CAFM & IT UNPARALLELED ACCESS
When the IT department at Whittlebury Hall needed a fast and productive mobile working experience for their FM staff to have complete control over work data and business applications from anywhere in the world, Parallels provided the perfect solution.
The challenge Parallels were tasked with delivering a Windows-based property management application on iPhone, iPad & PC. Whittlebury Hall Conference & Training Centre, Hotel & Spa, in Northamptonshire, provides conference, training and meeting facilities for up to 500 delegates. It has 20 principal training suites, 28 fully-serviced syndicate rooms, six meeting rooms, an executive boardroom and three private dining rooms.
A staff of 400 includes a sales team that needs constant access to the Agilysys Visual One PMS property management application, which is used to manage the client base, add enquiries and bookings and perform other FM tasks. The team needs to access this application on iPhones and iPads as they move about the hotel as well as on the reception-based Windows laptops. Access whilst travelling for business is also a must.
“We had been struggling with Citrix XenApp as a way to access hotel data and applications on the move but we were finding it slow and difficult to manage,” explained Jeremy Stafford, IT Coordinator at Whittlebury Hall.
“Our sales managers complained because loading their main application was very slow and accessing hotel data from mobile devices wasn’t easy or intuitive. In the IT department, we found the overall virtualisation solution quite difficult to manage, requiring a significant time investment. Over time, it became more complicated to manage and use, so we decided to look at other options.”
Whittlebury Hall switched to Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS), a simplified yet comprehensive virtual application delivery solution. Ease-of-use and efficiency is extended to IT administrators, who gain virtual application and desktop management consolidated into one centralised dashboard interface, so the whole solution can be managed from a single pane of glass.
Key benefits For Whittlebury Hall’s IT department, the first key benefit was that Parallels RAS is straightforward to install thanks to its streamlined installation wizards. “Parallels RAS was very easy to deploy. After it was installed on the network, it was ready to use within an hour,” explained Jeremy. “We are finding it so simple and I haven’t found anything that doesn’t work.”
The sales team at Whittlebury Hall is now empowered with user-friendly iPhone, iPad or Windows laptop access to all relevant hotel data and Windows-based property
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management applications no matter where they are in the facility or travelling in the world.
In addition, because Parallels RAS is the only virtual application delivery solution that allows users to navigate on iPhone and iPad using the familiar finger-swipe and touch gestures, the Whittlebury Hall sales managers enjoy an incredibly familiar mobile experience while accessing their Windows desktop applications. The switch to Parallels also means less time waiting around for the Visual One Property Management System (PMS) work application to load. According to the sales managers, Parallels RAS loads applications in “less than three seconds.”
“Efficiency is extended to IT administrators, who gain virtual application and desktop
management consolidated into one centralised dashboard interface.”
Finally, Parallels RAS has provided Whittlebury Hall with a superior virtualization solution at a lower cost to run than its previous supplier’s offering—so both IT team and end-users are happy.
www.parallels.com/uk twitter.com/TomorrowsFM
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