In 2017, when Southern Quebec was experiencing significant flooding, the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) was called in to provide much needed support to the region as part of Operation LENTUS 17-03. With 17 agencies and partners involved, effective inter-agency coordination was critical to the Operation.

Major Benjamin Leclerc from the 2nd Canadian Division and Joint Task Force East recalls the situation clearly.

“Working well with other organizations is always crucial during an operation like this. It’s important to take information from different sources, and turn it into actionable knowledge that can be used for decision making. And in this case, SharePoint was really key to our success.”

SharePoint was integral to making sure all parties involved were well informed. It allowed the planning team to foresee upcoming events, to be more responsive to new directions, and to positively impact our response.

SharePoint has many benefits. It’s collaborative, it can host various document types with version control, it’s easily accessible, and it’s secure behind the DND/CAF firewall. For all of these reasons and more, it was the perfect tool for inter-agency coordination.

As Maj Leclerc explains: “One of SharePoint’s biggest advantages is that it’s an easy platform to use, and doesn’t disrupt work habits of users. During a national operation, everyone is reacting as fast as they can, and they don’t have time to familiarize themselves to a new system or process.”

Without SharePoint, the operation would have been done using older methods and processes, and it would have been less dynamic and involved more staff members.

Maj Leclerc’s team recognizes that SharePoint enabled a real-time information sharing hub. This hub did wonders for situational awareness for all levels. It supported coordination and significantly decreased the “request for information” chatter. With these changes, they also saw a decrease in information exchanges through emails and phone calls, and also less time used to research specific information.

After a very positive experience with SharePoint, Maj Leclerc’s team continued to use the tool in 2019 during Operation LENTUS 19-01. With more people getting familiar with SharePoint, it will only continue to be more widely used in the future!

SharePoint is a web application that provides a platform for file management and collaboration between organizations and teams.

If you think SharePoint would be useful for your team, visit the SharePoint site.