Aligning information management systems for the future

The FRDC continued to leverage the benefits of Microsoft 365 Cloud Services by implementing Microsoft Teams to enhance communication and collaboration, driving efficient and effective outcomes.

The FRDC had just finished the migration of its telephony system to Microsoft Teams and its on-premises document management system to SharePoint Online when it had to transition all staff to SharePoint so they could work from home during COVID-19 restrictions. As such, the transition has been seamless with negligible impact on information and communications technology (ICT) systems.

It allowed the ICT team to explore ways for the organisation to operate in this virtual environment, while striving to maintain a connected and cohesive work culture. In the first part of the financial year, the FRDC was increasing its cloud usage maturity by transitioning from Infrastructure as a Service to Platform as a Service and Software as a Service. This included migration of the on-premises document management system to SharePoint Online. The FRDC also took advantage of the telephony services that were introduced with the Office 365 offerings to migrate the PABX system to Microsoft Teams.

COVID-19 ‘home enabled’ work environment

The finalisation of the two activities were timely because the second half of the financial year was about transitioning to home-based work for all staff due to COVID-19. The new systems and hardware and the training that was conducted meant the transition was as seamless as can be expected. Cybersecurity vigilance was also heightened due to emerging threats and scams targeting home users.

Future system development

The FRDC will utilise the opportunity offered by COVID-19 to continue to improve its system with further efforts put into:

• streamlining some of the manual steps in the project management life cycle;
• expanding capability to store project-related information;
• driving efficient business processes.