Planning for business process digitisation

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Selecting the records and your approach

Initially you will need to consider which records to digitise and what approach or approaches to digitisation to take. Decisions may vary according to your organisation's particular needs. Your decisions should be documented and periodically monitored and assessed. These considerations, along with other planning considerations such as benefits, costs and risks, will inform your business case and other planning documentation.

Select records and extent of digitisation

If you define your drivers and stakeholder needs you will be able to have a clearer picture of what records need to be digitised and the extent of digitisation required.

In some cases you may focus only on certain business areas.

In some cases you may choose only to digitise certain incoming and outgoing records across a range of business units.You will need to define what you want to digitise and the reasons for your selection decisions. This information needs to be communicated to operators e.g. through digitisation procedures and training.

In some cases you may decide to ‘go digital’ across your organisation. You will need to consider areas of priority and how and when to implement the digitisation program across areas of the organisation.

Depending on the above choices, it may be appropriate in some circumstances to centralise digitisation in one or a few areas or to have multiple scanners available across the organisation. [1] This in turn will dictate who will undertake digitisation (i.e. action officers or staff in the central area). Workflows will need to be established, with responsibilities assigned, for digitisation and how digital images will be circulated.

Whatever your decisions, they should be documented.

Other issues that should be considered when deciding which records to digitise and what approach to digitisation to take include whether the records:

• are covered by retention and disposal authorities
• are in a form that is suitable for digitisation (and the appropriate digitisation equipment is available to you)
• can be batched with single equipment settings or if settings will need to be changed frequently (requiring more staff intervention)
• are fragile [2]
• have particular legal or rights management issues (such as copyright) that will affect the digitisation program and its outcomes
• have other characteristics that will affect their management.

You will need to ensure that operators are educated about what not to digitise e.g. records that need not be captured and can be disposed of under Normal Administrative Practice.

Consider how the records need to be accessed

You will also need to consider stakeholder needs for access. These may have implications for the way a digitisation program needs to be established.

You will need to consider:

• the technological infrastructure required for access
• acceptable time frames for records (either original paper records or digital images) likely to be inaccessible while digitisation is undertaken
• additional metadata required to meet stakeholder needs, e.g. index terms
• methods of delivery.

Are derivatives needed?

In the majority of business process digitisation programs only one digital image will be created for business purposes and derivatives of lower quality or size will not be needed.

However, there may be occasions where it is necessary to also create derivative images.

Your organisation should consider your digitisation program and its aims when determining the need for additional versions of images and their intended use.

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Business case

Many public sector organisations require the development of an internal business case before they will allocate resources for digitisation.

A business case enables you to communicate the parameters of a business process digitisation program, substantiate its viability and justify why resources should be invested. The focus should be on how it will assist your organisation in carrying out its functions.

The content of business cases will differ according to the level of funding being sought and the type and extent of the digitisation program. The following checklist shows standard inclusions you will need to define. [4]

Considerations to address in a business case
The problem or situation that the digitisation program will address, i.e. the driver or business need.
How the digitisation program will relate to and support organisational objectives, directions and strategies.
The scope of the digitisation program including its size and scale, and the range of records.
The options considered and the rationale for choosing digitisation as a solution (including purpose and expected use of the images, stakeholder needs and impacts).
The digitisation program’s conformity with existing policies etc. This should include records management requirements for your organisation and specific needs for the records in question including storage, handling and disposal. See Disposal of original paper records after digitisation and Managing original paper records for more information.
The implementation plan. This should outline benchmarks, technical and metadata specifications and quality assurance for digitisation. See Benchmarks and quality assurance, Technical specifications and Metadata requirements for more information.
The expected costs (including project budgets and resource commitments). See Benefits, costs and risks of digitisation for more information.
The anticipated benefits and anticipated business or cost efficiencies. See Benefits, costs and risks of digitisation for more information.
The expected risks associated with implementing digitisation and how these will be mitigated. See Benefits, costs and risks of digitisation for more information.

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Program planning and management

A business process digitisation program requires careful planning and management. This guideline does not state a particular planning methodology as your organisation may already have a methodology you need to follow.

Business process definition and/or reengineering

The introduction of business process digitisation can bring positive benefits to an organisation if it is accompanied by an examination (and possible reengineering) of business processes. It is an opportunity to streamline processes, improve the quality of records and promote consistency in their management.

Note: Not only should you examine the processes that generate records to be considered for digitisation, but also those processes that require access to and use of records to complete.

In planning for the introduction of business process digitisation in target groups you can consider:

• What is the full process? What is its purpose? Which staff in which parts of the organisation conduct this process?  Is the same or a similar process being performed in different parts of the organisation? Is it being performed in a consistent way?
• Is the process the most efficient use of our resources or can it be improved?
• Are all parts of the process relevant and necessary?
• Are there legislative, business and community requirements for records that are relevant to the process? What records need to be captured to meet these recordkeeping requirements? Are we capturing these? If not, what are the risks? Are we capturing records we do not really need to keep?
• Are the records of sufficient quality to meet our organisation’s requirements? Do they have sufficient metadata? Is standard titling and/or indexing required as part of the digitisation program to improve retrieval? What access and security controls are required for these records?
• How can digitisation best be integrated into the process? Can the digital images be built into a structured workflow to support future business?
• What is the best way to capture the digital images as part of the process to ensure that they can be kept in context with related records, protected and accessible for future business? [5]

Defining and reengineering business processes should be conducted in negotiation with relevant staff and managers. This will ensure the process is fully understood. It can have the added benefit of giving staff ownership of changes, and therefore increasing their willingness to accept them. See Managing the ‘people factor’ for more information.

What to take into account in program planning

The following issues should also be considered and addressed in program planning:

• staffing and space requirements
• change management initiatives – a separate change management and/or training plan may be required
• the standards that should be followed
• the need for policies and procedures and how these will be distributed
• how the program itself should be documented for accountability
• the identification of legal requirements and how these will be addressed
• the management of disposal requirements for both original paper records and digital images
• the need for benchmarks and quality assurance measures built into the process
• what technical specifications are required to meet program needs
• what metadata needs to be collected and how it can be collected (e.g. automatic or manual?)
• what equipment is needed to meet program needs
• storage and management issues, including security and access requirements, to ensure digital images are retained for as long as they are required.

You will need to have a general understanding of what is involved with each of these areas before you write your business case as they will impact on costs and implementation plans.

Once your business case is approved you will need to spend more time considering and planning for these issues.

Monitoring and evaluation

As part of planning your organisation should define how and when the digitisation process will be monitored and reviewed.

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Checklist

Planning for digitisation	Yes	No
Has an approach to digitisation been selected, documented and implemented?
Has there been consideration of copyright or other constraints when choosing records for inclusion in the digitisation program?
Have stakeholder needs for access been considered?
Has the need for masters and/or derivatives been considered?
Has a business case been developed for the digitisation program?
Does the business case address the: driver or business need for the program and how digitisation will meet that need digitisation program's relationship with organisational objectives, directions and strategies scope of the digitisation program including its size and scale, and the range of records options considered and rationale for choosing digitisation (including purpose and expected use of images, stakeholder needs and impacts) program’s conformity with existing policies etc. implementation plan including benchmarks, technical and metadata specifications and quality assurance for digitisation expected costs anticipated benefits and anticipated business or cost efficiencies expected risks associated with implementing digitisation and how these will be mitigated?
Are there documented plans in place for the digitisation program?
Do these plans address the need for: staffing, space and change management planning and management business process definition and/or reengineering, i.e. how digital images will be integrated into work processes the identification of any legal requirements and rights management issues the management of disposal requirements for both original paper records and digital images (where relevant) benchmarks and quality assurance checks to be built into the process defining technical specifications defining metadata requirements defining how digital images will be stored defining access and security requirements monitoring and evaluation of the program?

Footnotes

[1] Archives New Zealand, Digitisation standard, 2007, p.14.
[2] This will not be a common scenario for business process digitisation. Fragility may not prevent digitisation but additional care and changed technical specifications may be required to ensure legibility
[3] Archives New Zealand, Ibid., p.35
[4] Department of Premier and Cabinet’s Business Case Guidelines, available at http://www.dpc.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/44936/Business_Case_Guidelines.pdf For capital business cases see NSW Treasury, Guidelines for capital business cases: Policy and guidelines paper, available at: http://www.treasury.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/12953/tpp08-5.pdf
[5] National Archives of Australia, Digitising accumulated physical records: A guide to initiating and planning digitisation projects, 2011, p. 8, available at: http://www.naa.gov.au/records-management/agency/create-capture-describe/physical-records/index.aspx

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