Quick, Online
Meeting Scheduling
Now a Way of Life
at Northwestern Mutual Life Co.
(Originally published in Messaging Magazine, January/February 1999)

By Mark Chrobak, Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co.
  

As the fifth largest life insurance company in the U.S.—and still growing—Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. (NML) consistently tries to increase operational efficiency. One area that required our attention was the scheduling and calendaring of internal meetings, a process that had become extremely time-consuming and often frustrating for those booked into more than one meeting at a time! Today, double-booking is virtually eliminated, and the scheduling process streamlined, thanks to our adoption of new client/server hardware and an enterprise-caliber calendaring and scheduling solution.

Outdated Architecture, Calendaring Program Presented Limitations

Previously, our three-building main campus in Milwaukee utilized an IBM 3270-based calendaring program, which quickly proved to be limited as we grew. We found that we needed a Windows-based calendaring solution with more employee-friendly features, as well as something more graphical, to eliminate time-consuming scrolling through calendar entries. We migrated our electronic mail environment to Windows-based messaging, and wanted to add a complimentary calendaring piece to that environment—one that could use already established e-mail distribution lists. We also wanted to find a program that could be installed and operated cost-effectively, preferably by one person.

Scalability was an important issue, too. We were looking for an efficient, enterprise-wide calendaring and scheduling product that ran on a single server, and that would grow with the company. NML wanted to implement a mainstream technology as soon as possible (one that could accommodate Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) based clients), with the promise of managing future additions such as web clients. Ultimately, our goal is to offer employees their "client of choice" on the desktop.

Since administrative assistants schedule at least 50 percent of our meetings, we were eager to deploy a system that would be easy for them to learn and use, and one that would offer a tiered access structure to designates managing someone else’s calendar. As far as privacy was concerned, our existing scheduling system offered only an "all or nothing" scenario. A Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP)-based client also was necessary, to provide secured communications for remote dial-in calendaring.

Automated Migration Became Gating Factor

Of all the criteria we set for choosing a new scheduling/calendaring system, the most important was the ability to automate the migration from our existing system. We estimated that it would take 3,000 to 5,000 hours to manually re-enter all the meetings and other calendar entries, a costly process that just wasn’t an option for NML. We needed a solution that came with a software development kit or Application Program Interface (API) that would enable us to maintain our ongoing calendaring while converting to the new system. This became the single most important feature for us, and quickly reduced the list of potential vendors.

We narrowed our search to two products and decided to put these products through a "usability" lab at NML. We gave the products to potential users with mock calendaring scenarios, and let our employees try to work through the systems without training. We wanted to see how far they could get on their own—and how they adapted to using the products. The results of these tests formed the basis for our final recommendation: OpenTime from Corporate Software & Technologies. It is a scalable, multi-platform client/server-based solution that enables thousands of users to collaborate and manage their time and activities through an enterprise-class architecture.

We rolled out OpenTime in March 1996, first to 100 users in a pilot area of the company. We had chosen the open HP-UX hardware platform from Hewlett Packard, and initially installed a K100 class server with 1 GB of memory (to take advantage of caching) and 6 GB of disk storage. We ended up loading some 3,200 employees onto that platform, with all of them taking advantage of real-time calendaring within the next four months. With the software development kit, not one existing calendar entry was lost in the migration!

Last year, we upgraded our hardware to HP’s K200 dual symmetric processor, scaled to manage peak periods—such as Monday mornings when everyone comes in to work and immediately checks their calendar! This system still has 1 GB of memory but we added 4 GB of disk storage; this enabled us to have five 2-GB drives, to spread the I/O. Today, we have 4,200 employees using OpenTime, virtually everyone in our home office campus, plus personnel in 10 real estate offices throughout the country.

Rapid Benefits Encouraged Widespread Use of New Solution

Our employees have been quick to embrace the new calendaring/scheduling solution, as it’s such a vast improvement over the old host-based system. Everyone was offered both an overview and hands-on training, with the administrative assistants receiving a total of five hours. Subsequently, a survey of our administrative personnel (who have become our "experts") revealed that the time they spent on calendaring and scheduling has been cut in half. This significant increase in productivity was one of our primary goals in converting to the new system.

Employees benefit from the system’s enhanced security features. Each person can now control the access level to his or her calendar, while still enabling an administrative assistant to manage his or her schedule. Entries can be assigned different access levels, allowing users to customize what information others can see. For example, a user can allow others to see when they are busy without giving any additional information, allowing others to schedule meetings with them without creating scheduling conflicts.

The Group View is one of the most popular features of our new system. By looking at one screen of everyone in a work group’s calendar side-by-side, an employee can easily see the group’s commitments. This avoids having them jump from screen-to-screen as we did in our previous scheduling environment. In addition, our 1,700 management employees are entitled to dial-in access to the system, so they may check their schedules from home or on the road.

From a systems analyst’s perspective, OpenTime is easy to administer. It’s a very stable product with no day-to-day firefighting. There’s also no more downtime for database back-ups, a benefit for both systems administrators and users.

A Little Homework Can Result in a Great Solution

Since I have lived through this process at NML, I’m eager to share my insight with other large organizations seeking to streamline their calendaring and scheduling. First, look for a system that supports open protocols—proprietary solutions are a thing of the past in this business. A system must support the LDAP directory standard or the vCalendar standard to result in a cost-effective conversion. Second, identify solutions that offer software development kits. We were able to add our own value with the OpenTime kit, so held down our administrative costs. These kits also keep upgrades consistent, and can help you avoid manual efforts. Finally, choose a calendaring/scheduling system that runs on a wide variety of hardware platforms and operating systems, especially UNIX and NT as well as cross platform client support for Windows, Mac, Motif and the Web. This, too, will help increase the life of your system and maximize your investment.

I am pleased that we have been able to provide the NML employees with an efficient method for coordinating their activities, while increasing their productivity. We got what we were looking for—and then some—in terms of ease of use, cost-effective implementation and potential for future growth.