Chicago Adopts Microsoft Office 365 for Collaboration, Processes; Brenna Berman Comments

The City of Chicago has moved to streamline transactions and automate processes for employees and the public with Microsoft Office 365.

Microsoft said Thursday the city government worked with the Microsoft premier support team to develop the new architecture and with Planet Technologies to migrate the city’s messaging systems to Microsoft Exchange Online.

“We appreciate how we can match the different Office 365 plans with our wide variety of users,” said Brenna Berman, Chicago chief information officer.

“With our laborers, pipefitters, and other field employees connected to Office 365, we have smoother intradepartmental communication, less need for physical meetings and paper printouts, and a more consistent conduit for information sharing,” added Berman.

City employees have begun to use Microsoft’s OneDrive to store and access documents in the cloud and the SharePoint Online tool to transmit invoices in electronic form.

Microsoft says the city government also uses the Exchange Online features to protect the messaging environment of the city and locate documents for legal purposes.