we were up and running right away. Now adding and deleting lists is a piece of cake. We should have done this a long time ago,” stated Thapa.
