2 page Case Study - Posted 6/13/2008
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Slovakian Regional Assembly Cuts Costs with Efficient Document Management Solution
A regional assembly in Slovakia relied on manual data management and information distribution—producing documents of up to 500 pages per assembly member for a single meeting. Working with a Microsoft partner, it developed a document management system based on Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007. All legislative procedures are now automated. There has also been a reduction both in administrative costs and the assembly’s carbon footprint.
Business Needs
Košice is one of the eight self-governing regions that form the Republic of Slovakia. Established in 2001, it administrates public services for more than 800,000 citizens. Its main legislative body—the Regional Assembly—is responsible for managing the area’s secondary education, health care, and transport systems, as well as regional development and urban planning.
However, until 2007, the governing body struggled to manage the large amounts of paperwork involved in its administrative and legislative activities. This includes listing resolutions passed, registering legal regulations and mandatory statutes, scheduling the assembly session agenda, and sending invitations to assembly members.
For instance, every time the assembly held session, it had to manually produce hard copies of legal documents of up to 500 pages for each of its 57 members. Frantisek Kohanyi, IT Manager for the Košice Self-Governing Region, says: “Such large amounts of manual work, paper, photocopying, and printing were proving very expensive in terms of both time and money. It was getting difficult to fulfil the requirements of the assembly, which goes into session several times a year.”
At the same time, the 200 employees were used to exchanging information internally through e-mail messages, and storing documents on their computer hard drives. This led to several problems, including:
- Loss of data when a hard disk was corrupt
- Different versions of the same document being simultaneously available
- Difficulty when searching for the right documents because they were stored in multiple locations
Frantisek Kohanyi says: “These inefficiencies were ultimately causing delays in assembly sessions and affecting services to citizens. We urgently needed to find a solution to manage documents in digital formats, store them in a single location, and make only the latest versions available to staff and members when required.”
Solution
The assembly conducted an internal survey to identify its employees’ document management requirements. It concluded that the most suitable option for this system was Microsoft technologies, as staff were already familiar with the user interface through having worked on Microsoft Office Outlook® 2003 previously.
In June 2006, the assembly’s IT team of four people started working with Microsoft Certified Partner Innovative Complex Original Solutions (ICOS) to develop a solution based on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.
The first part of the solution is an intranet portal called the Digital Assembly Application. Developed by ICOS, it is used by the 57 members and 140 administrative employees of the assembly to prepare and work on documents. The main features of the application are:
- Documents repository—the portal serves as the central location to store all official data.
- Active Directory® services—only authorised members and employees can access the documents related to their work.
- Automated workflows—members automatically receive documents to vote for or against legislation. They can write notes on documents for other members to see and discuss. For final sign off, they use digital signatures and the document is instantly sent to the individual who needs to work on it next.
- Enterprise search—users can search for documents but only access those for which they are authorised.
The second part of the solution is the Self-Governing Region’s Web site, which is integrated with the intranet portal. As soon as legislation receives final approval and is ready to be released into the public domain, it is now automatically published on the Web site. Citizens can access and download the latest versions of the documents, but cannot manipulate the contents.
Benefits
The intranet portal and the Internet site went live in February 2007. The assembly went into session eight times during the year and efficiently passed several resolutions without having to manually produce any hard copies at all, compared to 500 pages per member previously. Frantisek Kohanyi says: “Microsoft technologies helped us build a far more sophisticated solution than we had first planned. It is a major step towards building e-governance in the Košice Self-Governing Region.”
- The assembly has significantly reduced costs and its carbon footprint due to automated workflows and a decrease in the number of printed documents.
- The central repository helps it to maintain up-to-date versions of all documents.
- The legislation approval process is faster due to the timely distribution of information through the portal.
- There is greater transparency in legislative procedures as each user’s tasks are clearly defined through automated workflows.
- It has also reduced the complexity of passing resolutions within the assembly as members can vote through the portal using digital signatures.
- Users can access relevant documents within seconds with the advanced search and filtering features.
- Government data is highly secure as only authorised users can work on the assembly’s documents.
- The risk of data loss is also reduced with back-up for all information stored on the central repository.
- The assembly does not have to rely on manually releasing documents for the public because all government legislations are now quickly and automatically uploaded on the Web site, providing an efficient service to citizens.
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