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Ensuring centralised information can be accessed, searched and employed

For a digital ECM strategy to succeed, employees must be able to access centralised information quickly and accurately. Doing so requires various software processes, such as capturing (registration), indexing (tagging), searching and retrieving, editing and controlling versions.

Because local councils are complex, multi-departmental organisations, their ECM software should include a faceted classification system that allows users to find the same document from different business policy areas. For example, imagine you have a purchase order (PO) document for a council vehicle, and several different departments require access. It needs to be referenced in two places the asset management system and financial management system. Some councils may choose to duplicate the PO document, potentially leading to version control problems, and auditing and compliance issues. Now imagine you have a single instance of the PO document, which can be ‘tagged’ with the asset number and the organisation unit so it appears in both the asset management system and financial management system. Your version control problems are immediately eliminated. Some councils are also starting to push internal systems and public services to the cloud. Usually the logical place to start is moving to new age email and authoring tools like Microsoft Office 365 or Google Docs. However, this then raises important considerations for a council’s ECM strategy. Will my ECM be able to accept emails and documents from these new systems? What about those relying on plugins and connectors to their ECM? Will they work with the new system or will there be a flood of support calls from workers who are unable to store and access information? A futureproofed ECM system that can cater for information from these and other sources is crucial for councils. One that aids their move to the cloud, rather than acting as a hinderance and forcing constant work arounds. It is also important to consider additional costs such as training and change management. For instance, local councils should consider choosing an ECM system that can be used by existing employees without the need for significant investment in training.

 The value of centralised and widely accessible Information

A good example of where a centralised approach to information management can deliver business benefits is with field workers. From building inspections to road repairs, a large proportion of council work is carried out by field workers. If the council made changes to residential building policy, how difficult would it be to disseminate the new information to ensure every building inspector in the field has access to it? Most councils would email the new document to each field worker, which is slow and inefficient. It requires double handling and wastes time due to email follow ups and confirmations. Additionally, there is no guarantee that the worker will use the latest version. But what if the council’s centralised document repository automatically updated the document, and field workers could access it from any phone, tablet or laptop? The latest version would be instantly accessible as the single source of truth and no email correspondence would be required. Workers could even compare previous versions of the document to see what exactly had changed. Furthermore, building inspectors could submit their inspection report from the field along with supporting notes and images. It could be saved centrally, and automatic tagging would allocate the document to the correct business domain. Where required, the council could also automate the workflow to push the tagged inspection report to the next stage in the reporting process. An ECM tool that centralises information makes all of this possible. Employees can access the same pool of information from any device anywhere, and at any time. Security is an added benefit. Consider what would happen if a field worker lost their device or had it stolen. What would happen to the inspection report? Would it be lost forever? Centralised information storage removes this issue.