Vicroads - Websphere Portal Reference

IBM Australia

A New Information Highway for VicRoads

About VicRoads VicRoads strives to deliver social, economic and environmental benefits to communities throughout Victoria by managing the Victorian road network and its use as an integral part of the overall transport system. Responsible for maintaining and improving the condition and performance of Victoria’s 22,320 km of arterial roads and 5095 bridges and major culverts, VicRoads also develops road safety programs, registers vehicles and licenses drivers. Approximately 2,400 staff work

Overview

at VicRoads in partnership with other government agencies, local

The Challenge

government and the private sector to

With 2,400 staff working across more than 40 offices and works depots

provide cost effective products and

throughout metropolitan Melbourne and country Victoria, VicRoads needed a more effective way of communicating a single consistent and timely

services to the community.

message to all staff regardless of location. It also needed a way to allow staff to efficiently and effectively locate the information and resources needed for their jobs. The Solution With IBM Business Partner MicroHelp, VicRoads implemented IBM WebSphere Portal Server 5.0 and IBM WorkPlace Web Content Manager to deliver a new Corporate Intranet capable of disseminating corporate communications across the enterprise in a consistent and timely manner, regardless of location – Head Office or a remote country Works Depot. The Benefits The implementation dramatically improved the effectiveness of communication across the enterprise, corporate cohesiveness and created better awareness by all staff of the organisation’s business activities, business agendas and Quality systems. This assists Vic Roads to reduce costs, increase productivity and better relate to customers, partners and suppliers.

“We’ve achieved the capability to hit everybody in the organisation at once with a consistent corporate message and in doing so met the objective of a single intranet.” — John McNally, CIO

Streamlining Enterprise Communications

A New Platform for Collaboration

The new IBM WebSphere Portal

VicRoads worked with MicroHelp, an

The portal platform decision was

Server environment now integrates

IBM Business Partner† to implement

critical for VicRoads in that the

with the organisation’s significant

IBM WebSphere Portal Server and

technology needed to incorporate

IBM Lotus content & collaboration

IBM Lotus Workplace Web Content

a clear roadmap for the future of

platform including IBM Lotus Notes®,

Management to deliver the new

the current Collaboration platform

Sametime® and QuickPlace®, which

enterprise intranet. The central focus

including more than 1900 Notes-

has been an integral part of the

of the new intranet was around a

based applications and databases.

organisation’s IT infrastructure for more

multi-tiered communication model where each business area receives

With VicRoads keen to establish a

than 13 years.

leadership position by its utilisation

By implementing IBM WebSphere

of the new major version releases of

Portal Server, VicRoads has now

IBM WebSphere Portal Server 5 and

established its future platform for

ILWWCM, a commitment was made

delivering a dynamic workplace

with its chosen provider MicroHelp

to staff across the enterprise. Key

to jointly tackle the challenges that

features of the new VicRoads intranet

Additional portlets including Staff

would certainly arise with this major

include the ability to serve targeted

Directory and Business Surveys,

technology platform implementation.

and specific content to staff, based

news and content that transparently blends the key corporate messages and localised business area communiqués into a single interface for employees.

ensures that the VicRoads executive is now able to ‘keep its finger on the pulse’ in relation to staff sentiment towards various business and organisational initiatives, ensuring outcomes from programs and investments are maximised for the benefit of the organisation and its staff.

Delivered within the constraints of an aggressive business timetable and budget, the VicRoads implementation of IBM WebSphere Portal Server v5 was the first in Australia. Working with a number of technologies which were new to the organisation, VicRoads relied heavily on MicroHelp’s determination and commitment to achieving VicRoads’ desired outcomes and on its strong partnering relationship with IBM.

on their respective business unit and workgroup within the organisation.

Future Plans

VicRoads will continue using IBM

The portal will increasingly become

Lotus Notes to provide workflow

VicRoads’ primary user interface

capability for major business

as it delivers an expanding number

applications while static content will

of business tools and applications.

be progressively migrated to the new

A Service Oriented Architecture

content management environment

approach will allow Vic Roads to

which provides a much stronger

progressively connect and grant

capability for locating, sharing and

access to mainframe applications,

reusing information across the

content and document management

organisation.

tools through a unified interface.

For VicRoads, IBM WebSphere Portal Server is the first step in a journey towards achieving a more consolidated, centralised computing model that provides a richer and more useable set of tools to all staff regardless of their work location.

“While the implementation came with some pain as we all worked through the newness of the technology employed, we now have a contemporary technology solution and architecture to build on as we extend the intranet as our entry point to all things that matter for staff to do their job.” — John McNally, CIO

For more information Please call 132 462 in Australia or 0800 801 800 in New Zealand. © 2006 IBM Australia Limited ABN 79 000 024 733 All Rights Reserved IBM Australia 55 Coonara Avenue West Pennant Hills NSW 2125 Printed in Australia 01/06 IBM, the IBM logo, WebSphere, Workplace, Notes, Sametime and QuickPlace are trademarks or registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both. Other company, product and services marks may be trademarks or services marks of others. References in this publication to IBM products and services do not imply that IBM intends to make them available in all countries in which IBM operates. † Business Partner’ is used informally and does not imply a legal partnership. GL_7217