As the Belgorod region refused use of paper documents

2020: Transition to paperless document flow. Implementation of "P7 Office"

On December 16, 2020 material about implementation of the P7 Office office suite in the Belgorod region was at the disposal of TAdviser.

The total failure from paper document flow will become an intermediate result of the program of digitalization of work of the government of the Belgorod region where one of the major purposes is transition to the software of domestic development. Upon completion of the main stage of implementation of the upgraded system modules of electronic document management in the government, the solution will be broadcast in municipalities. Evgeny Miroshnikov, the head of the department of digital development of the Belgorod region told about it.

Main objective of area

The main objective which faces area — transition to use of domestic software in all aspects of work of public authorities of the Belgorod region.

In the region of 29 authorities — departments and departments which supervise the HSC sphere, economy, finance, education, health care, construction and so on. All of them use the systems and services. They needed to give the unified basic opportunities, to create the standard of a workplace of the government employee which would provide operability of all workflows.

For the solution of this task in structure of the government of the Belgorod region in 2018 the Department of digital development was created. It coordinates all policy in the field of information technologies in the region.

Question of the choice of software products

The main question on which it was necessary to find the answer at the very beginning of a way of formation of the standard of a workplace of the government employee — what set of software products will enter in its structure.

Enough the user computers work under control of Astra Linux Common Edition 2.12 – they are bought as a part of a complex workplace, the personal computer with the preset operating system. Them already more than 300. Plus enough jobs — under control of ROSA Linux which was going to be developed initially, but because of difficulties and some compatibility issues with the used equipment and software could not use completely only this OS. As a result, by December 16 under this or that version of domestic OS about a quarter of jobs of the government of the region functions already.

As for the solution for work with office documents, the choice was from two domestic options entering the Unified register of domestic software.

The main requirements which were imposed to office system:

• clear and usual to the ordinary user interface
• possibility of group work on the document
• correct work with the main formats of the electronic documents including created in other office editors
• possibility of use both full desktop, and cloud version

Staff of department compared and tested both packets, and came to a conclusion that the ratio price/quality is better at "P7 Office". Plus, there is adequate feedback concerning correction of shortcomings which were revealed additions of functionality of the office suite, etc. Efficiency of the solution of the arising questions at IT services and of users of problems — for the customer extremely important factor.

Solution

As a result the first purchase of "P7 Office" was carried out in July, 2019, and by this moment already complete set of the licenses necessary for work of all staff of the regional Government on 1800 jobs purchased. As a result of the competitive procedure the supplier was defined — the authorized partner of New Communication Technologies company, direct producer of the office suite became him. For December 16, 2020 about a quarter of employees works with "P7 Office" already. It is expected that all purchased licenses will work by the end of 2020.

The cloud service of office system was deployed at own capacities of DPC of the Belgorod region which was constructed in 2019. Thus, the staff of the government of the region has a possibility of full-fledged remote work. And such experience already is. For this purpose "P7 office" can be expanded to the license "P7 office. The server optimal" which the communication module and a chat, group audio and video calls enters.

Main objectives of the project

The main objective — to provide seamless integration of the main software, "having made friends", in particular, the office suite and long ago the electronic document management system used by the government as which in the government the product of the Belgorod developer, Motivea companies — EDMS "Motive" is applied.

The staff of department of digital development is faced by a task until the end of the year to provide the protected digital forms and also a possibility of use of the electronic digital signature for all divisions of the government. In a test environment the issue with forms in the environment of Linux is already resolved, business in the EDS.

It is important that as soon as for the staff of the government correctly working electronic document management system is provided, they will have any more no powerful reason to use office suites of third-party foreign producers. Except, perhaps, read positions — for example if by the nature of work work with the most difficult documents, use of macroes and other specific tools is necessary.

Almost total failure from paper document flow became an intermediate result of work on digitalization of work of the government of the Belgorod region. Since the beginning of September, 2020 all departments passed to a digital format of work.

Except approval of regulatory legal acts which is going to be transferred finally to an electronic format by the end of 2020, all document flow as interdepartmental, and between executive authorities it is already conducted in a digital form, without use of paper carriers. Exceptions make answers to complaints and citizens' appeals.

As a result the region not only cut down expenses on acquisition of the paper and also costs for acquisition and service of the printing and copy equipment, but also made more operational all document flow. As a result, all work of the Government became more effective.

Month of work showed that any serious obstacles did not arise, thus, experience can be replicated.

Difficulties

Large-scale changes never take place smoothly, and the project on transition to domestic of software of the government of the Belgorod region an exception did not become:

• Till that time until all jobs are transferred to Astra Linux / "P7 Office", in different divisions there is a heterogeneous IT environment, a part of employees uses one office tools, a part — other ("P7 Office"). At the same time they constantly exchange documents, and the incomplete compatibility of office platforms is detected from time to time: for example, the document created in one of them is incorrectly displayed in another. In such cases screenshots become and together with the document are sent to the developer. And in response to such requests the region quickly receives updates or recommendations on the subject of how to avoid similar troubles.
• For advanced users at whom certain habits were already created transition to other platform and other office suite was difficult.
• In the state there are employees of the senior generation which to be retrained not easy. Nevertheless, process goes though for IT service it is loading.

Plans and perspectives

With NKT company, the P7-Ofis developer, reached the agreement on providing licenses for educational institutions on a grant basis. Process of implementation of "P7 Office" in educational institutions of the region already started — the necessary number of licenses was transferred.

We are going to extend our experience and our standard of a workplace and to this sector. In any case in the part concerning the organization of work with documents — to the operating systems of domestic manufacturers developed based on Linux there are questions concerning uninterrupted operation and a besproblemnost of work so far. It as insufficient support of various peripheral devices, so questions with start of the used software, - Evgeny Miroshnikov, the head of the department of digital development of the Belgorod region concluded.