Customer Success Story Information Management & Governance
Paroo Shire Council Micro Focus® Content Manager helps ensure efficient use of lim ited resources.
Overview for its beef, lamb, and wool production, along with honey from the blossom of the local na Serving the Needs of the Community tive Yapunyah tree, grapes, wildlife harvesting, Established in 1879 just north of the border opal mining, and a growing tourism industry with New South Wales, Paroo Shire covers “Our shire is made up of four communities— an area of 47,714 square kilometers (18,422 Cunnamulla, Eulo, Wyandra, and Yowah—with a square miles) in South West Queensland, total population of just over 1,900 people,” ex Australia. The rich plains and river flats are ideal plains Anita Wharton, Records Administration for sheep and cattle grazing, and played a key Officer and on-site IT contact at Paroo Shire role in the Shire’s growth as a rural center. Paroo Council. “The Council is responsible for col Shire Council is located in Cunnamulla, known lecting rates and taxes, and providing cus At a Glance tomer services. We also maintain the local footpaths and landscaping, as well as roads ■■ Industry “We’ve seen significant benefits and infrastructure.” Government from using Content Manager. ■■ Location It’s intuitive, easy to use, and Challenge Paroo Shire, New South Wales, Australia automated. With everyone trained on Addressing Non-Compliance and the system, we’ve seen an increase Escalating Costs ■■ Challenge in the amount and value of the “As a shire, we face a number of challenges Leveraging technology to meet the challenges of a large territory, declining population, and information that’s being entered when it comes to delivering services to our communities,” adds Chris Cowley, Chief Exec reduced revenue streams. compared to the old system. utive Officer of Paroo Shire Council. It’s also increased productivity ■■ Products and Services Micro Focus Content Manager since each document is sent directly “Severe droughts over the years have caused to the individual responsible for many residents to move away, and the result ■■ Results of a declining population is reduced revenue processing it, rather than to the ++ Replaced out-of-date, legacy system streams. In addition, we have cost shifts from entire department as was ++ Increased efficiencies with automated workflow other levels of government to the local govern ++ Reduced costs and increased user adoption previously the case.” ment, which creates pressure to reduce costs ++ Increased staff productivity with easy, simple-to- while striving to maintain—at a minimum—the use, and intuitive interface ANITA WHARTON level of service that our residents have come ++ Ensured compliance with regulatory legislation Records Administration Officer governing records retention and disposal to expect.” Paroo Shire Council ++ Improved level of service offered to community Customer Success Story Paroo Shire Council
Solution “But with Content Manager (now part of Micro followed up. It is more user friendly than having “Once Civica, our IT support company, be Focus), we don’t have any of those issues,” hardcopy documentation that may get lost and came aware of the problem,” adds Wharton, adds Wharton. “The software includes an in also saves the environment by using electronic “they recommended that we look at Content tegrated retention and disposal schedule, so media rather than paper.” Manager as a solution that would better suit all we have to do is set up classifications and the needs of the Shire. Civica gave us a cost allocate them to documents as they arrive “Content Manager has allowed us to do away comparison which proved that we could and are registered. The software keeps track with the mass circulation of hardcopy be achieve compliance and save a lot of money of each document and automatically archives cause everything’s in the system,” continues by deploying Content Manager vs. upgrading them according to the regulations, so we don’t Wharton. “And if a document gets assigned to our old software.” have to worry about it.” “Content Manager also the wrong staff member, it’s simple for them increases compliance with built-in security and to forward it on to somebody else. It’s allowed Content Manager is a scalable, integrated doc tighter control,” states Wharton. “Each user has us to reduce the amount of times that docu ument and records management solution that to be authenticated to access the system, ments go missing or aren’t followed up with helps meet regulatory compliance require and the workflow functionality ensures that a response.” ments and organizational or local govern we have a complete audit trail for each docu ment mandates. Policy-based management ment. The fact that the content is searchable Accelerating User Adoption ensures that records and critical information significantly increases its value to our employ “Our budget didn’t allow for us to migrate all of are securely managed from creation through ees. Now they can quickly search the system to the data to Content Manager,” adds Wharton, to disposal. An intuitive user interface—along find what they’re looking for, even if they don’t “so we’ve changed permissions on the old with advanced Microsoft Office integration— have all of the background information.” system to restrict files to view only. If someone ensures that documents can be quickly reg wants to edit a document, they have save it to istered, processed, and reported on. Built-in Increasing Productivity and Content Manager and edit from there. Over workflows ensure that each document is Ensuring Content Manager time, as users access old files and retention pe dealt with in a timely manner and that nothing “We’ve seen significant benefits from using riods expire, we foresee ourselves being able to is overlooked. Content Manager,” says Wharton. “It’s intuitive, shut down the old system and have everything easy to use, and automated. With everyone reside in and managed by Content Manager.” Results trained on the system, we’ve seen an increase in the amount and value of the information “The new system has only been up and run Achieving Compliance and that’s being entered compared to the old sys ning for a few months, but already we’re see Reducing Costs tem. It’s also increased productivity since each ing an adoption rate of over 60% among users “As a government organization, we’re heav document is sent directly to the individual re with logins,” enthuses Wharton. “We’re already ily legislated,” says Wharton. ”We have to sponsible for processing it, rather than to the sourcing additional licenses as employees see comply with the Queensland State Archives entire department as was previously the case.” the benefits and our user population increases. General Retention and Disposal Schedule for Now, everyone is responsible for inputting their Administrative Records. Previously, we had to “For example, with the old system, incoming own documents and records into the system track every document manually, resulting in correspondence was scanned, registered, and instead of relying on just one person to do it. us quickly becoming non-compliant since we then hard copies dispersed throughout the or That allows us to be more efficient and respon didn’t have the personnel to continuously fol ganization with the hope that someone would sive to the needs of the community.” low up on each file. It’s a good thing we weren’t pick it up and handle it,” explains Wharton. “With audited, because we probably wouldn’t have the new system, documents are registered and Simpler, Easier, Faster, and Cheaper passed. Achieving compliance would have re tasked out to staff using Content Manager’s “Civica did a great job of implementing Content quired that we upgrade our old software which workflow functionality. When you log onto the Manager—including integration with the old with increased costs and resource implications system each morning, Micro Focus Records system for document and record retrieval— that we simply couldn’t afford.” automatically opens task trays to notify staff and made sure that we got the training we what’s outstanding and what needs to be needed,” states Wharton. “They also helped
2 “Content Manager has helped us enhance our record keeping obligations to meet our compliance requirements, and the value of the information for the Shire has increased since it’s much easier to find and retrieve documents and records from the system.”
CHRIS COWLEY Chief Executive Officer Paroo Shire Council Contact us at: www.microfocus.com us to upgrade to Microsoft Office 2010 to take Cowley sums it up: “Content Manager has advantage of the tight integration with Content helped us enhance our record keeping obliga Manager to increase productivity and simplify tions to meet our compliance requirements, reporting. We couldn’t do that previously, be and the value of the information for the Shire cause the version of the old software that we has increased since it’s much easier to find and had installed didn’t support anything above retrieve documents and records from the sys Office 2007.” tem. Since we have very limited resources to work with, having an efficient content manage “Deploying Content Manager has made things ment system ultimately ensures that we’re us simpler, easier, and faster,” adds Wharton “It’s ing our resources as efficiently as possible. This helped us to increase productivity and ensure in turn allows the Paroo Shire Council to provide that we comply with required legislation. We’ll a greater level of service to the community.” also enjoy longterm savings and be able to stay up -to-date because upgrades are included as Learn More At part of the support agreement, so we won’t end software.microfocus.com/products up having the problems that we had before.”
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