City of Port
Adelaide Enfield were seeking to improve their document preparation
processes as described by Elaine McGlashan, Executive Research Officer
below:
"In August 2001 the Council’s Administration decided it was necessary to revamp
our Corporate Templates. Many departments had created their own templates which
were all different and in some cases did not comply with the Council’s Corporate
Standards policy. eWord Development had been recommended to Council by an
employee who had previously used eWord Development's products with another
organisation.
The Council’s
requirements included standard letter, fax header, and memo templates used by
staff located in the council's ten locations from Greenacres to Outer Harbor.
"Templates for Council
Agenda, Reports and Minutes have proved to be most successful in saving time and
ease of use for all staff. Previously Council Minutes required approximately 4-5
hours to produce, however using eWord Development's templates has reduced this
significantly to approximately 2-2½ hours."
The process commences
when staff members create report items using the report item template.
Individual reports are combined by each departmental secretary into a
Departmental Report which includes an automatically generated table of contents.
An agenda is then
created using the Agenda template which extracts key information from
each Departmental Report.
A 'Combined Report' is
then created using the individual Departmental Reports as well as Council report,
Budget Committee reports etc.
A Minutes Template
quickly assembles the majority of the meeting minutes automatically using
contents from contributory documents (Departmental, Council & Committee Reports
, prompting for motion movers and seconders etc.
"The day after the
meeting it is simply a matter of entering the names of the relevant movers and
seconders, and make any alterations as necessary. Council has been using
these templates since January 2002, and I have found them to be of enormous
benefit, easy to use and saves time both for myself and the Secretaries who put
these reports together."
Elaine McGlashan
Executive Research
Officer
City of Port
Adelaide Enfield
