Oracle Customer Success — Department of Conservation, New Zealand

Department of Conservation, New Zealand Gains Ability to Rapidly Search and Share 2.2 Million Documents Anytime Anywhere, and Enhances Collaboration

By adopting a secure, highly available and scalable Oracle-based enterprise content management cloud service, we can easily search and access information anytime, anywhere, enabling us to effectively collaborate on conservation activities across 137 internal offices and increase user engagement.

— Louise Mercer, Information Services Team Leader, Department of Conservation, New Zealand

Established in 1987 as a New Zealand government agency, the Department of Conservation (DOC) develops policies and plans to maintain and restore a diverse natural, historical, and cultural heritage, such as native forests and animals, marine reserves, alpine areas, wetlands, lakes, and islands, spread across approximately 8 million hectares. Its goal is to engage the wider community—including businesses, community groups, and volunteers—in conservation projects that protect the country’s natural endowment and expand recreation opportunities.

DOC today works closely with 14 regional conservation boards—independent bodies that represent public interest in the department’s work and in conservation generally—and six regional conservation partnerships that advise and assist the Minister of Conservation and the New Zealand Conservation Authority. DOC has become a much more outward-looking organization, with an increasingly collaborative approach to conservation.

Challenges

Manage and store structured and unstructured content across more than 2 million documents, such as research materials, meeting minutes, and conservation-policy files, and enable users to rapidly search and access the information
Gain ability to easily share knowledge and expertise—such as scientific reports on heritage sites—with 137 agency offices to improve collaboration and support conservation activities

Simplify access control for over 2,000 daily enterprise content management (ECM) system users and reduce IT-staff workload
Ensure proper document retention and disposal polices to meet Archives New Zealand requirements under the Public Records Act 2005

Enabled users—including scientists and researchers—to quickly discover and access information—such as scientific reports into endangered species—even while working in remote locations, including native forests and distant islands, thanks to a cloud-based ECM system developed by TEAM Asparona based on Oracle Fusion Middleware, including Oracle WebCenter Content, Oracle WebCenter Portal, and Oracle Unified Business Process Management (BPM) Suite
Transformed organizational culture into an open and collaborative working environment by using Oracle Database and Oracle WebCenter Content technologies embedded in the ECM system to capture, store and share 2.2 million items, including current and historical documents, and metadata, instead of using e-mails and individual folders

Increased user engagement and satisfaction by allowing users, including employees and researchers, to simply type content-related keywords to search and access content—such as legacy scientific research material—in seconds, instead of taking up to four minutes, as previously required, to navigate folders, and assign access rights to other users
Supported better conservation activities by enabling users to easily transfer knowledge and learning, such as research into marine reserves, between regional offices and enhance cooperation within conservation partnerships
Improved user productivity by deploying Oracle Access Management Suite and Oracle Unified Directory to automate and enable two-step authenticated single sign-on, allowing daily system users to access content via the cloud instead of relying on IT staff to create access rights
Minimized resources required to manage content lifecycle by using the ECM cloud service to pre-define retention and disposal policies for historical and current content
Reduced time spent on document auditing processes and ensured the department met national archiving compliance requirements
Enabled department managers to make more effective decisions by collating relevant information quickly and enabling them to gain better insight, such as determining sensitive or restricted file classifications
Laid foundation to support future expansion of the ECM system to external stakeholders, such as conservation boards and volunteers, by gaining ability to authorize or restrict access rights based on content classification, policies, and device

We chose a secure and scalable, Oracle-technology-based ECM cloud solution over OpenText and Microsoft SharePoint because of its competitive pricing, superior functionality, and strong local support. It allows us to effectively engage our communities and support conservation activities.

— Louise Mercer, Information Services Team Leader, Department of Conservation, New Zealand

Execution

After evaluating various vendors through the New Zealand government procurement process, DOC selected ContentWorX—the ECM cloud solution developed by TEAM Asparona, a joint venture between TEAM Informatics and DeloitteAsparona—based on multiple Oracle technologies, including Oracle WebCenter Content, Oracle WebCenter Portal, Oracle BPM Suite, Oracle Database, and Oracle Identity Management, including Oracle Access Management Suite and Oracle Unified Directory.

TEAM Asparona is one of three vendors on a New Zealand government closed panel providing ECM as a Service. The other panel vendors are Intergen with a Microsoft SharePoint-based solution and OpenText.

DOC ran a pilot for the ECM cloud solution over three months before rolling it out to 137 offices across the country. The entire project took two years to complete, though DOC rolled out the solution in just four months, on time and within budget.

“Thanks to TEAM Asparona’s high quality ECM solution and Oracle’s support, we delivered one of the department’s most successful IT projects,” said Lou Sanson, director general, Department of Conservation, New Zealand. “By adopting Oracle-technology-based ECM cloud service, users can efficiently share information and collaborate internally, supporting our strategic goal of providing strong conservation leadership within the country.”

About Department of Conservation, New Zealand

Headquarters

Wellington, New Zealand

Employees

2,000

Department of Conservation, New Zealand

Partners

TEAM Asparona developed ContentWorX—a pre-configured content management private cloud service—to meet DOC’s specific information management and security requirements. It also worked closely with DOC to manage cultural change and responded to user feedback throughout the project.

“The TEAM Asparona project team demonstrated professionalism and kept us informed and involved every step of the way. They also worked closely with Oracle to ensure that we gained a powerful and scalable ECM solution to support and expand information discovery,” Mercer said.