PGA TOUR

The challenge

Two weeks before each tournament in the PGA TOUR, agronomists measure and record the greens, recording “green speed” and soil moisture. In the past, after taking their readings using paper and a clipboard, they would then have to update a spreadsheet on their own laptops and remember to upload the updated document again when they returned to the office.

This wasn’t the only document management challenge faced by the organization. Over time, the TOUR’s marketing department had built a collection of PowerPoint presentations they had given to various potential sponsors and groups but had no efficient way to search the repository for specific slides and documents to repurpose. The TOUR also had a large number of contracts and three-party agreements associated with its various tournaments, including contracts between tournament organizers and sponsors that required a lot of back-and-forth negotiating. These documents, some of which took months to process, were difficult to find, retrieve and manage.

With over 120 tournaments a year and 1,300 users spread out among its headquarters and dozens of remote tournament locations, the PGA TOUR needed a more intuitive, role-based approach to accessing its repository of documents that seamlessly integrated with Microsoft Office, its primary document creation tool.

The solution

A customer of Hyland's Alfresco platform for almost two years, the PGA TOUR has slowly migrated users to the Alfresco Share interface for accessing business documents, with the support of an Alfresco Platinum Partner, Blue Fish Development Group. Today, 75% of the TOUR’s headquarters staff is currently using Share including the agronomists who now have the ability to update and edit documents in real-time, right from the golf course.

Over the past six months, the TOUR, added Alfresco Workdesk — also implemented by Blue Fish Development Group — to its document management suite of tools with the goal of making it the singular entry point for the organization’s business documents. Alfresco Workdesk’s seamless integration with MS Office fit the culture of the TOUR, and its highly configurable framework allowed the organization to build and architect customized solutions to manage their transactional processes.

The difference

Today, Alfresco platform serves as the primary document management repository for the entire PGA TOUR and has been the core framework used to move the organization out of shared drives and onto a platform that provides better version control, access and efficiency.

With Alfresco Workdesk, the PGA TOUR now has easier access to its repository of documents. Users can quickly access precisely what they need, drill down to the documents related to their specific process, when they need them, and can edit those documents faster and more efficiently.

“The Alfresco Workdesk product, and Alfresco in general, and our partner Blue Fish have provided us with excellent resources to work with as well as extending many benefits to our end users that make their life easier.” said Doug Edwards, who leads the PGA TOUR’s customer service team.

Through the Workdesk capabilities, the marketing and legal teams at the TOUR have a streamlined process, saving hours of transcription and manual data entry and information is more timely and accurate as a result.

The Alfresco Workdesk solution was configured to allow marketers to apply metadata to PowerPoint presentations, allowing for easier search and discovery of relevant slides. Third party contracts and agreements were also entered into the repository and tagged and routed, making it easy to find and retrieve them based on business rules.

“In general, Alfresco and Alfresco Workdesk, have been a very cost-effective approach for us compared to others in the document management space and a great value proposition for our organization,” said Edwards.