HPA is a leading architectural practice with a national reputation for creating built environments that leave a positive, lasting impact. Founded in 1979, they operate in Lancashire and Cumbria. Their versatile portfolio spans contemporary commercial, educational, and residential projects, as well as the meticulous restoration of historic buildings across the United Kingdom. HPA’s multidisciplinary approach integrates architecture, design, planning, heritage, project management, and master planning. Noteworthy projects include the Another Place Tree House, Warton Grange Farm Housing Development and Furness College’s Advance Manufacturing Technology Centre. Their commitment to imaginative, purposeful spaces makes them a standout architectural firm.

 

Sustainability Consultant Simon Lock had been looking for a solution and was reviewing the market when he came across CloudFiler.

“We had seen the popular products on the market and our staff had experience of them too, but whilst they addressed some of our needs, none of them fully met our requirements and weren’t considered a cost effective solution. Then we came across CloudFiler and saw how the product had been architected with current cloud technology to give high search speed combined with a high level of resilience, it really stood out. Not only was the software a perfect match for our needs, it went further and added capabilities that we hadn’t even considered. For example, CloudFiler showed the shear amount of information that was in email attachments that wasn’t getting stored in an easily accessible manner. CloudFiler allows all these attachments to not only be safely backed up but also easily searchable by our team through the CloudFiler search tools.”

“Once we had seen the product demonstrated we were fairly sure we had found the right tool for our business going forward. The functionality was impressive and we were particularly excited by how the product was going to be able to quickly evolve with its cloud architecture.”

“The software is pleasant to use, the process of filing emails is considerably easier than our previous methods and far more reliable too, and we can now find specific correspondence with ease and confidence whenever and wherever we are. It has allowed our team to be much more collaborative and see what communication there has been with different project stakeholders.”  

Adoption was a concern, but things went to plan as Simon explains.

“Any change is risky. There are technical issues that can catch you out and there are always going to be people issues when introducing a new system, but the technical transition was smooth and staff adapted to it quickly and easily. The merits of it were very quickly apparent to staff which helped buy-in with them. That’s not to say that we didn’t need some help and guidance in the early stages, as we had to contact Dinamich a handful of times, but the support we received was fast, knowledgeable, friendly and helpful. Updates to the product have been well communicated and suggestions for future features have been well received. We have seen regular updates and evolutions to the product which gives confidence that any issues will get resolved quickly and the continuous improvement will help our company in becoming ever more efficient”.

“We are very happy with CloudFiler, enjoy working with the CloudFiler team and are excited about how the product evolves into the future”.