Overview

Over the last several years, municipalities have created a huge volume of unstructured content that includes documents, e-mail messages, videos, instant messages, Web pages, and more. This unstructured content can prevent municipalities from effectively using these valuable assets for better knowledge sharing, improved customer communications, and increased process efficiency. Enterprise Content Management (ECM) from Microsoft is a key component of organizational infrastructure that can help government departments overcome these challenges.

Built on a well-integrated platform, ECM from Microsoft extends content management to every information worker in an organization through integration with familiar tools, such as the Microsoft Office system. A Microsoft-based ECM solution can help businesses:

• Manage disparate content,
• Fulfill legal and compliance requirements,
• Efficiently management multiple websites, and
• Streamline operational processes

The Microsoft-based ECM solution helps organizations manage the entire lifecycle of unstructured content - from creation to expiration - on a single unified platform. These capabilities include document management, records management, Web content management, and electronic forms solutions.

Document Management: Governments can organize and classify content within a centralized document repository to provide a consistent method for organizing, categorizing, navigating through, and quickly searching for the right information. With built-in document workflows, users can initiate, track, and collaborate on document-oriented processes directly from within Microsoft Office system desktop programs. Important alerts and task information can be displayed in the document, helping to ensure that workflow steps are properly followed. This helps organizations protect sensitive information and safeguard documents with integrated rights management that travels with documents wherever they may go. User access rights, for example, can be specified for individual items, and metadata can be removed from documents prior to final publication.

Records Management: Organizations can help improve legal and regulatory compliance by applying information retention, protection, and auditing policies to business records to help ensure these records are appropriately retained.

Web Content Management: Business groups can author and publish Web content in a timely manner with easy-to-use authoring tools and integrated workflows with minimal IT involvement. This allows organizations to maintain a consistent look and feel throughout their Web sites by providing approved master pages and page layouts. These enable site branding and navigation to be specified once and reused by content authors. By implementing a single multi-tier infrastructure for publishing content to intranet, extranet, and Internet sites, governments can help lower deployment and management costs of Web sites.

Electronic Forms Solutions: Picture a setting where both employees and citizens can quickly access richly functional electronic forms on virtually any platform, device or browser, all without the need to download a forms reader. With Microsoft Office Form Services, both IT and business end users can now realize this vision and create robust electronic forms solutions building on the Microsoft Office-based platform and standards-based XML formats. Additionally, built-in configurable data and error validation technologies ensure that electronic forms are properly and accurately completed. Valuable form routing (workflow), digital signatures and reporting are also available through tight integration with other Microsoft products.

The Enterprise Content Management Solution

• Microsoft Office 2007: Help extend content management to everyone in the organization by enabling people to create, access and collaborate on managed documents within Microsoft Office 2007 programs. People can initiate, track, and participate in document-centric processes using intuitive tools within Microsoft Office programs. Workflow alerts and task information are displayed within the document, while embedded forms help people enter and validate essential metadata. Documents are stored and controlled within highly scalable repositories.
  
  Help streamline and extend access to collaborative organizational processes with integrated workflow and electronic forms accessible through Microsoft Office software and Web browsers. Intuitive design and development tools allow forms to be created once and then easily deployed to intranet, extranet and internet sites, or distributed by e-mail. Integrated workflow and workflow-design tools help organizations automate organizational processes. Data validation features within forms help with accurate entry of data into those processes. Help improve administration of citizen programs and optimize citizen access to information while helping workers become more resourceful.



• Windows Vista and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server2007 : Help reduce the risk of non-compliance with legislation, regulations or other legal issues by applying retention and advanced information protection in a consistent manner to content of all types in accordance with organizational policies and government regulations. A single policy framework helps enable consistent retention and auditing policies for documents, e-mails, Web content, electronic forms, and instant messaging. E-mails can be retained as records either in an off-site, security-enhanced and fully redundant repository or in-house. Integrated rights management allows administrators to help better protect sensitive documents from unauthorized access, even after they are downloaded from the server.



• Microsoft Office Forms Server 2007 and Microsoft InfoPath 2007 provide provincial governments with powerful and unique new electronic forms and information capture opportunities to help them:

More Information
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