The city’s records management system is getting with the times.
A report in February determined the city should move from SIRE to Microsoft 365 SharePoint for its electronic management.
That report and review were made possible thanks to a $150,000 grant and, more recently, the city received a further $476,450 from the province to implement the new system — 65 per cent of the overall cost. The city will pick up the rest.
“Technology has changed significantly since the city’s current electronic management system, SIRE, was implemented in 2007. The SIRE system does not have features that are common in modern computer systems,” said Liz Reid, manager of information technology.
Having the modern system in place “will ensure the right information is available at the right time, improve records retrieval time, support customer service improvements, improve corporate knowledge transfer and retention, and support moving to a less paper office, supporting the environment,” she said.
It will allow for the filing of information “as it is created and updated rather than the current process, which requires a separate step to upload documents into another system.”
The city has issued a request for proposals to implement the system. That work is expected to begin by the end of the year and implementation must be completed by September 2022.
Asked why the cost to do so is high, Reid said, “Introducing a new electronic content management system touches on every aspect of the organization and includes the migration of all electronic records to Microsoft SharePoint, which requires significant resources and training.”
City CAO Gayle Jackson thanked the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing for the grants.
“As a professional, progressive city, Orillia strives to leverage technology to better operate the city and we look forward to implementing our new electronic content management system that will redefine the city’s records management and file saving processes,” she said.
