IVIS Professional Services deliver real benefit to DfES online ordering portal

London, July 20 2004 - IVIS Group, the multi-channel experts, today announced that they have been working with The Department for Education and Skills (DfES) on the development of an e-ordering and fulfilment (eO&F) service for schools to be hosted on TeacherNet. The service, ‘Online Publications for schools' provides access to educational publications for governors, school heads, teachers and parents. The catalogue can be searched, with the majority of the material available via download. Education professionals are also able to order hard copy versions of documents, as well as CDs and videos. This solution was delivered using IVIS Group’s proven IVIS Professional Services, a range of multi-channel consulting and delivery services.

IVIS Group was initially engaged to undertake a design review to ensure user requirements were supported. This covered a number of technical areas including an architectural review and an assessment of the user interface. The activities also covered a number of non-functional areas including scalability, security and ensuring the resulting solution was robust.

Following implementation, additional work was commissioned developing User Acceptance Testing (UAT) plans and running UAT sessions and the production of various test reports.

Commenting on IVIS Group, Darren Leafe, project leader in the Communication Unit, DfES remarked - "We selected IVIS Group because of their extensive experience at building large scale e-business solutions and their specific knowledge of the e-ordering and fulfilment area". Following the successful launch of the initiative he added, "IVIS Professional Services have been invaluable in ensuring eO&F met our customers' expectations and provides a platform for future developments".

Remarking on the project, Tony Jones, VP Professional Services at IVIS Group said - "It has been exciting being involved in such an innovative project that makes a real contribution to our customer's business. We are supporting an increasing number of large-scale e-business developments and are pleased to have been able to contribute to this initiative. This project has given us the opportunity to demonstrate how valuable our packaged services for Design Audits, UI Reviews and Testing can be".

Online Publications for schools has made the range of material easier to access for a broad range of education professionals and streamlined the process of ordering required material. The service is currently in use in 24 Local Education Authorities (LEAs) and over 4000 schools. It will be rolled out to cover all LEAs and over 25,000 schools across the UK over the coming months.

About IVIS Group

IVIS Group helps organisations reach their customers across all of their information channels. Providing a range of services and products, IVIS Group is the multi-channel expert.

IVIS Group has worked with many companies from a range of industries each driven by their customers to create value through the better use of information.

For more information on IVIS Group and its solutions visit: www.ivisgroup.com.