Myth:  Migrating to Office 2007 is like every other software upgrade or switchover.
Reality: The application looks radically different and is a complete overhaul of the user interface. There are no menus and no toolbars. Many information workers won’t even be able to open files without training and assistance. In past upgrades, an information worker’s knowledge of how to get to the features in the previous version was 95 percent effective in the new version. For Office 2007, it is zero percent effective.    

 Myth: Information workers will benefit from Windows 7 without training and support
Reality: A learning curve is guaranteed when information workers, or even an internal help desk staff, are faced with tools, applications or operating systems that look differently. A lack of proper training and support will prolong the adoption period. Maximizing the productivity increase — and resultant ROI — from the new tools in Windows 7 requires training in the theory and support in the practice of using the new tool. Read more myths and realities of an Office 2007 and Windows 7 migration and eight service levels needed to prove migration ROI http://www.pchelps.com/html/o2007mythsrealitiesroi.asp

Myth No. 1: You can make Office 2007 look and act like Office 2003.

“Two words: no menus. Two more: no toolbars.”

Scads of third-party applications have cropped up that promise to make Office 2007 look and act like 2003. Some are effective; most miss the point. Holding on to the old interface will only serve to diminish your Office 2007 migration return on investment.

Myth No. 2: Migration support needs disappear completely after a few weeks.

No, no, no. Microsoft designed the new interface to make it easier for users to find features that were available in older versions, but were buried in an elaborate menu structure. It’s working, too. Months into a rollout, your employees will be finding tools they never knew existed – and they will need help learning how to use them. To expect IT generalists to know how to use long-hidden features is downright unreasonable.

Myth No. 3: Migrating to Office 2007 is like every other migration.

Two words: no menus. Two more: no toolbars.

Many users will not even be able to open files without training and help. Office 2007 is a complete overhaul of the user interface. In previous upgrades, knowledge of how to get to features in the previous version got users where they wanted to go 95 percent of the time. With 2007, it’s zero percent.

Myth No. 4: Handling a migration without outside help will give my staff a chance to shine.

Don’t turn your IT staff into scapegoats. The scale of end-user need when Office 2007 hits a desktop guarantees your IT department will be overwhelmed.

Myth No. 5: I have smart employees. They’ll have no problem figuring out how to use Office 2007 on their own.

An employee does not call the general help desk when he can get the answer from a colleague who sits near him. If none of his colleagues know how to use Office 2007, and he calls a generalist at the help desk, how much expertise will he find there?

FIND MORE INFO IN: Office 2007 Migration Checklist + Tools | Migration Case Study | PC Helps eTraining |Desktop Application Support | Contact PC Helps

Software migrations will no doubt cause disruptions in at least three areas over several months. But if you approach it with a thought-out plan, you can lessen the sting.

Where’s the File Menu?

The first and most obvious impact will be on your employees. Features they have used for years are suddenly, um, somewhere else. The interface changes in Office 2007 are substantial enough that without training and support before and throughout a migration, even the savviest users will be lost.

“How will an overall decrease in productivity affect your company’s numbers? In a word, nightmarishly.”

Callers are in Queue

Immediately after deployment, employees will bombard the internal help desk with support questions, on top of their regular requests for forgotten passwords and more mailbox size. It’s hard to keep up a balancing act like that, even more so when employees make it over the initial learning hump and begin finding features that are new to the version. That’s 2.0.

The Bottom Line

How will an overall decrease in productivity affect your company’s numbers? In a word, nightmarishly. If John Q. Embeeay is churning out a dozen reports a day using Access and Excel 2003, how long will it take him to get back up to that level using 2007?

Whether it is learning how to use the new ribbon interface or adjusting to file formats, employees and help desks will face a learning curve of some capacity. Productivity, the backbone of a company, will suffer without a migration partner and plan in place. (Jen Darr)

FIND MORE INFO IN: Office 2007 Migration Checklist + Tools | Migration Case Study | PC Helps eTraining |Desktop Application Support | Contact PC Helps

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Part One, The Big Picture:

Expert support and training before, during, and after deployment is the key to a successful migration. You will need to tackle Office 2007′s steep learning curve and minimize downtime so your employees can regain the confidence and knowledge necessary to remain productive.

Some questions to keep in mind: If the average end-user was completing 30 tasks per day prior to migrating, what will it take to bring them back up to that level once Office 2007 is deployed?

• Technical support and training for employees before, during, and after migration.
• Live, expert support and training, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• Focused project timelines to coordinate deployment, support and training.
• Awareness campaigns that let employees know where to get software help.

Do you have enough internal bandwidth and full-time employees to learn, teach, deploy and support this migration? If not, you will need the following:

• Assistance fielding immediate migration questions, which allows your internal IT staff to attend to deployment procedures and day-to-day support calls outside the Microsoft package. This allows you to maintain call flow and eliminate call abandonment and employee frustration.
• Ongoing call analysis and solution-based reporting to identify target training needs.
• Office 2007 training options, including custom, interactive, group, individual and on-demand training, plus a self-help knowledgebase.
• With a usage-based migration program, you will not need to hire additional full-time employees, a consulting group, or outside trainers.

If you are surprised by the work that goes into a migration, you should be.

Part Two, the Readiness Checklist:
You want successful transition to Office 2007 and early ROI. In order to meet those goals, you need to keep your employees informed and trained before, during and after deployment. With a plan in place, you will minimize or eliminate dips in productivity and give your workers confidence to use the tools they rely on every day. This is what you should expect from a migration partner:

Before

• Educate employees about what’s to come via e-mail, newsletters or the company intranet
• Create an employee education campaign, with live, expert training and support
• Offer instructor-led, Internet-based training
• Provide access to a self-service learning portal with hundreds of Office 2007 audio & visual tutorials
• Train internal IT staff on basic, intermediate and advanced Office 2007 frequently asked questions
• Alter voice response unit (VRU) message to address specific migration calls

During

• Continue employee education campaign, with live, expert training and support
• Offer instructor-led, Internet-based training
• Provide access to a self-service learning portal with hundreds of Office 2007 audio & visual tutorials
• Provide immediate, expert support on Office 2007 applications, 24 hours a day, seven days a week
• Deliver “type 2″ and related topic training to all employees during and following support calls
• Offer live, web-based training sessions covering specific applications: Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook; beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Select group, individual or customized sessions

After

• Continue employee education campaign, with live, expert training and support
• Continue to offer instructor-led, Internet-based training
• Provide access to a self-service learning portal with hundreds of Office 2007 audio & visual tutorials
• Solution-based call details, productivity measures
• Call analysis identifying targeted training needs
• Quality assurance program measuring user satisfaction, call complexity reporting and downtime analysis
• Monthly e-mail newsletter featuring Office 2007 tips, tricks and shortcuts

If you are surprised by the amount of work that goes into a migration, you should be. It’s not a simple upgrade. No need for concern, though — that’s the migration partner’s job.

There are awareness campaigns to launch before, questions to field during, and inevitable glitches that show up after. And that’s just a slice of what to expect.

Part Three, the Matrix:

At no other time is staffing more important than during a software migration, when employees will be struggling with or even resistant to the challenges of change. There are education awareness campaigns to launch before, questions and install issues to field during, and inevitable glitches that show up after. And that’s just a slice of what to expect.

You have four basic choices in staffing for a migration: hiring additional full-time employee(s); bringing in temp workers; contracting with an all-in-one outsourcer; or hiring a best-of-breed company. (Of course there’s a fifth choice – migrating without a staffing plan – but we’ll skip that option. You should too.)

Here’s a look at the pros and cons of each:

In principle, hiring additional full-time employees keeps the control in your hands, but doesn’t make sense financially or logistically. You will need to train new employees on the entire Office 2007 suite, pay benefits, and dole out extra expenses for an after-hours support skeleton crew.

Such a significant time and money investment (at about $85 per call) does not make sense when you consider that you have no guarantee the new FTEs and your existing IT staff will be able to cover a full-swing migration while maintaining their regular duties. What’s more, your new employees will be generalists, supporting only a dozen or so applications. The average peak hold time for this solution is nine minutes, and the call abandonment rate is 10 percent.

At an average of $96 a call, temps are pricier than their full-time counterparts, and don’t even deliver better service (15 percent abandonment rate). A temp solution offers generalist support and an average 15-minute hold time during peak hours. It does not provide training, advanced Office 2007 support, or awareness campaigns.

Choosing a larger outsourcer seems like a smart option if you already contract with one for other services. At $59 on average per call, this option is cheaper than hiring temps and full-timers. Also, some all-in-ones offer training in conjunction with a migration. The downside: The staff is mostly generalists whose first language is not English. Some big outsourcers employ tiered-model desks as well. When you factor in the 10-minute peak hold time and 15 percent call abandonment rate, this option loses its luster.

The fourth option, a best-of-breed, is often written off as boutique-y and expensive, and even more so during an economic downturn. The offerings are definitely high-end: domestic Microsoft-certified consultants; support for more than 160 applications, including advanced-level Office 2007; training courses and awareness campaigns; after-hours support; no hold time; a call abandonment rate of .01 percent; and a 91 percent first-call resolution rate. The price is anything but expensive, however, at an average of $25 per call.

READ THE REST OF THE SERIES: Part Four, a Case Study | Part Five, The White Paper

FIND MORE INFO IN: Office 2007 Migration Checklist + Tools | Migration Case Study | PC Helps eTraining | Desktop Application Support | Contact PC Helps

Part Five, the White Paper:

The anticipation of rolling out Office 2007 and Vista to thousands of end-users has many IT professionals sounding like kids at the doctor’s office who are about to get a shot. The question they just can’t get out of their minds is, “How much will it hurt?” Unlike the one-and-done shot, software migrations can cause pain in at least three areas over several months, even though they will provide long-term benefit.

The first impact is on end-users. The new interface will result in confusion surrounding the common functions that have been performed daily and without effort for years. The most common query with previous version changes was how to find a particular menu. With Office 2007, it will be, “Where did all the menus go, and what is this ribbon?”

Last in a five-part Office 2007 migration readiness series.

The second impacts the IT staff. Immediately following deployment, the help desk will likely be bombarded with support questions from end-users struggling to keep their heads above water. The initial balancing act of supporting daily network and proprietary applications, in addition to Office 2007, will be the catalyst for ongoing pain for both end-user and IT staff alike.

When the sting begins to wane, the next wave of pain will commence. As end-users become more familiar with the interface, they will discover new features within Office 2007. Finding these features doesn’t necessarily mean they will know how to use them, thus high call volume to the help desk will remain steady. Unless the help desk staff completes pre-deployment Vista and Office 2007 training, they will be in the same position as the end-user. Productivity may cease, especially in the IT department.

The third impacts the business. How will a decrease in productivity without proper support impact the bottom line, and for how long? If Mary is churning out a dozen reports a day utilizing Access and Excel, how long will it take her to get back up to that clip using the new version? Interface changes increase support needs more than added functionality because the latter affects only those who try to use the new features. The former affects all users, novice or pro. In previous Microsoft Office version migrations, the applications with the most significant interface changes got the phones ringing at PC Helps.

Is there any comfort at the end of this doctor’s visit? With an Office 2007 and Vista migration assurance program and plan in place, companies can avoid most of the sting. Office 2007 and Vista offer very few new functionality features, of which almost none will concern the typical end-user. The purpose of changing the upfront interface in Office 2007 and Vista is to help end-users and IT professionals find more advanced features they have been missing for years because they would have had to dig for them.

The challenge will be bringing users up to speed with the tools they have been using for years. The bulk of that work will need to be done prior to deployment or within the first few weeks after installation. A lack of immediate support resources will result in a surge of calls to the help desk. Without complete training in the new and old versions, the help desk staff’s effectiveness and the users’ satisfaction will suffer.

READ THE SERIES: Part One, The Big Picture | Part Two, Readiness Checklist | Part Three, Staffing Matrix | Part Four, a Case Study

FIND MORE INFO IN: Office 2007 Migration Checklist + Tools | Migration Case Study | PC Helps eTraining | Desktop Application Support | Contact PC Helps

Part Four, a Case Study:

Client Profile
Toys-R-Us, a public, U.S.-based, consumer goods company with 6,000 global PC end-users.

Business Challenge
Toys-R-Us made the decision to migrate all global end-users from Microsoft Office 2003 to Microsoft Office 2007. The company realized that it didn’t have the internal support resources to handle the learning curve end-users and IT staff would face, nor did it have the training aids available to deliver quick adoption and continued workflow.

With the company’s Office 2007 upgrade investment, it was vital that IT leadership not only prove ROI on their decision to upgrade, but accomplish this while remaining within budget and not compromising productivity levels.

Solution
Today, the company’s internal help desk handles all hardware, networking and proprietary application support and outsources their “how-to” desktop application issues including Microsoft applications to PC Helps Support.

Fourth in a five-part Office 2007 migration readiness series.

In October 2007, the company decided to migrate all knowledge workers to Office 2007. They chose PC Helps Support as their Office 2007 migration assurance partner for several reasons, including:

• End-users’ existing confidence and comfort with PC Helps’ “how-to” support
• The program offers on-demand support and training — 24 hours a day, seven days a week
• Pricing is scalable and usage-based, which allows the company to remain within budget
• The program provides ongoing, solution-based call reporting and quality assurance reports, which provides IT leaders with proof of ROI

Toys-R-Us rolled out Office 2007 to 30 end-users per day through the projected completion date. Windows XP operating systems remained with no immediate plans to upgrade to Vista. PC Helps’ client services team worked with the company’s corporate communications department to create and coordinate a global education awareness campaign about the timing and schedule of deployment and the array of support outlets that were available for Office 2007 questions and issues. The company changed the help desk voice menu to include Office 2007 “how-to” questions, which continue to be exclusively handled by PC Helps.

PC Helps extended its migration assurance program beyond on-demand phone support by offering an array of training formats before, during and after deployment. Toys-R-Us utilized PC Helps’ on-site training twice a week, two times per day, from October through December, and all knowledge workers were required to attend. IT staff members responsible for supporting executives were required to take advanced-level courses as well. PC Helps offered 30-minute, live, instructor-led, web-based e-training classes throughout all stages of the migration, and continues to provide training to employees today. This multi-prong training approach allows for maximum adoption in the shortest amount of time.

Results
By utilizing the PC Helps migration assurance program, Toys-R-Us successfully migrated 6,000 end-users from Office 2003 to Office 2007 in a four-month period with minimal impact on productivity levels.

IT leadership was able to prove a return on investment by providing quality assurance reports and solution-based call reports, which illustrate high customer-service levels, continued learning, and time savings.

Quality of Service
Toys-R-Us’ employees rated PC Helps’ service a 9.5 out of 10, based on the following key performance measures: Speed of connection, phone manners, product knowledge, speed of solution and overall.

Response Statistics
Abandon rate: 0.32%
Time to reach a certified computer consultant (including ring time):
• Under 5 seconds: 90.8% • Under 15 seconds: 90.7% • Under 30 seconds: 92.7%

Downtime Analysis
Based on survey responses, employees estimated the time to resolve their support issues without PC Helps would be 2.94 hours. Based on industry averages for labor costs, overhead, and benefits, the client’s hard-dollar savings by having PC Helps resolve these Office 2007 support issues in just a few minutes amounts to approximately $73.57 per call.

Next up, a white paper, “How Much Will An Office 2007 and Vista Migration Hurt?” (Jen Darr)

READ THE SERIES: Part One, The Big Picture | Part Two, Readiness Checklist | Part Three, Staffing Matrix

FIND MORE INFO IN: Office 2007 Migration Checklist + Tools | Migration Case Study | PC Helps eTraining | Desktop Application Support | Contact PC Helps