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Customer stories

Te Puni KōsskiriTe Puni Kōkiri

Government organization uses the OpenText™ Extended ECM cloud platform to manage cultural and administrative records

Te Puni Kōsskiri

About Te Puni Kōkiri

In New Zealand, Te Puni Kōkiri is the government's principal policy advisor on Māori wellbeing and development. The organization provides independent advice to the Minister and Associate Minister for Māori Development and the Minister for Whānau Ora.
About Te Puni Kōkiri
  • Founded:
    1992
  • Headquarters:
    Wellington, New Zealand
  • Locations:
    17 offices

Summary

Challenges

  • Te Puni Kōkiri manages thousands of digital records in line with stringent legal requirements.
  • The previous on-premises records management infrastructure was time-consuming and costly to manage.
  • Limited ability to restore data quickly in the event of a disaster recovery scenario.

Solution

  • Migrating records to the OpenText Cloud with zero disruption to business users.
  • Fully managed solution eliminating the need for manual maintenance tasks.

Results

  • Redirected 1.5 FTEs to value-added activities
  • Decommissioned infrastructure, shrinking CO2 footprint
  • Lifted records management efficiency

Challenges

  • Thousands of digital records to manage in accordance with stringent legal requirements
  • On-premises IT infrastructure for records management was time-consuming and costly to manage
  • Limited ability to restore data quickly in the event of a disaster recovery scenario

Te Puni Kōkiri is the government of New Zealand’s principal policy advisor on Māori wellbeing and development. Established in its current form in 1992, the organization engages with Māori communities across the country, and represents their interests to government ministers.

Stuart Gregory, chief information officer at Te Puni Kōkiri, said, “From an operational perspective, we work where the Māori population is. We have 17 regional offices across the country. Our face-to-face engagement with these communities directly informs the advice we provide to the government.”

Information management is a key enabler of Te Puni Kōkiri’s mission. As well as supporting back-office activities such as human resources and administration, employees rely on the organization’s content management platform to save notes from meetings with Māori communities, draft policy recommendations, and more.

Gregory continued, “We have a vast holding of records, from ordinary administrative materials to priceless historical documents. In Māori culture, there is a strong tradition that knowing the past gives us strength in the present. As a result, it is crucial for Te Puni Kōkiri to be a trusted custodian of records.”

Alongside its paper records, Te Puni Kōkiri manages a large volume of digital documents, which were previously stored in an on-premises data center near to Te Puni Kōkiri’s headquarters. 

“For almost a decade, OpenText Extended ECM has been Te Puni Kōkiri’s system of record for anything covered by our information management standards,” explained Gregory. “The OpenText solution plays a vital role in meeting legal requirements such as the Public Records Act 2005 and Official Information Act 1982, which set out how we must handle information and make it available to the public on request. Every day, around 350 of our 450 employees use the solution to drive their work.”

Te Puni Kōkiri is continually looking for ways to enhance its services. As part of a long-term information management transformation, the organization looked for a way to bring its enterprise content management (ECM) capabilities to the cloud.

“We saw that moving to cloud would bring a range of benefits,” said Gregory. “As well as mitigating the risk of unplanned downtime for ECM capabilities because of a data center outage, the cloud would allow us to decommission our legacy infrastructure—saving costs, cutting power consumption, and shrinking our carbon footprint. In addition, we could free our IT team from time-consuming management activities, enabling them to focus on the transformation effort.”

“In OpenText, we have a partner with vast capability, and we’re looking forward to working together to plan what’s next.”

Stuart Gregory
Chief Information Officer, Te Puni Kōkiri

Solution

As the next step on its information management journey, Te Puni Kōkiri engaged OpenText to move its on-premises OpenText Extended ECM solution to the cloud—seamlessly, securely, and with no disruption for business users.

Products deployed:

Services provided:

Protecting public records

For Te Puni Kōkiri, records are considered “taonga”—the word for “treasures” in the Māori language. As a result, the organization wanted to work with a partner with the technology and experience to support its ECM requirements.

“The information we hold in OpenText Extended ECM includes important decision-making and strategy documents that guide our policy research,” commented Gregory. “For example, our policy team regularly consults documents in OpenText Extended ECM to make sure that the advice we are giving to ministers and the cabinet is sound. This information is mission critical for Te Puni Kōkiri, so data loss during the migration was simply not an option.”

After evaluating the advantages of moving its records to the OpenText Cloud, Te Puni Kōkiri engaged OpenText Professional Services to build its migration plan.

Moving smoothly to the cloud

Working closely with OpenText Professional Services, Te Puni Kōkiri gradually migrated test environments to the new platform to identify and resolve potential issues. After a comprehensive testing process, the organization successfully moved its entire OpenText Extended ECM production environment to the OpenText Cloud.

“The OpenText Professional Services team did an exceptional job—they understood the importance of this project for Te Puni Kōkiri, and went out of their way to build our trust and confidence,” recalled Gregory. “The OpenText team did thorough testing so we could see our content was safe and secure in the cloud. In the end, the migration was completed without a hitch. OpenText performed the work over a weekend, and the new solution was ready as soon as our teams logged on the following Monday morning.”

By configuring the new cloud solution to use the familiar user interface of its previous on-premises deployment, Te Puni Kōkiri eliminated the need for training and change management during the transition to cloud.

“By default, all our employees get the Classic View interface that they are used to,” explained Gregory. “However, our people also have the option of switching to the latest Smart View experience if they choose to. We greatly appreciate this level of flexibility, because it allows us to take advantage of the latest capabilities of OpenText Extended ECM at our own pace.”

Gregory added, “We enjoy an excellent relationship with OpenText. Every month, the OpenText team meets with us to make sure our solution is running smoothly, and share news about upcoming features and capabilities.”

Disaster recovery and restoration

Te Puni Kōkiri now feels prepared for any situation. “We wanted to move to a future-ready cloud platform, managed by a trusted partner. By leveraging the OpenText Cloud, we dramatically strengthened our disaster recovery capabilities while significantly reducing our IT management requirements,” said Gregory.

“The OpenText Professional Services team did an exceptional job—they understood the importance of this project for Te Puni Kōkiri, and went out of their way to build our trust and confidence.”

Stuart Gregory
Chief Information Officer, Te Puni Kōkiri

Results

Today, Te Puni Kōkiri stores vital records in OpenText™ Extended ECM, delivered as a managed service in the OpenText Cloud—ensuring public records are available 24/7.

Redirected 1.5 FTEs to value-added activities

By moving from an on-premises platform to the cloud, Te Puni Kōkiri has significantly reduced the time and resources associated with information management tasks. OpenText Cloud Support Services now manages and maintains the solution, freeing Te Puni Kōkiri to focus on its core mission.

“By moving to OpenText Extended ECM in the cloud, we can reassign 1.5 full-time equivalents in IT to value-added activities instead of repetitive system-level management tasks,” said Gregory. “We have a lean IT team, and the efficiencies we have unlocked with OpenText Cloud Support Services will help us to focus on our ongoing information management transformation.”

Decommissioned infrastructure, shrinking CO2 footprint

Decommissioning the organization’s on-premises data center will make an important contribution to Te Puni Kōkiri’s environment, social and governance (ESG) commitments.

Gregory commented, “Because we’re part of the government of New Zealand, we have a commitment to reduce our carbon emissions by 2025. Moving to the OpenText Cloud will allow us to shut down our on-premises data center, which will help to shrink our carbon footprint. By moving records management to the cloud, we are supporting many aspects of our ESG commitments.”

Lifted records management efficiency

While its journey with OpenText Extended ECM in the cloud is just beginning, Te Puni Kōkiri is already planning for the future. The organization wants to work with OpenText to improve its approach to metadata management, making it easier for employees to find records. Te Puni Kōkiri will also look to enable advanced information management capabilities such as automated governance, retention, and disposal policies to streamline its archiving and records management process.

“As we increase our use of Microsoft 365, we’re looking to take advantage of OpenText™ Extended ECM for Microsoft® Office 365™,” concluded Gregory. “In OpenText, we have a partner with vast capability, and we’re looking forward to working together to plan what’s next.”

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