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University of Texas at Austin logoUniversity of Texas at Austin

University brings clarity, speed and usability to thousands of documents with OpenText™ Documentum™ D2

University of Texas at Austin logo

About University of Texas at Austin

University of Texas at Austin was founded in 1883 and enrolls more than 52,000 students annually across 12,400 courses. The campus spreads over 431 acres, with 17 libraries, the McDonald Observatory, the Blausen Medical Collection and more.

Students discussing around a laptop
  • Students:
    52,000
  • Courses offered:
    12,400
  • Founded:
    1883

Summary

Challenges

  • Paper records were costly to store and difficult to access.
  • Siloed document repositories across multiple departments introduced security, compliance and interoperability challenges.

Solution

  • Developed templates and best practices for rollout of new content management system.
  • Replaced legacy solutions with the new system.
  • Migrated existing folder structures and security policies.

Results

  • Streamlined document management
  • Shrank operational costs
  • Boosted administrative productivity by about 38%

Challenges

  • Siloed document repositories across multiple departments introduced security, compliance and interoperability challenges
  • Paper records were costly to store and difficult to access

From modest beginnings in 1883, the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) now runs more than 12,400 courses for over 52,000 students. The main campus extends for 431 acres with 17 libraries and seven museums, including the McDonald Observatory and the Blausen Medical Library, which has the world’s largest digital library of 3D medical images and animations.

Across the University, departments had disparate methods for managing content. The University retained paper records dating back many years in large storage warehouses, and current documents filled cabinets in offices. Administrative staff devoted considerable time to finding and retrieving documents.

Some departmental teams had implemented their own digital document management systems, while others relied on digital copies held on shared drives or public cloud services. However, maintaining effective security and compliance oversight of these multiple, isolated systems presented significant challenges.

Wesley Shinault, lead software engineer at University of Texas at Austin, said, “Our previous approach to information management would present risks to the University if we could not locate necessary documents, as well as the cost of real estate across the campus, wasted personnel time and the compliance risk of using multiple online services. With a large student population, and the teaching and administrative staff, any solution would have to be scalable, very reliable, easy to use and cost-effective.”

Students studying in library

Out of an eight-hour day, OpenText Documentum D2 helps us to give staff three hours back to work on value-added activities—representing about 38% improvement in productivity.

Wesley Shinault
Lead Software Engineer, University of Texas at Austin

Solution

UT Austin selected OpenText™ Documentum™ D2 as its campus-wide document management solution, with enterprise licenses available to all departments and colleges.

Products deployed

Developing templates and best practices

UT Austin has developed effective templates and best practices to facilitate the continued rollout of Documentum D2 and support many use cases, including human resources, health and safety and student identity cards. This approach has been particularly effective for departments using legacy document management solutions.

“For many departments, OpenText Documentum D2 was a lifeline,” said Shinault. “With our enterprise license, the departments are able to deploy Documentum D2 at no additional cost, enabling them to terminate some expensive licensing agreements and use our templates and skillsets to design highly effective solutions very rapidly.”

Replacing legacy platforms

Compared with the older solutions used in the University, and with the online file stores, Documentum D2 offers greater metadata capability and capacity. With the ability to carefully categorize documents, in some cases with several hundred metadata tags, the solution transforms searchability and information availability.

For example, the Blausen Medical Library and the Department of Engineering collaborated to bring the entire 3D image set into Documentum D2.

“We were provided with spreadsheets containing metadata as well as all the medical images and documents,” explained Shinault. “Using the Documentum D2 configuration interface, we validated data integrity and matched metadata and object identifiers to the documents—a fast, seamless process. By listening closely to the user requests, we learned how to streamline our process, communicate clearly and help our users move to the Documentum D2 solution easily.”

The University completed a similar project for the McDonald Observatory. For more than 30 years, the Observatory operated its own document repository. Documents included schematics for the buildings, diagrams of telescopes, calendars, employee information and more, as well as proprietary filetypes for specific research applications.

“The McDonald Observatory team asked us to create a solution that was as familiar as possible, such as the folder structure with granular permissions sets across multiple entities within the department,” said Shinault. “Using the Documentum D2 configuration tool, we were able to replicate that look and feel and offer an object model that supports the rich metadata they need to be able to classify things.”

Migrating folder structures and security policies

Over a single weekend, the University team migrated the data and built the new repository for the Observatory—complete with folder structures and security policies.

Shinault added, “The source repository was unable to provide filenames, but we developed an API that replicated the entire structure during the ingestion process."

“Moving to Documentum D2 enabled the Observatory to sunset their old platform and cut license costs. They love that it utilizes single sign-on, and being able to move between apps seamlessly really speeds up their workflow. Thanks to the new solution, they can now search for file metadata in a much more granular way.”

Using OpenText Documentum D2 allows every department to focus on more important work, and we’re looking forward to extending the platform to more user groups across the University.

Wesley Shinault
Lead Software Engineer, University of Texas at Austin

Results

With Documentum D2, UT Austin is transforming administrative staff productivity, and providing students and faculty with easier access to information—from human medicine to the stars.

Streamlined document management

As more University departments make the move to Documentum D2, the organization is solving its key document management challenges.

For example, the previous file stores tended to rely on basic folder structures and limited metadata, making it difficult for users to search for information. By contrast, Documentum D2 offers powerful search capabilities based on comprehensive metadata, offering fast, easy and reliable retrieval and storage. In addition, Documentum D2 ensures user and security management, linked to the University’s Microsoft Active Directory service, helping to reduce the risk of unauthorized access.

Shrank operational costs

A champion of Documentum D2, the University’s IT Services department fully supports the benefits of standardization and the move to a paperless environment.

“Gradually, we are increasing the number of departments that no longer deal with boxes and boxes of paper, freeing up space within facilities and clearing out warehouses and offices,” reported Shinault. “With Documentum D2, all our documents are tagged and managed for retention and disposal, helping the University reduce its dependence on paper.”

Boosted administrative productivity by about 38%

Committed to continuous innovation, UT Austin is always looking for ways to enhance its approach to document management. Working with a third-party automation partner, the University has developed an intelligent capture solution that feeds into Documentum D2, revolutionizing the way administrative personnel manage document workflows. The IT team is also exploring the opportunities to move its document storage to the cloud, helping to reduce on-premises infrastructure costs.

“For staff, we’ve eliminated the need to type things in by hand or search for things in cloud file shares,” concluded Shinault. “Out of an eight-hour day, OpenText Documentum D2 helps us give staff three hours back to work on value-added activities—representing about 38% improvement in productivity. Using OpenText Documentum D2 allows every department to focus on more important work, and we’re looking forward to extending the platform to more user groups across the University.”

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