E-DMS Solution as A leading Practice Agriteam Canada Consulting Ltd Small Scale and Micro Irrigation Support Project i SMIS-IT

Document Management System (DMS) Solution

September 2019

In association with

E-DMS Solution as A leading Practice Agriteam Canada Consulting Ltd Small Scale and Micro Irrigation Support Project ii SMIS-IT

CONTRIBUTOR SMIS-IT

DATE SEPTEMBER , 2019

PROJECT OFFICE SMIS-NPMU

VERSION DRAFT

THEMATIC ICT

IN ASSOCIATION WITH

SMALL SCALE & MICRO IRRIGATION SUPPORT PROJECT (SMIS)

DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (DMS) SOLUTION

E-DMS Solution as A leading Practice Agriteam Canada Consulting Ltd Small Scale and Micro Irrigation Support Project 3 SMIS-IT

Document Management System (DMS) Solution Document Management System (DMS) is a solution or tool, or method used to capture, manage, store,

preserve, deliver and dispose of 'Documents' across the bureau. In this context 'Documents' are any

knowledge products including office documents, project documents, Guidelines, Training documents,

manuals, images, graphics, Maps, etc … as well as the new electronic objects such as Web pages, email,

instant messages, and video.

The current DMS solutions are web-based platforms that enables bureaus to:

Control the creation and authentication of documents

Exercise version control where multiple versions of a document are maintained

Manage storage of documents in a way that facilitates convenient retrieval of a particular

document when needed

Ensure security and safety of documents with the dual objectives of preventing unauthorized

access to documents and allowing recovery from physical damage or loss of documents

Creates the policy for archiving old documents and disposing them at the end of their life

Innumerable knowledge products including books, manuals, guidelines, directive manuals, procedures,

project documents, and captured in audio/video materials developed by government bureaus and other

counter parts by many offices.

These knowledge products provided to certain employees/staff at the time of workshop or training,

meeting, or the staff could be part of the development of the products. They usually stored in the

individual staff office desk or personal/office computer, they are not shared to the other staffs and

usually these documents are not utilized by the staffs.

Retrieving/searching the knowledge products when they are needed, is almost impossible as the staff

may left the office or the documents randomly stored in some the office cabinets, or the computers

corrupted due to viruses or other problems, or the documents get lost. As a result, the bureau’s staff

spent a lot of time in getting these documents; usually they ended up in creating repeatedly the same

documents.

To address this critical problem of KM, SMIS proposed introducing electronic DMS solution to the

bureaus, mainly Federal SSID, Amhara Bureau of Agriculture (BoA), Tigray Bureau of Water Development

(BoW), Oromia Irrigation Development Agency (OIDA) and SNNP Irrigation Scheme Development

Administration Agency (ISDAA). This DMS solution will improve the storage, sharing and utilization of

project documents, office documents and any knowledge products of the bureaus.

The DMS solution a web-based system developed as per to the bureau’s requirement and document

workflow and enables staffs access and utilize their documents from everywhere at any time. This

system is accessible from regions, zones, woredas or anywhere as far as there is connectivity to the DMS

server.

SMIS also provided to the bureaus the required IT infrastructure for the DMS solution, a high-end Server

machine with Windows 2016 server operating system and server-based antivirus software. The DMS

solution is deployed on this server for each bureau. The system is currently up and running.

E-DMS Solution as A leading Practice Agriteam Canada Consulting Ltd Small Scale and Micro Irrigation Support Project 4 SMIS-IT

The DMS solution is an IT driven solution that enhances the knowledge creation, capturing, storing,

sharing and utilization. As any software solution, it requires hardware, software and network

infrastructure accordingly SMIS supported the bureaus to create full-fledged DMS solution in the

bureaus.

Hardware and Network Infrastructure SMIS has procured a high-end server machine deducted for the DMS system, Licensed Windows 2016

Server operating system and established the bureaus data center with Server Rack 22U, with AC.

SMIS has also maintained and upgraded the local area network (LAN) infrastructure of the bureaus

especially of the Oromia OIDA as the most of the LAN connectivity of the bureau was done by support of

SMIS. SMIS has also procured licensed antivirus software for the DMS server to be renewed every year.

DMS software SMIS has studied and the structure of the bureaus, the project areas and the document flow of every

bureau, how documents are produced, verified, approved and disseminated in the bureau. Using these

details, SMIS with the involvement of the bureau has recruited a developer company to develop the

DMS solution according to the requirement of the specific bureau. This DMS software passed all the

stages of the software development cycle and currently it is operational in all the five bureaus.

Capacity building Since the electronic DMS solution a new innovative practice introduced to the bureaus, capacitating the

staff of the bureaus in using the solution was one of the core activities of SMIS. Accordingly an End-user

level and technical training provided to the bureaus staff and IT respectively.

As an outcome of this intervention, the document management of the bureau improved. Currently OIDA

has uploaded 10GB documents of different thematic produced by different sections, and additional 4GB

document are cleaned and organized ready for uploading. Likewise the federal SSID has uploaded 7.8GB

documents and it is online accessible by authorized users (http://197.156.64.205:8080/DMS ).

SNNP started to upload documents from all departments recently they uploaded 4GB files. The other

regions are also in the process of cleaning up of back logged data and uploading to their DMS solution in

their office. SMIS is providing JES when there are technical problems raised.

The following pic the change of the state of the document management in the bureaus.

E-DMS Solution as A leading Practice Agriteam Canada Consulting Ltd Small Scale and Micro Irrigation Support Project 5 SMIS-IT

Ensuring knowledge is well preserved in the bureaus, shared and utilized among the staff for better

performance and yield should be one of the major target of the leaders and management of the

bureaus. The DMS will be sustained by making as one major activity in their annual work plan, allocating

budget for maintenance and technological requirement, assigning dedicated staffs/IT that manage and

administrate the over all tasks of the DMS solution, providing regular capacity building and coaching for

the staffs in utilizing the system.