Gateley consolidates 26 databases and retires servers, transforming document management

With 15 years of documents spread across 26 databases, the volume and distribution of Gateley’s data hampered people’s searches, including extra copies of documents due to unnecessary duplication. This not only impacted knowledge workers but also created extra work for the IT team. With its on-premises (legacy iManage) system approaching end of life, the business decided that moving document management to the cloud — and taking the opportunity to clean up and consolidate their data — would resolve these pain points. After implementing iManage Work 10 in the Cloud with iManage Security Policy Manager, Gateley’s data is more secure, more accessible, and better organized than ever. Three weeks after go-live, 100 percent of the group’s 1,000+ legal professionals use iManage daily — and Gateley’s document management transformation has just begun.

In 2015, Gateley became the first law firm to go public, demonstrating its commitment to consciously pursuing a different pathway to success. Since then, the group has brought a wide range of professional services expertise “under one roof” to save its clients time and money. Gateley employs 1,500 people across the UK and Dubai and takes pride in the success of its unique business strategy.

The business challenge

Retire servers, accelerate search, reduce compliance burdens

Bringing legal and professional services businesses together as separate parts of one group has made Gateley’s services more convenient, cost-effective, and comprehensive for its clients. From a data management perspective, however, having 77 million documents spread across 26 on-premises databases created an information logjam that was a job to support.

The group’s 48 terabytes of data spanned more than 15 years, with separate databases for each department, including legal, consultancy, support services, HR, marketing, front desk, finance, and accounts. Growing concerns about data duplication and lagging search speeds, which could be frustrating for users, led to discussions about the cloud.

“Even the shortest delays of a few seconds add up when you are searching for one hundred documents a day,” explains Amy Fletcher, Senior Business Analyst at Gateley. “With our on-premises system approaching end of life, the time was right to look at improving the user experience and business outcomes by moving document management to the cloud.”

The users weren’t the only ones who would benefit from a move to cloud. Maintaining many on-premises servers and patching the group’s systems manually was a time-consuming effort that, along with multiple other prescribed regulations, could make compliance quite challenging.

Gateley’s IT Director, Nick Capell, says that the UK government backs certification levels to protect customer and company data from cyberattacks. “Cyber Essentials Plus” mandates that vulnerabilities be removed two weeks after a vendor issues a patch.

“That sounds reasonable,” Capell elaborates, “but the size of our servers could make compliance very difficult. If we needed to reindex our databases to apply a patch, for example, that could be three months’ work for my team. To meet those aggressive deadlines, we’d have to engage more resources and bear the additional cost.”

The solution

Reduce overall complexity while making life easier for employees

As a satisfied iManage customer for 15 years, Gateley knew that a move to iManage Cloud would give users access to the latest iManage capabilities and apps, reduce infrastructure management and overhead, and help the business meet the UK’s most rigorous security recommendations. They didn’t go with iManage by default, though; they did their due diligence to ensure they chose the best cloud provider for their needs.

“We looked at the market and had conversations with multiple providers, including iManage, NetDocuments, Intapp, and some smaller independents,” says Capell.

“Intapp could build us a platform,” he adds, “but we couldn’t see it in action prior to committing, and we weren’t comfortable with that approach. NetDocuments and iManage were both strong contenders, but iManage was rated highest by users during testing.”

Testers were able to experience the many new features they would enjoy using iManage Work 10 in the Cloud. The iManage team also connected Gateley with existing customers who shared tips for a successful implementation.

“iManage had great references and helped us run workshops with users during a six-month evaluation, during which we collected positive feedback that supported our final decision,” says Capell. “We chose the iManage Cloud platform following a rigorous selection process because it was clearly the best solution.”

Gateley’s change management and IT teams worked closely on the migration with iManage implementation partner, Tiger Eye. The partner provided hands-on support, such as running configuration management database (CMDB) checks and scripts, and helping to batch and prioritize tasks.

First, the business cleaned and consolidated their data — 77 million documents — and made it ready to migrate from the original 26 on-premises databases into six databases in the cloud. There were three phased migrations that took place over about eight weeks.

Establish a security model that balances access and privacy

“When you have reams of historical documents, you need to factor in adequate time to go through them and understand your data,” advises Fletcher. “We had more than a million orphan documents and a tight deadline. This is where iManage Security Policy Manager proved its value. It helped us avoid carrying duplicates and unnecessary permissions complexity into our new system.”

With Security Policy Manager, Gateley applies permissions from the get-go. By working with the compliance team to establish a security model that balances access and privacy, there is no longer duplication: all approved users can access the original file in iManage Work 10, and that’s an advantage to everyone.

Integrate, improve processes, build a better user experience

"When moving from on premises to the iManage Cloud, it’s important to make the benefits clear to users,” said Fletcher. “The interface looks the same, but there are new features that make life easier for employees.”

Gateley’s developers were pleasantly surprised by the ease of integrating frequently used tools with the iManage API. This helped them improve file opening processes, for example.

Tiger Eye helped with training, video resources on demand, and on-site support for go-live dates. The team was already familiar with the iManage interface, and the transition went smoothly, with all 1,000 of Gateley’s legal users now working in iManage every day.