The National Archives of Australia’s Digital Continuity 2020 Policy is a cornerstone mandate that underpins the Australian Government’s wider digital transformation initiatives, as well as driving the adoption of e-Government.

Part roadmap, part rulebook it’s the vital ‘go-to’ guide for all public sector executives and professionals working in, and around, information management and is based on three individual policy statements that are all intertwined.

How industry and suppliers to government interpret and respond to mandates like Digital Continuity 2020 is important – not just for today’s public servants but those who will work in government for years to come.

Underpinning the transition to entirely digital work processes, which is a fundamental plank of the Digital 2020 Policy, is successful implementation of a digital Enterprise Document and Records Management System (EDRMS).

Key success factors of modern EDRMS systems include:

• automation where possible;
• information management by users for users; and
• ease of use.

To ensure that information becomes an asset in the mind of the users, innovation must address the human factors up front. That way, a chosen EDRMS is seen as a helpful tool that facilitates and simplifies human interaction with the information – not one that makes it more difficult.

From the outset, the system must be easy to use. It also requires that that there is no difference between a tangible asset and a digital asset.

Entirely digital work processes

The truth is, a ‘paradox-of-perception’ issue exists in the minds of some users. We see and hear this, for example, when we think documents as something physical: yet the general public at the same time knows and accepts that order processing can be completely digital; that accounts payable can paperless; and that warehouse systems must be entirely digital.

The fact is that the business processes that have already successfully gone digital got there by embracing the user’s terminology to perform duties; at ELO we think the same needs to apply for EDRMS.

It is paramount to start business processes as digital workflows from their inception to deletion and thus cover the entire life cycle.

It’s just as important to analyse a business process and treat it accordingly. When viewed from a records management perspective, we can see and ensure that all the compliance requirements are met while users feel comfortable applying respective metadata. That means the business process is in the foreground, not the retention policy.

And because retention policies are vitally important, those policies need be applied in the background without a “disturbing” effect on the users that creates an inhibitor.

It means that teamwork and effort (business process) can be reconciled and audited, allowing different stakeholders to contribute, approve, decline, change, forward or delegate – all while maintaining compliance. And, very importantly, creating trust as a result.

Governments now need to respond almost instantaneously to circumstances, and through a variety of channels. Taxpayer expectations will also keep growing thanks to the strength of 24/7 online information pools like Google, web sites and other digital channels.

Whether workflows need to be approved while travelling, or emergency information sent out in real time, innovative and flexible systems are those that allow users to be connected 24/7.

Put simply: The tool shall not limit the information.

While the public often asks for or expects work-life balance for themselves, in a digital age the demands placed on information and its availability simply don’t take this balance into account anymore for government.

Learning to deliver despite paradoxes is where success lies.

Integration

Interoperability between information, systems and processes is a major theme of the Digital Continuity 2020 Policy.

We are often asked whether we have an interface to enterprise application suites like SAP, or SharePoint, or Dynamics AX, or Microsoft CRM, or Technology One, or Kofax, or Civica … or, well, take your pick.

The answer is always yes – but we will necessarily ask for a real world clarification of what “having an interface” means for our customers and what they want to achieve through that.

A critical component of interoperability – really at its heart – is an accurate and clear definition what the customer really wants.

Take this simple example: if a customer wants search capabilities from SAP to extend into their EDRMS, we would deploy a simple very cost efficient search tool; if we need data exchange, we may use staging tables; if buttons are required to execute a command within the 3rd party system, we will require a different kind of effort, so the same task can be performed with a keyboard shortcut.

Of course there’s no ‘one size fits all’ approach to the NAA’s policy mandate and it can be met through many approaches. The pathways that will be established will necessarily come on a case by case basis, ensuring that the most cost-effective and “outcome oriented” approaches prevail.

Rainer Krause is Managing Director of ELO Digital Office AU/NZ.