The Department of Mines (DOM) in Botswana has become one of the first beta sites for Microsoft Sharepoint Portal Server Beta 2, enabling it to provide employees access to documents, divisional workspaces and team sites for effective collaboration.
In particular, the early adoption of Sharepoint has enabled DOM to implement a document management system utilising the new portal and collaboration technologies.
"While DOM has a reputation of being a technology pioneer, being among the first organisations to implement e-mail in Botswana, access to technology was limited to key management and staff. Most office employees still used typewriters," says Arno Nel, systems developer at nVisionIT, the Johannesburg-based Microsoft Office 2003 Launch Partner that implemented the system in conjunction with Botswana solutions provider, High Performance Systems (HPS).
This mixed manual and computerised work environment was causing DOM document management problems, because, although it had implemented the PC Docs management system on its previous MS Office 97 environment, the majority of its documents were paper-based and tracking them was proving problematic. There was also a danger of security being compromised.
"It was becoming increasingly difficult to manage multiple document types from a number of sources across the organisation," adds Nel.
"Files and folders were misplaced and became difficult to locate. So, while the immediate need was to resolve document workflow problems, the implementation of Sharepoint was also about providing a cohesive platform on which to roll-out further portal functionality to more of its operations."
According to Warren La Fleur, manager, HPS in Botswana, DOM, as a key government department within the government of Botswana, has a large concentration of highly specialised technical engineers who need to leverage IT and access to documents to facilitate the management of its numerous mining operations across the country.
HPS was involved in supplying the original PC Docs system and has been working with the DOM on upgrading its IT environment to ensure the delivery of seamless information management across all of its office workers.
"The problem with PC Docs was it was designed on Office 97 and all of the templates were Office 97-based. New PCs now being introduced run Office XP. For them to use PC Docs would have meant redesigning all of the templates and forms. In fact, initially some new PCs supplied to the DOM had to be down graded to use PC Docs and handle queries," says La Fleur.
This, along with the fact that PC Docs was available to only to a limited number of users, meant that it could not be rolled out across the organisation to give everyone who needed it easy access to all of the information relevant. Another solution had to be found to meet their needs.
"On the back of this, the current implementation is therefore seen as an upgrade and expansion of the existing document management environment to provide the DOM further integration, greater flexibility and ease of use," he says.
Working with Microsoft initially, HPS identified the upcoming version of MS SharePoint Portal Server as providing the ideal solution to its document management needs. nVisionIT was called in to help with the implementation because of its pre-launch development work in the Sharepoint environment.
"Microsoft`s new Office System is much more than core applications such as Outlook, Word and Excel. Solutions such as SharePoint and Real Time Communication Server open up vast new opportunities in the fields of collaboration and instant messaging," says Werner van der Merwe, Business Unit Manager of nVisionIT.
"For example, if a user opens a document from a Sharepoint workspace, he will be able to see if colleagues, who have an interest in the document, are online, and have an instant messaging conversation, from within Microsoft Word."
The RTC Server implements a comprehensive API set which can be used in custom application, such as the integration of instant messaging into the portal.
With SharePoint now meeting its document management needs, DOM is investigating phase two of the project which will entail an upgrade of its back office e-mail systems to Exchange 2003 and then further development on the portal to provide access to calendars, public folders and other key information on other shared Web spaces.
In addition, the DOM is planning to share its new technology with other government departments, specifically the Department of Mineral Energy and Water Affairs, and are said to be keen to explore all of the features and capabilities of SharePoint with them.
"Going forward, HPS will provide support services to the DOM and assist it in extracting further value from this investment," says La Fleur.
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