DXC WebScan as part of the statewide rollout of the document management solution

This is the DXC WebScan Story of the Ministry of the Interior for Digitization and Local Authorities of Baden-Württemberg

Purpose

In March 2017 the Council of Ministers of the State of Baden-Württemberg decided to roll out a uniform document management solution. The Ministry of the Interior, for Digitisation and Local Authorities of Baden-Württemberg was entrusted with the specification, procurement and introduction of the new software solution. A public tender for an overall solution was won by PDV GmbH as main contractor and DXC Technology in 2018. They were equally engaged in delivering a system consising of the document management system PDV VIS and the scan software DXC WebScan in order to enable digital working without analog/digital discontinuity for 55,000 users in 183 state authorities by 2025. 

Solution

Due to a tight schedule and high number of offices and related stakeholders, the standardisation of the statewide solution as well as user acceptance became the main focus of the project.
A group of pilot Authorities initially defined the standard for the state of Baden-Würrtemberg in which the extensive configuration options of both the PDV GmBH’s document managent software “VIS suite” and the
DXC WebScan software were reduced to a state-specific optimum. This agreed state standard, called “e-folder BW”, enables all the Authorities in the rollout to rapidly follow the success of the pilot Authorities.

Context

The Ministry of the Interior, for Digitisation and Local Authorities Baden-Württemberg was entrusted with the cross-departmental project, initially set up the “Stabsstelle E-Akte BW” (StEA) as a central steering and decision-making body. The StEA's tasks primarily consist of organising, steering, and implementing the rollout for 25,000 users in the 166 state administrative authorities and the 30,000 users in the 17 police departments and facilities.

Challenges

The complexity of the project can be broken down into three challenges.

Firstly, an average of more than 26 state Authorities per year had to be equipped with the new software solution. Existing data had to be migrated to the new environment and the legacy systems had to be decommissioned. This tight schedule could only be ensured through close, strong planning and a targeted organisation.

Secondly, 57,000 users from very different Authorities and disciplines had to be involved in the transformation. Clear communication at an early stage was as important as a mature training concept.

Finally, stable IT operations had to be ensured even in the event of changes in requirements or peak data loads. The issue of downtime security gained further importance with each rolled-out Authority.

Success Factors

A key factor in the success of the project was the change management overseen by the StEA, which on the one hand leveraged the strengths of the software products used and on the other hand drove the standardisation of the state solution.

From the beginning, seven representative pilot Authorities with 850 pilot users were engaged, on whose expertise processes were standardised, supplemented with the practical experience of the service providers, and then technically configured in PDV’s VIS suite and DXC WebScan.

Also, for future change requests that may arise in the product life cycle, processes have been established in which each change request is first checked for compliance with the state solution. Only if it is not possible to meet the requirement within the already agreed state solution and there are no objections from an operational point of view, will the country standard be adapted and thus continuously evolved.

Based on the defined state standard, a multi-stage training concept consisting of training courses, e-learning modules and conventional training documents has been developed. This concept is also undergoing a continuous improvement process based on feedback from the individual rollout Authorities.

This established standard procedure enables a highly efficient rollout in which up to twenty Authorities can be transformed in parallel.