Microsoft in Municipal Government;

Mobile Workers and Applications


Overview

Municipalities have struggled to securely connect office information workers and mobile information workers to the appropriate application, data and process. Within municipalities, whether as a mobile inspectors or even as a police officer, considerations of security, device, business process, and connectivity have all been challenges that required the use of highly customized applications.

Municipal governments share a common need to proactively tackle the question of secure access to sensitive resources while still empowering employees. To be truly effective, a plan must be in place to enable access to this information in a secure fashion from a variety of mobile devices, all without incurring significant additional costs or increasing the already complex infrastructure. Laptops, tablet PCs, handheld pocketPCs, smartphones and dedicated email devices are a natural extension of the traditional workplace environment, provided they can be deployed and managed in a secure fashion. They also boost collaboration across the organization, which can help governments:

  • Reach employees, citizens and other stakeholders with intelligent, user-friendly forms
  • Empower teams without sacrificing control
  • Cross collaboration boundaries with minimal infrastructure
  • Easily connect mobile workers with systems and teams with the right data at the right time

The Microsoft Collaborative Government Solution

  • Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 : help organizations to accomplish more by providing a platform for sharing information and working together in teams, communities and people-driven processes. Office SharePoint Server 2007 is an important part of the overall Microsoft collaboration vision and integrates with other collaborative products to offer a comprehensive infrastructure for working with others. It help improves team productivity by giving users the ability to create and control their own collaborative workspaces.


  • Microsoft Office Groove 2007 : enables employees to dynamically work in teams within and across organizations from any location, independent of network connection. With Microsoft Office Groove 2007, governments can more easily connect remote colleagues, partners and customers, thus allowing team members to automatically cross network boundaries, such as firewalls, while helping to maintain security


  • Windows Rights Management Services (RMS) : Microsoft Windows Rights Management Services (RMS) for Windows Server 2003 is information protection technology that works with RMS-enabled applications to help safeguard digital information from unauthorized use – both online and offline, inside and outside of the firewall. RMS help organizations manage increasing volumes of information by providing content authors and auditors with document versioning control, content expiration and archive settings, and protection for sensitive data. Protect forms and templates from unauthorized changes by implementing Information Rights Management (IRM).


  • Live Communications Server : Connect and communicate with colleagues and constituents in real-time using Live Communications Server federation capabilities to establish shared IM and presence across organizations.


  • Live Meeting : Enable people to easily gather in a virtual meeting setting where they can find and share information, brainstorm ideas, edit files, and collaborate on whiteboards regardless of location, organization or connectivity, increasing everyone’s efficiency and productivity.


  • Office Enterprise or Professional Plus 2007 : Help streamline document collaboration with features integrated directly into the Office-based productivity environment so teams can work together to create requests for proposals, contracts, and other documents and easily publish them for workflow and approvals, without losing track of edits, versions, and rights policies. Collaborative document development is less time-consuming with the enhanced tools for document review and comparison provided by the 2007 Office system. Use InfoPath Forms Services : to help create citizen-facing browser-based forms that streamline information gathering. Minimize time spent with manual administrative processes by using collaboration, workflow, and forms automation capabilities.


  • Windows Mobile 6 : Stay connected to your e-mail, calendar, and contacts. Read and compose files in Microsoft Word Mobile, make charts using Microsoft Excel Mobile, and view presentations in Microsoft PowerPoint. Find what you need quickly and easily, including business listings, maps and directions with powerful search and filtering features designed for Windows Mobile. Get access to corporate networks for data and documents stored on file shares and sites in SharePoint. Fit your style with a variety of designs ranging from touch screen devices with slide out keyboards to sleek full-keyboard smart phones or compact flip phones. As well, receive HTML e-mail support, improved security and encryption, greater integration with Microsoft products including direct SharePoint intranet access from e-mail links and superior connectivity to Windows Vista.


  • Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 : Built-in protective technologies keep your municipality moving, helps reduce spam and viruses, enable confidential communications, and helps organization become compliant. With Exchange Server 2007, employees get virtually anywhere access to their e-mail, voicemail, calendars, and contacts from a variety of clients and devices. Exchange Server 2007 enables new levels of operational efficiency through capabilities that optimize hardware and networking investments and features that help make administrators more productive.