William Clifford
Introduction
Professional Experience
Technical Expertise
Resume
 
Project Date: February, 2002

Corporate Knowledge Base Portal

Knowledge Base Screen Captions
Project Goal
  • Deliever intellectual capital to the right person, whenever it was needed, regardless of where the information or knowledge resided.
  • Develop a unique knowledge base that gives the firm’s attorneys and other employees 24/7, real-time access to the firm’s knowledge base from anywhere in the world.
Project Considerations
  • The portal envisioned needed to support all existing functions, serve as a hub for a wide range of internal and external information resources, and provide access to the firm’s new client matters and knowledge databases.
  • Security was a major concern because many levels of administrative, professional and client personnel would have access to the portal, and much of the information is confidential and restricted.
  • Must provide the ability to search all systems integrated within the system.
  • Must integrate with the current enterprise Document Management System, which was deployed by another consulting firm that was no longer working at the client site.
Project Implementation
  • Worked with the firm’s internal team of knowledge managers and technology professionals to create the new knowledge management portal. Using the Citrix XPS portal product as a base, the team developed a custom user interface, an easy to navigate site architecture, and a custom knowledge base with powerful search capabilities. Diagram 1 provides a look at the multi-tiered, physical architecture that was implemented to meet these unique requirements.
  • The portal consolidated all of the firm’s information resources and provides direct links to over 20 custom internal applications. Diagram 2 provides a snap shot of the logical architecture that accomplish this integration.
  • The development team worked with the firm’s internal team to seamlessly integrate a newly developed data warehouse of client matters and related client information. Provided easy access to Matter details for all matters the user recently worked on. Provided the ability to watch/subscribe to specific Matters. Created a search engine that searched the entire Matters Data Warehouse by specific or general attributes. Integrated Matter information with documents within the Document Management System.
  • Developed a customized knowledge base that provided the ability to add, modify and delete content ("Knowledge Objects") through a custom administrative web site. Provided the ability to classify content using a complex and flexible taxonomy based on Litigation and Transactional Legal Practice Group and other work product related attributes. Provided access to the content through a browseable or searchable interface.
  • The advanced search application searches the firm’s knowledgebase and external information resources using a unique content taxonomy created by the firm’s knowledge management group. Static, text-based content was indexed and searched using the XPS software. The portal also searched the Document Management System using a custom built API.
  • Access to the portal by firm personnel is controlled by security profiles identifying each employee’s access privileges based on their practice group, clients, position and other criteria. These multiple levels of security enable the firm to ensure that client and matter information is accessible only to those individuals with the proper authorization.
  • The portal’s extranet capabilities allow clients to be given a view of each of their matters, which may include any of the documents or information available to the internal team. Typical information includes contact information, calendars and schedules, invoices, and key documents for review and mark-up. The same security profiles used internally are extended to the extranet.