A better way to capture corporate memory
When Tasmania’s Department of Primary Industries and Water installed Document ONE the agency saved paper, storage space and staff time...
Tasmania’s Department of Primary Industries and Water (DPIW) delivers a broad range of services from agriculture and fisheries management to land title regulation, valuation and mapping.
Julie Avery, manager of the Department’s Records and Information Management Branch, is responsible for capturing what she calls the agency’s “corporate memory” – a stockpile of information that includes everything from routine daily correspondence to land title documents, contracts, and legal opinions from Crown Solicitors.
Keeping track of this material is a massive undertaking. Avery estimates that if they were laid end-to-end, the physical files stored by the Department would stretch for over 2.6 kilometres, and routine ministerial correspondence can amount to 400 items being managed per day alone.
“It’s not just a couple of letters here and there,” Avery says.
Apart from the expense and logistical difficulties of storing such a large amount of paper, the only way the agency’s personnel could find relevant information was to read through files page by page.
Furthermore, although DPIW was receiving an increasing amount of correspondence via email, it lacked a coherent means of archiving and accessing the material in digital form.
DPIW decided to look for a comprehensive digital solution. After investigating various available products, the agency selected the Document ONE document management system from Wellingtonbased Document ONE Ltd as the package which would best meet its needs.
Avery says the decision was strongly influenced by the fact that Document ONE integrates seamlessly with Lotus Notes, which the agency uses extensively.
“We needed a system that would integrate with our existing processes and we used Lotus Notes as our main database system. Document ONE would allow us to make use of our existing IT skills.”
After less than 18 months since DPIW began to implement Document ONE over 247,000 documents are now available in electronic form, and the new system is delivering a wide range of benefits.
One of the major benefits is that, subject to Document ONE’s built-in access and editing permissions, over 1,000 staff can now access any document from any location. Avery says this is a particularly significant advantage in Tasmania.
Many of the agency’s staff work from “out of the way” locations so getting access to physical files has sometimes been difficult.
Scanned physical files, as well as incoming emails and other electronic documents are now fully integrated into Document ONE’s archive with their own unique ID number.
“We can now search inside of documents for particular words, it makes the discovery of information so much easier.”
Avery has also been able to begin consolidating the agency’s numerous physical storage facilities all over Tasmania and also offshore. “In one example we whittled down files that used to take up a whole room to 26 files that fit in one box that you could lift up in your hand,” she says.
Similarly, the Document ONE package has resulted in a dramatic reduction in the amount of paper files created by the Department. Avery estimates that only one in 20 new files are stored in a physical form now.
Document ONE’s workflow features have also allowed the Records Branch to achieve efficiencies in its customer service delivery. Avery says the Department took the opportunity to review its business processes before implementing the package so that workflow features, such as the ability to assign a document for approval, were fully exploited.
“For example we developed a whole new process to handle Ministerial correspondence making it much more efficient. Letters are usually replied to within 8 days, that’s within our 10-day target and it’s a huge improvement on before.”
So far, DPIW has been using Document ONE to store its current files only but Avery says the agency will soon begin converting its historical files to electronic formats wherever possible. This project will free up further storage space as well as making a valuable resource more widely accessible to the agency as a whole.
For more information
Document ONE Ltd
+64 (0)275 528-657
info@document-one.com
www.document-one.com
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At a Glance
DPIW needed to integrate a considerable amount of paper-based files with emails and other electronic documents in a single, easily retrievable archive.
Solution
Document ONE document management system.
Business Benefits
All incoming emails are now retained in the agency’s “corporate memory.” Staff can access all electronic information across multiple locations and share folders across multiple locations. Document ONE’s built in workflow features have helped to improve staff efficiency.
