Helping work flow in Anchorage

Anchorage, the largest city in Alaska with 260,000 residents, has implemented a content management system to help eliminate delays in handling municipal information.

Web-based document management and workflow capabilities in the solution from Stellent allow Anchorage to route and review important government information submitted to its assembly for final approval. Prior to deploying the system, legislators spent hours searching for materials to support the primary documents they needed to approve. A customized workflow function has removed bottlenecks in that process.

"Our new workflows are extremely important to many of the municipality's departments, particularly finance, legal and planning, which often deal with numerous and complex supporting documents," says Terry Daniels, CTO for the municipality. "By automating our information processes, the system has helped us eliminate the sharing of obsolete versions of content, as well as reduced other bottlenecks, such as files awaiting approval from an employee on vacation. This streamlining has led to reduced printing and labor costs and increased productivity, as all information is now exchanged electronically and instantaneously."

Anchorage graphically designs its workflows using Stellent's Visio development interface. After completion, the content and documents created for the workflow are saved in the system in their native formats, enabling content authors to easily access them—using a Web browser—for viewing, modification or approval. The workflows help the city—which previously misplaced 10% of its assembly documents annually—eliminate lost documents, according to a recent press release from Stellent.

Anchorage has completed the first phase of its Stellent Universal Content Management implementation, which ultimately will link all of its Web sites, departments and agencies. And in the future, Anchorage intends to use the solution to publish assembly-approved information to an intranet, extranet and public Web site.