Migrated company-wide workspace from Notion to GitHub to accommodate expansion of company size and increase in number of stakeholders

ROUTE06 is a DX partner that supports major companies in transforming their business models. The company has developed an enterprise API platform called ``Plain'' to help the companies it supports solve complex business issues. We are developing our business by combining platform services centered around the provision of this "Plain" and professional services that provide business support through practical agile development.

In response to the diversification of work styles and lifestyles in recent years, the company has focused on creating an environment where members can work efficiently even if they work in different locations or at different times. The company's working style has been fully remote since its establishment, and about half of its 60-plus employees live outside the Tokyo metropolitan area. Board Director Tomoya Konishi says, ``We have employees all over the country from Hokkaido to Okinawa, and coming to work is optional unless necessary.More than half of our employees are software engineers, including product managers and designers. Approximately 70% of the work is involved in product development."

In order to realize this work style, the company has focused on information design for document creation, sharing, and management since its founding. For about two years after its founding, the company used Notion and GitHub as workspaces, making extensive use of each service for internal document management and task management, accumulating a variety of business information.

By combining each service, information was shared relatively smoothly, but when considering future organizational expansion and how to deal with business, it is necessary to rebuild a better system at this time. was there.

Therefore, in January 2022, the company decided to migrate the entire company's workspace to GitHub. The reason they chose GitHub was because they felt it had many advantages in terms of functionality and ease of use. CRE's Jun Kawahara says, ``GitHub can be used not only for source code management, but for all kinds of work. GitHub is also suitable for document management and task management, and by incorporating the pull request flow, all changes and differences can be handled. The discussion process can be stored as comments.People who come later can also check the process, and if there is anything that concerns them, anyone can make comments or suggest changes to the document, so the team can ensure the freshness and quality of the information. "I'll do it," he says.

All employees at the company have GitHub accounts, and they use GitHub not only for development but also for corporate and other tasks. There are various effects of the introduction, for example, document creation has been unified on GitHub, which has significantly changed the way information is shared within the company. Code, Issues, and Discussions are used differently depending on the purpose of document creation, and all departments within the company work in the same format. This has facilitated information sharing and collaboration across departments and operations. Slack integration is also highly customizable, and by automatically notifying each Slack channel of document creation and differential updates for each repository, we were able to create an environment where users could detect activity on GitHub by looking at Slack.

Switch to GitHub Enterprise plan, which allows you to securely isolate highly confidential information

For just under two years, ROUTE06 had been using the GitHub Team plan under a direct contract with GitHub, Inc., but in November 2022, they introduced the GitHub Enterprise plan through Macnica, Japan's only certified distributor. Konishi explains the reason for this as follows:
"Until now, the Company has adopted a policy of distributing information as openly as possible within the company. However, at the same time, we need to implement strong security measures that can properly isolate highly confidential information. As we use it as a company-wide workspace, we did not want to disrupt the environment of centralized information management, so we thought the best way to achieve this would be to switch from the Team plan to the Enterprise plan."

Previously, GitHub's Repository contained all confidential information and management information. Even people in the department in charge of information systems have access to such information, which is why Member of the Board are in charge of managing GitHub, which puts a burden on both parties.
"On that point, the Enterprise plan allows you to have multiple organizations. With this, you can divide management information, personal information, personnel information, etc. according to authority, and you can also create organizations that handle open information within the company. This allows information system administrators and engineers to operate and manage the system.'' (Mr. Konishi)

Another benefit of the Enterprise plan is that you can publish internal handbooks privately on GitHub Pages.
"Until now, the handbook was located on the traditional workspace Notion. From December 2022, we have started operating an internal handbook using GitHub Pages. All information will be consolidated on GitHub. As a result, business operations and document management have become closely linked. Now, additions and edits are made on a daily basis, increasing the amount of information shared across the company and ensuring that the information remains fresh. (Mr. Konishi)

Further increasing the flow of information within the company/improving the security level

Currently, all employees and partners, approximately 110 users, have accounts at ROUTE06, and those who wish to do so are also granted a license for GitHub Copilot, which uses AI to assist with programming. With the introduction of the GitHub Enterprise plan, the company's ability to distribute information has further increased. CRE Yumi Nagasawa says, ``Since both engineers and non-engineers use GitHub to manage tasks and work in the same format, it has become easier to collaborate across departments.''

For example, all internal help desk ticket management is done using issues within a dedicated repository. The content of the issue is posted to the corresponding Slack channel through Slack integration. These channels that notify GitHub activities are set up so that all employees can view them.
"As a help desk, we do not necessarily respond to all inquiries. Sometimes we receive useful answers from members with knowledge, and that can be the decisive factor in resolving the issue. Internal information Because we try to be open, we have created an environment where we help each other.'' (Mr. Kawahara)

Another major feature of the Enterprise plan is its strong security.
"The Enterprise plan allows you to prohibit the creation of public repositories, enable IdP collaboration, and securely obtain audit logs. As part of our product security, we have also introduced GitHub Advanced Security." (Mr. Kawahara)
“As a the Company that supports advanced DX projects for major companies, we believe that we should aim to become the most DX-enabled organization and continue to update the philosophy and structure of the entire company. To that end, we plan to take on the challenge of cutting-edge operational efficiency, and would like to raise our internal security level to the level of a listed company.This was also the reason why we moved to the Enterprise plan.Currently, the Company has obtained ISO/IEC 27001:2013 certification, and plans to obtain SOC2 certification in the future.Thanks to the Enterprise plan, we can proudly declare the Company information sharing practices to the outside world. (Mr. Konishi)

Additionally, the company has been helped by the support of its distributor, Macnica.
"Usually, it would take several days for a response from a normal vendor, but Macnica responds within the same day. I'm happy that the content is appropriate and the answers are very easy to understand, including screen captures attached. ” (Mr. Nagasawa)

Aiming to enrich your workspace by making further use of GitHub

Going forward, ROUTE06 plans to make further use of GitHub while improving the issues that have been identified through its use so far.
"I think GitHub is a tool that becomes more useful as a team as the number of members and collaborators increases. In the future, I would like to improve the methods and scope according to the situation and further enrich it as a work space. First of all, I would like to utilize the Pull Request function to create a system that can efficiently handle the internal approval process.'' (Mr. Konishi)

ROUTE06 Co., Ltd.
URLs	https://route06.co.jp
Established in January 2020. As a DX partner that supports the transformation of major companies' business models, we aim to create a platform for commercial transactions by providing enterprise software infrastructure and supporting agile commercialization, and contribute to creating new corporate value. There is.