Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI) consists of a team of over 100 scientists and medical researchers; dedicated to developing the treatment and prevention of critical childhood diseases in children; aiming to offer every child the opportunity to have a healthy start to life.

Like many healthcare and research organisations where internal departments have evolved in different ways at different times; CMRI used separate HR and IT systems. As a result; CMRIs corporate intranet employee directory was sometimes out of sync with the latest HR information stored under their Chris21 system.

CMRI automates data update process with Chris21-SharePoint integration

Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI) used a standalone HR system that lacked integration with IT systems such as Active Directory and Office 365. With a large number of scientists and post-doctoral students working on various research projects; having employee roles updated across all the systems was one of the main concerns for CMRI. Lack of integration between the systems; meant that the information updated in one system had to be manually updated in the other system.

Ensuring the data in their HR systems namely Chris21 and IT systems such as Office 365 and Active Directory was always in sync was the major objective CMRI sought to achieve. The end goal was to have one central employee data repository for easy accessible employee information.

Using Microsoft SharePoint, Empower IT Solutions developed an integration between CMRIs HR and IT systems wherein the data update could be achieved via a simple overnight data batch export. Although producing a straightforward outcome; the process involved a complicated configuration of SharePoint user profiles, in order for the sync to occur correctly without any glitches.

Empower IT worked with the CMRI team; understood their Chris21, Active Directory and IT platforms and the type of integration preferred. The Empower IT team was also mindful of minimising downtime as the new system was being implemented.

CMRI experiences tangible benefits

Upon implementing the Chris21-SharePoint integration; CMRI started using their HR system as their central data repository with all staff-related updates being performed solely by the human resources team. Owing to the new system employee related information is automatically updated in the IT systems offering staff the right type of permissions at all times.

Some of the high-end benefits experienced by CMRI include:

Increased accessibility to employee-related information
With the Chris21-SharePoint integration in place; CMRI managed to have all their employee-related data documented in electronic format available as a single source of truth accessible by users from any department on any device when required.

Increased collaboration and productivity
The Chris21-SharePoint integration enhanced collaboration and communication between the internal teams and increased staff efficiency – reducing the incidence of waiting for IT / HR to provide access to relevant information.

Significant financial and time savings
Process automation following the Chris21-SharePoint integration; reduced manual and duplicated record handling and limited the possibility of inconsistency in updated data. Furthermore this reduced the time spent in auditing; saving on admin costs and freeing up HR & IT time to be spent on departmental activities.

Stringent user permissions
High level of confidentiality and security has to be maintained for research data; thus it is important to ensure that employees are provided access only to relevant data / documents at all times. With the Chris21-SharePoint integration; CMRI ensured that document permission and access were granted as per the user role and departmental function in the HR system; thereby protecting sensitive confidential information.

While Empower IT Solutions integrated CMRI’s HR system – Chris21 and Active Directory with the help of SharePoint technology; this SharePoint based integrator can also be configured to integrate Active Directory with other HR systems such as ConnX.

If you too are facing a record mismatch between your HR and IT systems and would like to automate the data updating process with a SharePoint based integrator; contact the Empower IT Solutions team on 1300 797 888.