The Danish Environmental Protection Agency
What should an organisation do if its valuable data is trapped in an outdated IT system that costs a fortune in licences? If you ask the Environmental Protection Agency, the answer is quite simple: You invest in Long-term Archive (LTA).
A new, simple, and affordable solution
Legislation, decisions, exemption applications and document inspections. These are just some of the many reasons why the Danish Environmental Protection Agency protects their data. Because it is important to be able to find the necessary information about a given case when a decision has to be made - even if some of the information is 10 years old.
That is precisely why the Danish Environmental Protection Agency has stored databases from several decades in the legacy IT system Captia. But that solution was neither user-friendly nor price-friendly.
"We had a total of 20 databases in the Danish Environmental Protection Agency, which you couldn't search across. This made it both difficult to find the right data, and it was hugely expensive to operate", says Bente Nielsen, who is IT manager for Digitization in the Danish Environmental Protection Agency.
And precisely the complex structure of the data meant that a large workload was placed on Bente Nielsen's team. When the contract for Captia expired, it was therefore quickly decided to find another solution that was both better and cheaper.
Here the choice fell on LTA.
"It was important to us that our new system made it extremely simple to search across databases and at the same time ensure that we were GDPR-compliant. And precisely these functions Formpipe could deliver at a reasonable price", says Bente Nielsen.
“There was nothing that could not be solved”
Since LTA can be tailored and adapted to the individual company, it was important for Ernst Kier, Sales Manager at Formpipe, to start the collaboration with an in-depth needs analysis.
"It is important for us to ensure that the customer's needs are met in their new software. That is why we hold both a business workshop and a technical workshop, so that we e.g. can tailor the customer's view, adjust the structure and hierarchy of the data and adjust the search functions", explains Ernst Kier.
And it was, among other things, to one of these workshops, that it quickly became clear how valuable it is that there are strong resources in both camps - both with the customer and with the supplier.
"We always help our customers reach their goals safely and securely - regardless of how many or how few internal resources they have. In this case, the Danish Environmental Protection Agency had a super-skilled employee who could extract data from Captia in extremely good quality and in the structure that formed the basis for the good reference work they have today. This of course made the process a lot more efficient", says Ernst Kier.
And Bente Nielsen adds:
"When a challenge arose, my technical resource and Formpipe's skilled technical resources went into the 'laboratory' together, and they always came out with a solution. There was simply nothing that could not be solved. So it has been absolutely crucial to have the right team".
"Superusers" ensured an easy onboarding
When the data had been transferred, it was now time to onboard the Danish Environmental Protection Agency's users in LTA. And here was a very clear plan:
"Once all the data had been transferred, we trained key people from various departments in the Danish Environmental Protection Agency to become "super users". Since the system is so easy to use, this model is actually enough to ensure that users in the Danish Environmental Protection Agency can quickly find help internally.
And there are indications that it works, because there has not been a need for our support once - although of course we are always ready to help, should the need arise in the future", says Ernst Kier.
And Ernst Kier is not the only one who hasn't heard anything.Because when Bente Nielsen is asked what the feedback from users in the Danish Environmental Protection Agency has been, she answers this:
“I haven't heard anything! And that is a good thing! Because this means that our many users have quickly adopted the system and can easily get help from the "super users". And then I also experience that a large workload has been taken from my team, who can now concentrate on other tasks", elaborates Bente Nielsen.
If you ask Bente if she could think of using LTA for other databases, the answer is simple:
“I already did that! We have taken over some archives from a municipality and from a department, and both archives must be stored as databases in LTA, so that everything is gathered in one place", she concludes.
Contact us
Find out how LTA can help your organization by contacting:
Per Søndergaard,
Business Development Manager
Tel: +45 72 20 81 51
Mail: per.soendergaard@formpipe.com
What are our other LTA customers saying?
Stockholm Region Archive
When a new e-archive solution was needed, Regionarkivet Stocholmhad no desire to continue working with their proprietary solution. Instead, a choice was made to invest in Long-Term Archive.
Sundsvalls Municipality
Sundsvall Municipality's digitization efforts include Formpipe's product, Long-Term Archive. The goal is to increase value for the citizens. Read more here.