Unit4 - Individual Project

DENVER GOES ALFRESCO

Most of us have never contemplated the totality of

services provided every day by our local or city gov-

ernments. From administering elections to maintain-

ing a court system, a coroner’s office, birth and death

records, and deeds of trust, to managing trash pickup,

recycling programs, and hazardous waste disposal,

local governments are document repositories extraor-

dinaire! The consolidated city-county government of

Denver, Colorado, is a striking case in point. With a

combined population of over 600,000, and encompass-

ing 155 square miles and 80 defined neighborhoods,

this fused governmental entity oversees nearly 140

schools, over 200 parks, 29 recreation centers, 14 pub-

lic libraries, 34 fire stations, over 1,000 buses and five

light rail lines, Denver International Airport (DIA), an animal shelter, a Department of Motor Vehicles,

and hundreds of other governmental departments and

services. The amount of documentation in the varied

and yet often interconnected departments is stag-

gering. Nearly $1 billion and over 10,000 employees

are needed to keep Denver’s services running and to

record, verify, and compile all of the supporting docu-

mentation.

In 2005, the more than 70 agencies of the con-

solidated city-county government used 14 different

document management systems, none of which

could communicate or interact with each other. The

Information Technology department supervised mul-

tiple autonomous IT units with their own systems

and standards. This decentralization created problems

not just with document sharing, but also with docu-

ment security and the ability to audit record keeping

functions, particularly scanned contracts and financial records. Employee productivity was negatively

impacted through time wasted in locating required

documents from other agencies, duplication of IT

functions, and cumbersome document scanning appli-

cations.

Mayor John Hickenlooper, a proponent of govern-

ment transparency and efficiency, created a central-

ized IT group and assigned it the task of conceiving

an integrated strategy to unify and streamline IT

functions. Scrapping the 14 document management

systems was an obvious first cost-saving action.

The enterprise content management (ECM) system

adopted would need to revamp the city’s contract

record system so that it no longer needed a nightly

reboot, met security standards, and was easily searchable for employees across agencies. Described

by Al Rosabal, Deputy CIO Denver City and County,

as an “end-of-life” system, the existing system had

poor search capabilities and overall feeble perfor-

mance.

Initially, the Technology Services Group was

stymied in locating a cost-effective solution that could

be implemented without any interruption in service.

Then it discovered Alfresco. Alfresco’s all-Web-based,

open source ECM system was not only affordable to

implement, but would conservatively save Denver

approximately $1.5 million over five years. CIO

Rosabal estimates that, over time, the open source

model could save the city up to $1 million a year in

recurring licensing, deployment, and maintenance

costs as opposed to a proprietary system.

Alfresco’s ECM capabilities include document,

record, and image management, document version-ing, multi-language support, support for multiple

client operating systems (Windows, GNU/Linux, and

Solaris), Web content management, and integration

with MySQL, which Denver used for its relational

database management system. With a browser-based

graphical user interface and integration with the most

commonly used Microsoft Office suites, Alfresco ECM

was a perfect fit to economically meet Denver’s needs.

Implementation began in 2009 and took place in 6- to

12-week cycles over 15 months’ time. Each cycle also

included employee training. This gradual phase-in

encouraged employee cooperation and allowed time

for feedback before the next learning curve began.

For the auditor and controller offices, Alfresco

was integrated with the current PeopleSoft Financial

Management software so that employees could view

contracts and associated content within the familiarinterface. Complete automation of the contract

requisition, writing, and authorization processes

resulted in accelerated contract approval time and

enhanced contract and financial document auditing.

The procurement process had the same structural

problems as the IT department; it was spread

throughout multiple autonomous or semi-autonomous

agencies. To centralize and standardize the procure-

to-pay process (which includes the initial decision

to make the purchase, the process of selecting the

goods, and the transaction to pay for the goods pur-

chased), the existing PeopleSoft Financials system was

again leveraged. Elements of the workflow and the