Transforming the briefing and correspondence process at the Victorian Department of Justice and Community Safety
The Department of Justice and Community Safety (DJCS) is one of nine government departments in the state of Victoria. It manages and provides services relating to Victoria’s justice system.
Client
Victorian Department of Justice and Community Safety (VIC DJCS)
Technologies
Power Automate, SharePoint Online, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams
Industry
Government
Country
Australia
Context
In today’s digital era, government agencies are expected to respond to emerging issues rapidly. Agencies need to provide services through several channels and develop innovative solutions for complex policy challenges to achieving both social and economic outcomes that deliver public value.
Briefs and correspondence are an essential component of how the Department of Justice and Community Safety (DJCS) supports it keys stakeholders to make decisions. To support contemporary and faster decision making, the department called for an automated and digital briefing solution. This system needed to streamline, automate, and digitalise the briefing process, enabling key decision-makers to review and make decisions faster and in an agile and flexible way.
The challenge
DJCS identified the need to reduce its dependence on hardcopy records, physical signatures, and manual processes. The legacy process for development and approval of briefings and correspondence was predominantly a manual process, resource-intensive and time-consuming and tracked using spreadsheets.
The solution
DJCS appointed Engage Squared with the development and delivery of an end-to-end, integrated digital briefing and correspondence system. To assist with detailed scope design Engage Squared experts worked closely with the project team to carefully craft all of the distinctive requirements that would become the foundation of the system.
The Electronic Briefing and Correspondence system (EBC) was built on top of DJCS’ existing Microsoft 365 environment, utilising the document management capabilities in SharePoint Online, Power Automate (workflow engine), and Azure AD security controls. Whilst in the background, it integrates with HP Content Manager (TRIM) to plug into the existing retention and disposition management platform.
The system manages the end-to-end process of a DJCS work product’s lifecycle; creation, review, approval and archive into TRIM. EBC also provides an agile provision of DJCS products to Ministerial Offices.
The result
DJCS has successfully made the shift from a manual process to one that fosters innovation, efficiency, and mobility. The fully digitalised solution has had an immensely positive impact on both its users and the environment, nearly eliminating all reliance on paper and supporting new working from home processes.
The new DJCS briefing process is transparent, easily accessible from anywhere, either from desktop or mobile, and streamlines and simplifies the approval and review process for the Secretary, Deputy Secretaries, Ministers and for 1000+ users across the department. Secretaries and other senior leaders can now access, edit, review, and approve documents on the go, which has resulted in significantly reduced processing times.
The integrated audit trail makes it easy to follow each individual record in the process, from start to finish.
Overall, the new EBC system has provided DJCS with a more robust security measures, increased process efficiencies, enhanced user productivity and a seamless employee experience.
