Managing Our Information Assets

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State Records Commission Standards and ISO 15489:2016 Records Management continues to guide best practice recordkeeping supported by ISO16175:2011 Principles and Functional Requirements for Records in Electronic Office Environments. Our amended Recordkeeping Plan 2022 has been submitted to the State Records Commission and provides guidance on the changing needs of our workforce and how we do business.

Our records management application has undergone multiple upgrades and is now TRIM CM 9.4 with 2,401 licensed users. Our records management processes were re-certified in 2022 to ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management and our bulk-scanning and document processing application has been upgraded to the latest version, Kofax TA 7.9.

Our Service Delivery

Our information assets captured and used by employees to conduct work on behalf of government include 32,000 boxed records offsite, 5,500 boxed records onsite, 470,000 hardcopy and 103,000 virtual files onsite containing 17.9 million digital documents held in a 31 terabyte TRIM database. Library information assets include 23 research databases, 16,500 hardcopy books, 23,500 digital books held in an 8 terabyte DbText library database linked to historical information held within the TRIM database.

A dedicated Main Roads 'Working From Home' internal website provides general users with information to assist in saving and searching for documents using M365 and the TRIM Web Client during COVID restriction periods.

Our Digital Roadmap High priority has been given to application connection between M365 SharePoint Online and TRIM following progressive rollout of MS Teams during implementation of our modern workplace with improved governance processes, collaboration standards, technology and training. Business application databases, including TRIM, are being converted to 64 bit and saved in the cloud as we prepare for our next TRIM upgrade.

An Information Classification Policy has been developed for staged implementation, including:

  1. target TRIM, M365 and the Data Catalogue and establish labels to comply with WA State Government policy
  2. engage a specialist records company to review the current TRIM security model and establish classification labels
  3. engage a specialist M365 company to review sensitivity labels and security controls, set up proof of concept, provide user and administration training and develop an implementation plan.

Our system of capture Kofax TA7, provides bulk scanning and document processing using machine learning to automate the capture and storage of information to TRIM for further processing. All forms of incoming correspondence received at our head office go through Kofax TA7 and this year 49,427 items have been processed with considerable reduction in hardcopy scanning and storage to TRIM, as depicted below.

Year Supplier Creation Credit Notes Accounts Payable Statements Invoices Scanned General Plans and Drawings Total
2019-20 63 439 2,022 1,852 35,896 5,927* 1,796 47,995
2020-21 68 534 1,929 1,595 39,151 1,482* 2,490 47,249
2021-22 3 523 1,573 2,921 40,543 986* 2,879 49,427
* reduced hardcopy scans

Day boxed scanned hardcopy is legally destroyed in accord with the General Disposal Authority for Source Records.

Our Service Delivery

In addition to core activities, best practice recordkeeping and information management was used to complete the following projects and initiatives with these outcomes:

  • - conducted a TRIM CM 9.4 System Health Check
  • - amended and submitted our Recordkeeping Plan 2022 to State Records Commission
  • - upgraded KOFAX TA7 to version 7.9.09 and conducted configuration and testing for introduction of the PEPPOL e-invoicing network with document storage to TRIM
  • - finalised upgrade of the records management application to TRIM CM 9.4.4 and required updates to affected procedures and user guidelines
  • - upgraded, configured and tested third party Sigma applications for data imports, logs, drawings and pictures in TRIM for use with TRIM CM 9.4
  • - created and implemented Main Roads in-house mandatory Records Awareness training course
  • - created and implemented Main Roads in-house TRIM CM 9.4 course
  • - continued State Archiving Strategy - to date, 6,740 boxes and 20 drawing cabinets removed from the Regions and sent to offsite storage, including 2,798 boxes and 2,000 drawings this year
  • - completed scoping (650 boxes) - Albany archiving
  • - completed scoping (840 boxes) plus drawings - Kalgoorlie archiving
  • - continued compactus retirement - reviewed and archived closed bridge and property functional administrative files (5,500) to recover office space
  • - developed Library Services Manual as a staff mentoring aid
  • - developed Correspondence Processing Manual to assist Metropolitan and Regional records staff
  • - developed Archiving Procedures Manual to assist induction of Metropolitan contract records staff
  • - published the Contract RKP Compliance Guidelines on our website to assist contract companies to complete and submit their Contract RKPs to Main Roads Superintendents

Our Record keeping Code of Practice for the Management of Contract Records is available on our website and guides compliance with SRC Standard 6: Outsourcing. Under this Code, submission of a Contract Recordkeeping Plan is required from contract companies within 28 days for approval. Contract Recordkeeping Plan reviews are conducted by a records practitioner prior to sign off and this year seven reviews were completed.

Records management operations and projects are supported by our TRIM support help desk which performs daily audits to protect critical records from deletion and triage customer enquiries. This year 6,324 TRIM enquiries were received through multiple communication channels with most resolved within 24 hours. Documents and other items stored to TRIM (1.54 million) indicate continued steady growth and audit logs indicate more than 80 per cent of employees consistently use TRIM.

Response to Future Trends

The suitability and dependability of information systems is crucial to the delivery of information, technology and communications in our business.

Services provided to our people and customers are delivered over a complex state-wide technology network consisting of three data centres with 1,300 servers (1,200 virtual), 3,500 end-user devices delivering 350 applications accessing 608 terabytes of data, wireless connectivity and a voice over IP (VOIP) network including MS Teams.

To advance the digital vision of the organisation and play a lead role in technical innovation and collaboration, an Enterprise Architecture Office has been created. In line with this vision, a more holistic approach to managing information is now being taken to improve information lifecycle management, data modelling and effective information governance. This is a prerequisite to the sharing of information between the Transport Portfolio and other government agencies, while also addressing agreed focus areas in our ICT Strategy.

Real-time analytics using large volumes of data requires new skills, tools and processes to link, interpret and extract value from the many data sources available to Main Roads. This requires advanced analytics competency to provide advice, tools and techniques to business areas for decision making purposes. Efforts continue to broaden our data and analytics capabilities.

Cyber security remains challenging in reducing security risks for both federal and state government and we are proactively improving resilience to threats, vulnerabilities and challenges to drive protective security improvements using a systematic and managed approach.

Traditional ICT no longer applies given a rapidly changing technology landscape demanding stability, mobility, agility and responsiveness. This has resulted in considerable change of the ICT structure and how it conducts business. Challenges remain in upgrading aged systems, hardware, and services as we progressively shift focus to cloud storage and technologies.

Our Training

We support good recordkeeping practices through our training programs providing a suite of training courses, online and localised inductions, business process re-engineering, short courses and a range of delivery methods. Regular updates to policies, procedures, user and system training guides, FAQs, news items, available services and contacts have been provided to users through our internal website and email distribution lists. Individual assistance is also available through remote online support and a dedicated TRIM support helpdesk.

All past documents were updated accordingly with the rollout of TRIM CM 9.4. Our training courses were also scaled down into two new online training courses, released in February 2022 and are now mandatory for all new starters and existing staff. The online courses represent the culmination more than two years of research and development, ensuring our staff have fundamental knowledge of the updated records system and their record keeping obligations.

Together with successful uptake of the online training, we will be working towards increasing the variety of virtual training sessions delivered through MS Teams to further extend the reach of records training to offsite and regional staff.

Uptake, progress and completion of records training continues to be monitored as detailed below:

Training 2020-21 2021-22
Full-Day 25 107
TRIM 'n Win 1 37
One-on-One 0 3
Customised 0 0
Recordkeeping Awareness 0 1,273
TRIM Essentials 0 199
Metropolitan and Regional R&D Training 7 4
Curtin Practicum Placement 0 1
*Total Trained 33 1,624

* Note: Training paused during 2020/21 due to TRIM Upgrade and COVID
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