The Customer:  Tuff Torq Corporation  

Established in 1989, Tuff Torq Corporation is a leading “on-demand” manufacturer of unique, powerful drive systems for outdoor power equipment, off-road applications, and the marine industries.  According to the latest 2008 published reports, nine out the top ten lawn and garden tractors are powered by drive systems manufactured by Tuff Torq Corporation.  Three out of the top four “best-buys” also contain Tuff Torq hydrostatic transmissions. 

Tuff Torq’s Challenge:  Seamlessly Archive Lotus Sametime Chats to Enforce Usage Policies  

Tuff Torq uses IBM Lotus Sametime to facilitate real-time communication and collaboration.  The business benefits of instant messaging—increased productivity, reduced costs, improved customer service—help Tuff Torq maintain its status as an industry leader.  

Lotus Sametime, however, does not natively log chat messages; as a result, Tuff Torq had no way to monitor and audit its users’ Lotus Sametime communications to ensure the system was being used for business purposes rather than idle chatter.  

Instant Solution:  Instant IMtegrity Archives  

Instant IMtegrity Archives provides IM archiving, search, and discovery for IBM Lotus Sametime.  Instant IMtegrity Archives captures and indexes all Lotus Sametime chats, thus helping organizations meet requirements for regulatory compliance, preservation of intellectual property, and—in Tuff Torq’s case—usage policy enforcement.  

Log and audit all Lotus Sametime conversations 

• Track who said what, what was discussed, when it was discussed, and how long the discussion lasted (including inline usage of images and emoticons) 

Search and discover IM chats archive-wide in a central admin console

• Enforce internal IM usage policies
  
• Respond immediately to audits and electronic data discovery requests
  
• Preserve intellectual property 
• Protect archives with secure Access Control Lists  

Archives are fully indexed and easily searchable

• Quickly search by date or by person, or do advanced searches with Boolean operations, within time frames, or over a set conversation length 
• Easily identify usage policy violations so appropriate corrective action can be taken
  
• IM conversations—like email—become a usable digital asset  

The Results:  Reduced Risk and Increased Productivity  

“Everyone who’s ever used instant messaging knows how easy it is to get distracted from the task at hand by non work-related chats,” says Dallan Leishman, Tuff Torq’s network administrator.  “We were aware that Lotus Sametime, if so abused, could have a negative impact on user productivity.” 

To mitigate those concerns, Tuff Torq conducted an extensive search for a Lotus Sametime archiving solution.  Instant IMtegrity Archives from Instant Technologies ticked all the boxes on Mr Leishman’s wish list.  

“Instant IMtegrity Archives de-risked our usage of Lotus Sametime,” continues Mr Leishman.  “Every IM thread is centrally archived so we have a complete record of everything that happens in our Sametime environment.  And because every IM thread is indexed for fast and easy search and retrieval, we can easily spot usage policy violations, take corrective action, and thereby maintain our standards for employee productivity.”  

“The business benefits of real-time communication and collaboration are too great to ban its use over concerns that users might waste time in chats unrelated to work,” says Peyton McManus, President of Instant Technologies.  “Smart companies such as Tuff Torq are able to embrace instant messaging because Instant IMtegrity Archives enables them to enforce their internal usage policies.”  

“Instant IMtegrity Archives is a great product out of the box,” says Mr Leishman.  “But we required some customization to integrate it into our environment.  The support team at Instant Technologies went above and beyond the call of duty to ensure the product worked exactly as we needed.”