When the back office is the place to start in government – Flipping around the document management decision
Many government agencies buy document management software first and foremost for compliance. In my agency, we had some serious rules around the use of community development and affordable housing funds. Documents had to be maintained for 35 years, but also had to be accessible for annual reviews and the annual outside audits from federal and state agencies. So, in these very forward-facing areas, records management and workflow have strong support communities. Most people understand the value of the line of business systems they use – ESRI, Emphasys, Tenmast, Harmony, Curam, CourtView, etc. And, they get how enterprise content management can and should be integrated to make these systems really effective. But what about the back office? As government shrinks, it becomes more and more difficult to accomplish the basic tasks of tracking contracts, paying the bills, doing inventory or handling human resources. Even filing may be a problem because administrative staffs are often the first positions to go.
