Municipality Advances Governance Strategy for Compliant Agency-Wide RM
About the Municipality
This client is a municipality in Ontario, Canada, with a population of over 300,000 citizens. Recognized for its rapid growth and commitment to innovation, the municipality sought to modernize its approach to records and information management to meet evolving regulatory and organizational needs.
Technologies
Collabspace
SharePoint
Power Automate
By the Numbers
+300,000 citizens served
+1,500 city staff
Business Context & Goals
The municipality was looking to enact agency-wide records management while ensuring regulatory compliance was met. Their objectives included:
Establishing a governance strategy for digital records across the organization.
Improving regulatory compliance through effective retention policies.
Minimizing disruption to end users while ensuring the adoption of new tools and processes.
Recognizing Gravity Union’s expertise in governance and records management, the municipality engaged the team to implement a strategy and modern, scalable solution.
Solution Highlights & Benefits
Comprehensive Governance Strategy
Gravity Union’s first Project phase focused on developing a governance strategy to standardize record-keeping practices across the organization. This strategy ensured that all departments adhered to consistent policies, fostering regulatory compliance and organizational alignment.
Sample of a Collabspace automated document lifecycle workflow. Screenshot courtesy of Collabware.
End-to-End Records Management Capabilities with Collabspace
The municipality adopted Collabspace to implement automated retention schedules and end-to-end lifecycle workflows. By integrating Collabspace with their existing systems, records management now occurs seamlessly in the background, allowing staff to focus on core tasks without manual intervention.
Pilot Configuration and Gradual Rollout
Several pilot groups were selected to configure and test Collabspace, ensuring the solution was tailored to the municipality’s unique needs. Insights from this phase informed the broader organizational rollout, driving adoption and ensuring a smooth transition.
Staged Approach for Purview Sensitivity Labels
To enhance data security without impacting end-user experience, Gravity Union introduced sensitivity labels using a staged approach. Initial controls were applied at a foundational level to familiarize users with the application of sensitivity labels, with plans to expand features such as encryption, access controls, and watermarking in later phases.
Sample of Purview sensitivity labels. Screenshot courtesy of Microsoft.
Process Automation with Power Automate
Gravity Union streamlined repetitive processes by designing Power Automate workflows to support the business needs. These workflows allowed the business to focus on higher value activities while automating tasks such as:
Automating the intake of data from Microsoft Forms to SharePoint Lists to allow further tracking and management of requests.
Generating unique, sequential identifiers for new content, ensuring no errors for duplicate identifiers or extra effort for staff to locate the last number assigned.
Sending of automatic reminders at key dates in processes to ensure continuous flow of work while reducing the number of manual emails and communications.
Project Results
Agency Alignment – A governance roadmap provided a clear path for ongoing digital transformation
End-to-End Records Management – By pairing M365 with Collabspace, the municipality will achieve seamless lifecycle management and compliance for their records
Regulatory Compliance – Implementation of automated retention schedules and sensitivity labels will ensure adherence to legislative requirements
Improved Efficiency – Automated workflows reduced manual work and errors, freeing up valuable staff time
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