Gosford City Council in NSW is one of the first local government sites to gain access to a major new release of the TechnologyOne Enterprise Content Management (ECM) platform.

The Series 4 release of TechnologyOne ECM, in use at over 180 sites in Australia and New Zealand, is being provided to a dozen early adopter sites in March and April, before its expected rollout in May.

It will provide enhanced integration with Microsoft Office and is based on the same .Net architecture that is behind TechnologyOne's range of enterprise applications for ERP, financials, HR and asset management. All are accessed by the same CI interface.

Geoff Moore, General Manager - Enterprise Content Management at TechnologyOne, said," Our key goal with the ECM product is to make the interface invisible to the user. They can be working in Office, doing email or working in TechnologyOne Financials, and all the while we are storing documents, applying retention schedule and ensuring access is regulated.

"TechnologyOne ECM is providing a compliance layer without creating demand on the user."

The TechnologyOne ECM can now be browsed from within applications such as Outlook, making it a one-step process to drag and drop email into the repository. Users browsing the ECM repository from within Outlook will see all types of document format, not just email.

As a “behind the scenes” ECM solution, users will not need to log in to use it. Under development for the past 12 months, TechnologyOne ECM will be provided as a standalone product and also embedded within solutions that include other TechnologyOne products.

The new platform will provide a range of new and improved functionality, including powerful grids for sorting, grouping, with column customisation, the ability to move between TechnologyOne product workplaces, and easy to use menus. The solution will also feature simplified installation, improved email, desktop and MS Office integration, and extended search capabilities.

TechnologyOne will shortly release a White Paper outlining potential integration points between TechnologyOne ECM and Microsoft SharePoint.

Over the past 12 months, in tandem with the development of the Series 4 ECM suite, TechnologyOne has moved to focus on delivering integrated enterprise solutions for its seven vertical markets: Health and Community Services, Financial Services, Utilities, Local Government, Government (Central, Federal and State), Education and Managed Services.