Future Proof – Protecting our digital future

State Records is constantly talking to government organisations about a fascinating range of projects. These range broadly from questions about data migration to ongoing engagements about digital business transformation. Some of the issues we have covered recently include:

Email in the cloud. We have talked to a number of organisations trying to determine how to appropriately manage email when a cloud transition occurred. This change of the technology platform represents a challenge, as existing processes and system integrations need substantial modification. However, it also represents an opportunity because the major change was an opportunity to reframe records management requirements and introduce them seamlessly as part of the system transition. Read the rest of this entry »

The Standard on Records Management was issued at the beginning of March. We’ve already started to hear back about the work being done to implement the standard.

We are particularly interested to hear how people have used the standard to support the implementation or assessment of digital systems and the transformation of digital processes. One of the major changes we made with the new Standard on Records Management was to emphasize a range of responsibilities so that the obligations on executives and business unit managers were more explicitly stated. Simultaneously, we shifted some of the more detailed requirements into guidance, as we felt that the digital environments in which they were implemented were extremely varied and changing rapidly. Detailed advice needs to be flexible and able to be updated outside of the standard review cycle.

We have been pleased by the number of public offices who have contacted us to tell us about their implementation progress. We would welcome contact from organisations willing to develop case studies which can be shared for the benefit of the sector, or those who just want to let us know about their progress so far. Please use the contact form below to get in touch!

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Our recent post about our latest Digital Implementers Group workshop, in which we discussed Enterprise Search technologies, has generated a fair bit of discussion. I thought it might be a good opportunity to delve into this a bit more, as well as discuss the role of the digital implementers group.

The Digital Implementers Group

The Digital Implementers Group is made up of diverse group of public sector information and records specialists who get together every six weeks or so to discuss implementation challenges in their information and records management systems. It used to be called the EDRMS implementers group but the group agreed last year that they do much more than implement EDRMS and so we renamed the group. The topics which the group discuss are driven by the group: things like the organisational challenges they are facing, the technologies they are considering, the risks which are emerging.

The blog posts we put up about the group (and our blog posts in general) are not “Official State Records guidance”, although we like to think they contain a lot of useful information. What they do is try to provide a summary of what the group (which contains a reasonably representative cross-section of the NSW Public Sector) is currently thinking in relation to a particular issue. Not all those who might want to can attend our workshops, so the blog is a good chance to share what went on with the sector.

Enterprise Search technologies

For our purposes, we have defined enterprise search as technologies which are able to index content across a diverse set of information repositories within an organisation, and present search results to these repositories in a single interface. This covers quite a broad range of tools, including some which are now being integrated with popular EDRMS / ECM solutions.

We have had quite a few questions come through about the workshop. Some people questioned how we had come to these conclusions about what the opportunity for enterprise search was or was not. Someone even wrote a whole article “debunking” some of the things in the blog post. This is an important discussion topic to continue. Here are some further observations from the workshop and other recent agency discussions: Read the rest of this entry »

On the 17th of March we had our Records Managers Forum. State Records NSW uses the forum to share information about key initiatives with our public offices. It is also a place for lively discussion with colleagues from across the government sector. As usual, we have published the podcasts so that those who could not make it on the day and the wider sector can keep up to date.

This time the forum included presentations from the Office of Finance and Services, and State Records NSW. The presentations covered the latest news from State Records, including the Digital Archives and the new Standard on Records Management, as well as the latest on the NSW Government ICT Strategy and the Information Management framework.

Check out /the-future-proof-podcast-series/#episode43 to hear these latest podcasts and view the presentations.

Enterprise search technologies have been widely touted as the answer to the massive quantities of information being created and kept in many organisations today. Employees won’t need to know where particular information is kept – they will be able to search for the information across network drives, email systems, traditional document and records management systems and other repositories.

Some think that the implementation of enterprise search will boost the productivity of employees and thereby increase an organisation’s profits. In fact, we referred to a survey that found that organisations could save millions of dollars by improving the ability of users to find relevant information in our last post.

Yesterday’s meeting of State Records’ Digital Implementers Group focussed on enterprise search technologies. We were keen to hear about the experiences of NSW public sector organisations in implementing these technologies, and the uses they are being put to. The current situation within the organisations represented at the meeting was not what we expected, but very interesting none the less! Read the rest of this entry »

A survey by Brisbane-based information management specialists Glentworth has revealed that organisations across the private and public sectors are losing millions of dollars in productivity each year as staff waste time finding information. Glentworth used the minimum award wage of $16.87 per hour, combined with the average time it took survey respondents to find information at work (44.36 minutes), to determine that organisations could save millions of dollars by improving the ability of users to find relevant information.

Carefully structured metadata in combination with good system search functionality can help users to find and use business information quickly and easily when they need to. Using defined categories or elements (e.g. ‘Creator’, ‘Title’, ‘Date Created’ etc.), and then assigning particular terms within these, facilitates specific search queries that can target relevant categories rather than needing to search across all metadata.

Metadata can also connect related records so that a consolidated picture of a business process, subject or matter is provided. Read the rest of this entry »

The Standard on Records Management was issued to the NSW public sector today. It has been over a year of planning, development and consultation, and we had some great feedback from the professional community.

The standard is now available on the State Records NSW website together with implementation resources. A comprehensive implementation guide is available here.

The standard has been designed to support digital recordkeeping as NSW Government transitions from paper to digital business processes. Underpinning all requirements in the standard is the need to ensure that requirements support digital records and information management through sound information management practices. Importantly, the standard has been framed and targeted to support good digital information practices in complex business and information environments.

New and updated guidance to support the standard’s implementation is now available on the recordkeeping in the NSW public sector area of the website, particularly the pages under designing, implementing and managing systems.

Read the rest of this entry »

This week we had our regular digital implementers group. Our session topics are set based on the opportunities and challenges which are at the forefront for the group members. Establishing a robust mobile working environment is becoming important for a large number of organisations.

The group members, as always, represented a large and diverse cross section. Information and Records Managers, ICT Managers, project managers and hands-on practitioners were all in the room sharing their diverse perspectives. These members represent government departments and agencies, state owned corporations, local government, and cultural institutions.

Current state of mobile working

As usual, the meeting began with group members sharing the current status of their projects and, in particular, their status with the session’s topic of information management for a mobile working environment.

Many of the members have a significant mobile workforce, responsible for some of the most important work conducted by the organisations. Almost all saw a need for executive mobile applications, including email and document management, as well as finance and HR approvals.

However, the clear message was that while they are beginning to adopt mobile technologies, the information and records management functionality is frequently underestimated.

Read the rest of this entry »

Recently I had a very interesting meeting with a New South Wales local council which has revamped its processes for capture, management and application of retention rules to document-based records. They are currently undertaking a multi-phase project to enhanced the effectiveness and comprehensiveness of their digital records management.

This includes:

• understanding how technology could manage a fully digital process
• configuring technology for managing information in fully digital processes
• renewing and maintaining an understanding of business units’ information requirements
• enhancing the training processes for end users
• dealing with a backlog of legacy digital information

At the beginning of the project, they identified the following challenges:

• people still stored significant quantities of documents in shared/network drives, which meant they had poor security controls, multiple versions and duplicates, and no clear place to go for an authoritative version
• where the EDRMS system was used, file containers relating to a business activity were often held open indefinitely
• the existing configuration of the system was not always well understood
• staff were confused by recordkeeping language

Read the rest of this entry »

Last week we had our Records Managers Forum. State Records NSW uses the forum as an opportunity to communicate directly with our public offices, and to get in presenters to speak about allied cross-government programmes and initiatives. Its also a great chance to catch up with colleagues from across the government sector. We also record the speakers and publish podcasts so that those who couldn’t make it on the day, and our colleagues in the wider sector, can hear what was said.

This time, the forum included presentations from the Information and Privacy Commission, the Office of Finance and Services, and State Records NSW.

Check out //futureproof.records.nsw.gov.au/the-future-proof-podcast-series/#episode40 to hear these latest podcasts.