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Southern Rural Water - Case Study
Southern Rural Water (SRW) is responsible for rural water
supply across the entire southern part of Victoria, from the Great
Divide to the coast. They are one of five rural water authorities
in Victoria and service around 10,000 customers with the Head Office in
Maffra, in central Gippsland. SRW has 110 staff with 11 officers
stationed across the region, and an office at Werribee.
Their three main business's are:
Irrigation
- Operates the three gravity irrigation
districts in the southern half of Victoria.
Licensing
- A regulatory business which manages and
controls the taking and use of water for irrigation and other
purposes from rivers and groundwater aquifers in southern Victoria.
Headworks
- SRW’s role is to harvest and store water
on behalf of its irrigation customers, urban water authorities and
Latrobe Valley power generators who hold Bulk Entitlements to
specified volumes of water.
SRW has been operating RecFind for Records Management for 6 years,
however prior to the imaging project RecFind’s use was limited to
managing paper based records only. In mid 2002 SRW decided to
undertake an initial phase of implementing imaging. Ibis assisted
SRW to implement the High Speed Scanning Module and a new Canon DR3080C
color Scanner at Southern Rural Water Authority. This included
data conversion from RecFind Version 3 Btrieve to RecFind Version 4 Microsoft
SQL. Hayley Moran the Records Management Officer is now using the
imaging system to easily capture incoming and out going documents.
It has improved productivity and availability of Records.
Imaging
Most incoming correspondence is captured automatically with
RecFind’s High Speed Scanning Module batch procedure. These images are
stored as electronic images in RecFind.
One of the major benefits of capturing paper documents by scanning is
the time it will free up in the future for Hayley to undertake other
responsibilities. Officers have been trained to view documents
electronically though RecQuery, although the records section still sends
out files with the paper document attached.
SRW are initially piloting the new electronic viewing process with a
single staff member, before introducing the process to all other staff
in the near future. The trial consists of sending an action sheet which
is printed and designed through RecFind to the officer without attaching
any documentation. The action sheet has the file number and a
registration number of the document. The officer can then view the
document electronically. Once the officer has finished with the
document, they sign off the action sheet and return it to records.
Records then update the correspondence status in RecFind and file the
action sheet with the original document on the correct file.
RecFind Button to capture information
At SRW RecFind Button is used to capture important documents directly
from MS Word and Excel into RecFind. It is a corporate requirement that
any document produced by SRW is attached to an appropriate file in
electronic format. Staff have been trained to use the RecFind button
and are now attaching documents electronically. This includes outgoing
correspondence, file notes, memos, reports, graphs, minutes, agendas,
tenders etc. Anything that is produced for or by SRW is placed on file
in electronic format, as well as providing a hard copy for the physical
file.
SRW staff have been trained to use the RecFind button to attach
emails. This includes both incoming and outgoing emails. Any attachments
can be opened in RecFind including word, excel, PowerPoint
presentations, photos, technical drawings, pdf documents etc. Regardless
of how many attachments are provided with the email, at the touch of a
button all documents can be attached by SRW staff electronically. It is
the officer’s responsibility as an SRW employee to attach emails that
are critical to the organizations records.
SRW do not use workflow at present but have a number of different
document types where they can produce outstanding correspondence reports
when needed.
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