When struggling with a legacy content management system that was no longer meeting end-user or organizational needs, frustrated staff at the Army Publishing Directorate (APD) did what many do: Create workarounds.
However, these workarounds generated additional issues — including more manual work — which is time-consuming and prone to human error. This process was not sustainable for APD’s important work as the Army’s centralized publications and forms management organization.
In addition to being inefficient, the legacy system was very expensive to maintain and required a full-time employee to keep APD’s nine databases operating and in sync.
To identify and implement a solution that offered both content management and process automation, APD engaged the Army’s Acquisition, Logistics and Technology Enterprise Systems and Services (ALTESS) organization and implementation partner, Prometheus. Their selection: Hyland’s Alfresco Digital Business Platform.
Together with Hyland’s Alfresco team, ALTESS and Prometheus were able to provide an initial operating capability to meet APD’s most urgent needs in under five months and full operating capability in nine months.
Hyland products and services used
Alfresco Content Services (ACS)
Alfresco Process Services (APS)
Alfresco Governance Services (AGS)
Alfresco Development Framework (ADF)
Process highlights
Retired two disconnected legacy document management tools
Deployed workflows with real-time integration with the existing line-of-business database, timed deadlines, email notification and integration with ACS content management capabilities
Built custom-service API to establish one authoritative source of metadata for ACS and APS, as well as easily transfer documents between the two solutions
Provided advanced searching and analytics capabilities and role-based controls
Support to achieve compliance with security requirements and quickly obtain an Authority to Operate
Impact
Reduced publication cycle times by 40%
Increased employee productivity
Reduced required IT infrastructure associated with running the system by one-third
Removed bottlenecks to easily manage and monitor the publication life cycle from creation through revision and retirement
Provided visibility into long-term document tracking, searching and archiving, and better reporting
Future-proofed to support an expected 3 million documents for APD’s 30,000 active publications