The University of Naples Federico II
Italian public university improves records management and collaboration with Hyland's Alfresco platform.
The customer
The University of Naples Federico II (UNINA) has 100,000 registered students and more than 6,000 employees, including over 3,000 teachers and researchers. The sprawling university is divided into multiple schools, departments, university centers, centers of excellence, interdisciplinary centers for research and service, inter-university research centers, schools of specialization, museum center libraries, departments and administrative offices with locations throughout the territory.
The challenge
Before implementing Hyland's Alfresco platform, UNINA did not have an enterprise content management solution to manage all of its hundreds of thousands of administrative documents. The university’s many departments and organizational units managed its paper documents with an Oracle-based protocol system that was not integrated with an ECM platform.
UNINA needed a way to digitize its administrative documents and manage them in a central repository to encourage collaboration between its many business units.
“Our goal is to manage and share electronic documents to improve the overall quality of service and to eventually become completely paperless,” said Clelia Baldo, technical director at University of Naples Federico II. “We needed a central repository where people could share information online and collaborate.”
The first step was to develop and launch a web app, based on an ECM engine, that was capable of managing the entire life cycle of UNINA’s back office documentation. This includes all of the documents associated with student applications and registration as well as the management of UNINA’s invoices, which are stored for 15 years.
Alfresco platform has provided a more organized, efficient way to run the business, and our users are very happy with the new opportunities they have to collaborate.
— Clelia Baldo, Technical Director at University of Naples Federico II
The solution
The new ECM platform needed to be open and flexible enough to integrate with UNINA’s existing Oracle system architecture and policies. After evaluating several solutions, the university chose Alfresco platform based on its open architecture, scalability, overall quality and affordability.
UNINA developed an application called eDocumento in Alfresco platform for the management of its records and user profiles and to serve as a content repository. The application also provides UNINA with version control, file format management and multiple workflows. Though existing paper documents were not scanned into the platform, all newly created documents moving forward will be digital, Baldo said.
In the Alfresco platform, UNINA’s documents are digital and easy to index and search, enabling employees to share and collaborate, and all certified updates are automatic. The university’s invoices are also managed through a workflow in Alfresco platform. Metadata is collected on all documents and is shared with the back office to enable easy indexing, search functionality and collaboration between departments.
The results
The university is taking a phased approach to gradually introduce this new digital concept and platform to its employees and student body. Over 3,000 UNINA employees are already using the Alfresco platform for document and records management.
In the first few months after implementing the solution, integration and interoperability between UNINA’s legacy systems has improved, as well as document sharing, collaboration between users and overall productivity.
The next step for UNINA is to train even more back-office users on the new platform. The university continues to increase the platform’s features and functionality, as well as add new users, with an ultimate goal of managing the entire life cycle of UNINA’s documents in Alfresco platform.
“Alfresco platform has provided us with a more organized, efficient way to run the business, and our users are very happy with the new opportunities they have to collaborate,” said Baldo.