• The City of Durham currently uses an in-house SharePoint solution for its policy management system
• This platform manages over 120 policies for 2800 employees
Current system implemented for policy review and approval is not meeting the needs of the City's users.
Challenges include:
• Cannot verify and collate all comments that were received
• Cannot fully track the changes made by contributors
• Version control limitations
• Sometimes unable to determine with whom the policy is pending within the approval workflow and routing
• Sometimes the City Manager's signature disappears
• Issues with attachments disappearing
• Editing is not user friendly
• No notification to employees on updated or new policies
• No notification to policy contributors within the workflow
• Limited ability to collaborate amongst contributors during the update process
• Current Policy Management site will be unsupported by Microsoft in 2023
• There are errors that occur daily that require constant support from TS staff
• The existing system is not compatible.
Implement a solution that:
• Allows the user to easily create, review, approve, revise and renew policies
• Supports editing, version management and retirement of documents
• Supports the creation of workflows for review and approval of different types of documents
• Provides a reliable one-source-of-truth for the location of the current version of documents
• Supports multiple documents types, including compliance documents, training guides, as well as city and departmental policies and procedures
With a new policy management system the city would be able to:
• Integrate with the city's existing SharePoint 365 platform
• Push policy notifications out to all employees electronically where they can review and acknowledge new policies
• The ability to have full visibility of the comments along with the ability to consolidate, group and disposition comments
• Integrated SharePoint 365 platform solution will provide ease of accessibility and crossplatform access (phone, tablet, PC or laptop) from any location
• Allow for testing to be provided to ensure employees learn the specifics of the policy
• Data retention of older documents and policies that are easily accessible if requested for litigation
• Allows for control over the policy content lifecycle from creation to archive
• Ability to track metrics on the review process (i.e. how many people reviewed, commented, duration in lifecycle steps, etc.)
• Consistent version management of the policies and documents as well as the ability to easily customize workflows
• Increased metrics and reporting capabilities
• Dynamic search capabilities
Description
• Policy Management System hosted on SharePoint 365
Pros
• Integration with existing enterprise-wide SharePoint 365 platform
• Single sign on capable
• Microsoft Office Word and Outlook integration
• Leverages the existing powerful security features and functionality of Office 365 platform
• TS will regain resource capacity to support other applications
Cons
• Does not presently have the capabilities to allow all City employees to provide comments (There is a work around)
• No Cost Contingency
• No Cost
We are asking to approve the New Policy Document Management System business Case with the understanding that it will not comply with existing business rules for submission to the City Manager for approval and funding through the BMS department.