Customer Story: Department of Justice Tasmania

Objective

To leverage the Department of Justice’s existing Microsoft capabilities, and evaluate Skype for Business against other collaboration solutions.

Approach

To deploy a Microsoft FastTrack Planning Services engagement, and devise a detailed technology roadmap to address the Department’s IT and business objectives.

IT Outcome

The functionality to maximise the existing Microsoft investment, deliver enhanced collaboration tools to the business, simplify login processes, improve user experience and free up internal IT resources to focus on other core activities.

Business Outcome

The ability to improve collaboration, efficiency and performance across the organisation.

“It was obvious that we needed the right tools to create efficiencies across the Department, including the ability to collaborate more effectively with both internal and external partners.”

Dave Wylie, Manager, Projects – ICT Services, Department of Justice Tasmania

The Background
The Department of Justice Tasmania (“The Department”) provides services to maintain and promote rights and responsibilities, resolve disputes, and contribute to a safer and more inclusive society to benefit the Tasmanian community.

The following areas fall under the Department’s administration: Births, Deaths and Marriages; Community Corrections; Consumer, Building and Occupational Services; Corporate Support and Strategy; Crown Law; Monetary Penalties Enforcement Service; Strategic Legislation and Policy; Tasmania Prison Service; Victims Support Services; and WorkSafe Tasmania. The Department also provides support and services to a range of other bodies and statutory office holders.

The Challenge
The Department was looking to maximise the value of its Microsoft Enterprise Agreement and identified Skype for Business as an ideal pilot for Office 365. The Department uses video and web conferencing extensively and is continually looking for opportunities to deliver improved and more cost effective services to its staff and clients.

The Solution and Outcome
To ensure they were meeting performance and productivity targets across the organisation, the Department sought to uncover the full potential of their Microsoft investment. This included the evaluation of Skype for Business (SfB) against other conferencing and collaboration offerings.

As well as partnering with the Department for over four years on a range of solutions and services, Data^#3 was recommended to the Department by Microsoft as a trusted and highly experienced technology partner. The solution proposed by Data^#3 was an Office 365 FastTrack Planning Services engagement. The engagement utilised Microsoft tools and technologies to analyse the Department’s business and technical requirements, with a view to future design, planning, testing and deployment.

As part of the engagement, detailed planning workshops were conducted to assess the current technical environment, project objectives, timelines, potential pain points, and success criteria.

After a comprehensive scope of works was established, the Department asked Data^#3 to:

1. Perform an Office 365 technical assessment against the Department’s current environment;
2. Deploy a SfB pilot so the Department could compare its functionality to the current on-premises installation of Skype;
3. Assess both internal and external SfB video requirements; and
4. Make recommendations based on the findings.

Importantly, the Office 365 FastTrack engagement required a Success Plan to ensure the desired impact for the Department. This not only detailed the actions that were taken, but also mapped out the next steps to continue the evaluation and prepare for broad adoption.

From a business perspective, the Department had to consider its technology requirements against those of other government departments. The Department of Premier and Cabinet had already proposed an alternative solution for messaging and communication.

However, as the Department of Justice already had SfB, they first wanted to see whether they could leverage their existing investment to deliver the additional business benefits they were looking for.

“It was obvious that we needed the right tools to create efficiencies across the Department, including the ability to collaborate more effectively with both internal and external partners,” said Dave Wylie, Manager, Projects – ICT Services, Department of Justice Tasmania.

Furthermore, a business activity workshop conducted by Data^#3 provided the opportunity for key stakeholders and the Data^#3 project team to come together to understand what the Department’s Microsoft roadmap looked like.

Key to this process was uncovering ways to leverage the Department’s existing Microsoft investment to deliver business outcomes such as productivity and collaboration improvements.

The successful deployment of the SfB pilot program, plus the establishment of a detailed technology roadmap, proved that the Department could leverage their Microsoft investment to achieve a number of business objectives.

“We realised significant value in having Data^#3 deploy a new capability quickly and efficiently, as it meant we didn’t need to invest our own time and resources into the project,” explained Mr Wylie.

“What’s more, Data^#3 was extremely professional and easy to work with throughout the whole process. We look forward to continuing the partnership as we explore further opportunities with our Microsoft environment.”

Download the Department of Justice Tasmania Customer Story.

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