Sample Business Case

Executive Summary

Our business unit has an immediate requirement for an off-the-shelf system to help us track and manage executive correspondence throughout the department in a timely and efficient manner. Our current system is mostly manual and prone to error. Because of recent increases in volume, we require an automated solution that can be implemented quickly to help us manage our workload.

Our Mandate

Our unit is responsible for providing support to the offices of the Ministers, Secretaries of State, Parliamentary Secretaries and Deputy Ministers of our department. We provide support to these offices in the areas of correspondence and invitations, briefing products, cabinet affairs and parliamentary affairs.

Background

Currently, we do not have a highly-automated system. We are using a combination of MS Excel spreadsheets and MS Outlook tasks and e-mail messages to try to keep on top of the workload, but we often find that we've temporarily "lost" an important document or missed a deadline because of our non-centralized, mostly manual system. Additionally, our volumes have substantially increased over the past year and we really can no longer handle the workload using our current methods. We are looking for an easy-to-use, off-the-shelf system that we can install and implement in a matter of weeks, not months, and believe we've found it in a local product, ccmMercury.

The ccmMercury application, developed by WorkDynamics Technologies, is used to track executive correspondence in the Federal Government of Canada and is considered a de facto standard. It is a COTS product developed and supported in Ottawa. It requires no further customization to directly integrate with RDIMS, which is used in the GoC as the records and document management repository of choice. As an ongoing partner with Open Text Corporation, WorkDynamics/ccmMercury is the only process management application this is compatible with both the client server and DM (formerly DOCS Open) versions of RDIMS. ccmMercury, in keeping with the GoC published direction towards thin client technology, has also been successfully deployed to remote/low bandwidth sites using Citrix.

Requirements

At minimum, our new software solution must:

  • allow users to work in a shared environment, with data being accessible across the country
  • allow us to track the process for receipt of incoming items, their handoff to the subject matter expert sector for input, the preparation of the response letter, the approval and signature process, and the mailing and closing of the file.
  • allow electronic documents to be linked to the work records, and allow them to be edited if required
  • allow users to search for specific work items as well as to run more complex searches
  • allow users to generate documents such as standard reply letters, file labels and approval slips via the system
  • allow users to create both simple and complex performance reports
  • run or SQL Server
  • be compatible with the Microsoft office suite
  • be easy to maintain
  • allow for different users to have different rights to the system
  • be available in both official languages

Our research indicates that ccmMercury by WorkDynamics Technologies will meet all of these needs.

Proposed Solution

WorkDynamics will work with us to install and configure ccmMercury on our SQL database. The system will allow users to track their correspondence/documents in a 'shared', central database. The security will be set up so that record owners can modify the information pertaining to their ccmMercury record.

Depending on their rights, the users will be able to add and view all the records in the database and also modify them, adding routings to task people to work on the file, adding comments to allow all users to see notes on the file, and attaching relevant documents, such as the scanned incoming letters, the incoming e-mails, the draft replies and copies of the signed replies. Users will be able to send manual and automatic e-mail notifications, and search on all records. Based on the result set of the search, the users will be able to run ccmMercury .rtf reports and/or custom Crystal reports from within ccmMercury to generate simple or complex reports, including measurement and statistical reports for the managers on Group performance related to various business processes.

ccmMercury will maintain the docket and tracking information within its own component. We have the choice of using the ccmMercury attachment system, if we choose to use RDIMS to manage our electronic documents, we can use ccmMercury's integration with RDIMS to link references stored and managed within RDIMS to the appropriate ccmMercury records.

Within a short period of time, we can design, install, configure and begin working with a system that is compatible with our environment and our current software programs, and will enable us to share information across the organization.

Future

ccmMercury will meet our immediate needs, requiring little time to install and customize to suit our business requirements. It also appears that we will be able to use the same tool for bigger and better projects once we've resolved our current correspondence management issues.

In the future, our organization will also be able to make use of the ccmEforms application, which integrates directly with the ccmMercury product. ccmEforms is an online application that allows users to select the form they need from a catalogue, fill in the required information, and then directly submit the form information to ccmMercury to be tracked and managed. Fully compatible with both ccmMercury and ccmMercury.WEB, a ccmMercury record is automatically created from the information on the form, and the form's content will determine which predefined workflow will be applied to automatically route the work item for processing. The completed form is also attached to the record, and copies are made if any of the information is later modified. ccmMercury/ccmMercury.WEB will also manage the forms in the catalogue, creating new versions while preserving all earlier versions for reference. The standard searching capabilities of ccmMercury and ccmMercury.WEB allow users to easily retrieve information from the submitted forms. Users can search on any combination of information contained in the form or information about the form (i.e., the metadata).

We are also interested in the ccmMX Exchange product, used to communicate between authorized federal government departments using a unique two-way communication that includes the securely-encrypted transfer of metadata and attachments stored in RDIMS (or by ccmMercury directly) at both the source and target levels. This will allow us to communicate with our sister department, with whom we share a Minister.