The situation
A staffing firm in Norway, running for years on a setup that had grown around them: a production server nobody dared touch, candidate records spread across spreadsheets, and a business that could not afford downtime. Then the server started failing.
They asked not to be named publicly, and I keep that. The work is described exactly as it happened, and I am happy to talk through the details on a call.
What was done
- Emergency recovery first. The failing production server and database were recovered with zero data loss. Stabilise, then rebuild, in that order.
- A custom recruitment and HR system on their existing Microsoft 365. No new per-seat platform, no new place for the data to live. The infrastructure they already paid for became the system.
- ~25,000 candidate records consolidated. Years of scattered spreadsheets pulled into one searchable database: deduplicated, synced, and owned by them.
- Branded candidate documents, generated automatically. The manual paperwork step disappeared.
Why this story matters if you're reading it
Every agency switching systems is afraid of the same thing: losing data on the way over. This project is the answer I point to. The messiest possible starting point (a dying server and 25,000 records in spreadsheets) came across with nothing lost.
The short version: failing server recovered with zero data loss, ~25,000 records consolidated into one system on their own Microsoft 365, manual paperwork automated. Client name withheld on request; details available on a call.