The role of government departments and agencies can encompass a huge variety of different responsibilities, including providing public services, city planning, national security, revenue collection, search and rescue, environmental protection and crime prevention, to name but a few.
The client for this project has to simultaneously perform a huge variety of different functions, and very often with very high levels of risk including:
- Checking ID documents
- Customer service
- Combat criminal activity
- Detecting and monitoring environmental pollution
- Search and rescue operations.
The sensitive and vital importance of many government agencies means that there are very specific and wide-ranging requirements for a correspondence and request tracking system that are different from other organizations.
The agency was reliant on a bespoke legacy system that, while accurate and robust, also took time to administer and navigate. It involved lots of paperwork and the physical movement of paper between more than 10 different locations across the country. This presented a logistical problem, a large time-lag between sending and receiving information and took valuable work-hours away for people performing their core roles.
The agency was looking for a solution that would remove the reliance on physical paper, track all incoming and outgoing correspondence, have an intuitive user interface that was easy to understand and operate by all levels of the organisation, would automate routine tasks to save time and above all, would be secure.
Change management is almost always a challenge when introducing new tools and new procedures, particularly when legacy systems and workarounds are embedded in working practices. We needed a solution that would provide a smooth transition between the current way of doing things and the new.
After a full business analysis carried out by the NVSSoft team and in consultation with decision makers at the agency, NVSSoft offered a comprehensive and integrated solution for the agency’s requirements, featuring Tarasol Correspondence Management System
Tarasol provided a full lifecycle management of all types of correspondence and service requests. This included full tracking of requests and enabling reminders and escalation notifications to help clear blockages in the workflow.
NVSSoft added some additional features to the core Tarasol product to better integrate with legacy platforms and to help fit in with required workflows, including, amongst others:
- Correspondence Escalation
- Custom Buttons and Tabs
- Assigning Shared Roles
- Saved Searches
The system featured an easy-to-use interface that is accessible from any device to enable rapid adoption and smoother change management among users.
The nature of the organisation required very frequent updates to org charts and reporting lines that were stored within a central HR system. That info had to be presented within Tarasol so that correspondence was distributed to the appropriate people at exactly the right times. This HR system also held e-signature data that had to be made use of within Tarasol so as to avoid duplication of work. With a successful integration between the two systems, these potential bottlenecks were avoided
Other integrations with Active Directory and a national correspondence hub were delivered to make sure information flow across internal systems was seamless.
A full change management program was designed and delivered to the relevant teams to smooth the transition between old and new ways of working. This involved delivering the project in 3 distinct phases.
- Phase 1 replicated the existing working practises to a large degree, but removed the need for moving pieces of paper across different locations. Rather, paper copies were scanned and then stored and shared electronically. This stage sped up the time taken to complete tasks without entirely disrupting the recognised workflows.
- Phase 2 involved taking some selected workflows and moving them entirely on-line, eliminating the need for any paper or scanning, thus moving further towards a paperless workplace.
- Phase 3 will involve moving all workflows online.
Post-implementation support was provided for as long as required to ensure that the team were comfortable and proficient in using the new system after deployment.
The government agency’s management measured a significant increase in productivity due to many routine tasks being automated through Tarasol.
Physical paperwork no longer had to be posted through the mail to the organization’s various hubs across the country before they could be fully actioned.
More time was freed up to work on core jobs rather than time consuming paper-based admin tasks and work-arounds.
Digitizing documents has helped with security and efficiency as the team can now access and process information in a few clicks rather than finding, moving and filing physical paperwork.
The success of the new implementation has been widely shared internally and other agencies are now taking an interest in making similar changes to their processes.