Like many local authorities, Donegal County Council's Planning department receives hundreds of planning applications each year, with associated documentation running to thousands of pages. Without an electronic means of capturing the documents and centralising information for online viewing by staff and the public, files were at risk of being lost or unavailable when needed, and customers' office visits to view paperwork in person consumed too much staff time.

"We had a totally paper-based system before SoftCo," recalled Sean Dunnion, Project Leader, Information Systems, Donegal County Council. "Whoever had a file was the only person who could access information – other staff or members or the public just had to wait. It was a big step forward for us when SoftCo helped us make information available to everyone."

In 2009 Donegal upgraded to SoftCo R8, the next generation SoftCo Business Process Automation platform that improves the resilience, availability and compliance of Donegal's archived documents, with a move away from optical storage to magnetic, Content Addressable Storage (CAS).

SoftCo R8 delivers a total solution for Donegal County Council

• Seamless capture ensures universal information access: Planning staff use SoftCo-supplied hardware to scan all material, including large-format drawings and maps, into a single archive that supports staff and public queries about planning applications. With one click, staff can also add any electronic documents to the SoftCo R8 archive; so all pertinent documents reside in a single data store.
• Web access brings services closer to people: SoftCo R8 integrates smoothly with ePlan, the public web access into Donegal County Council's planning administration system. "One of our key strategies is to bring our services closer to the customer – that's the primary reason why planning was decentralised to five regional offices a few years ago," said Sean. "We really needed a solution like SoftCo R8 to allow us have all documents online at all times. No matter where our staff or customers are, they can access the information they need."
• A significant drop in calls and visits: Online access to planning documentation is seamless, and therefore, in-person visits and phone calls from customers have dropped dramatically, allowing the Council to deploy its limited staff resources to best effect.
• SoftCo R8 delivers faster information access and improved business continuity: With SoftCo R8, Sean says the move away from optical storage on discs to a fully software-based magnetic archive has delivered multiple benefits. "Data retrieval is noticeably faster, and also our business continuity options and security of data are much improved by moving to compliant software-based data storage in R8," commented Sean.
• A winning solution, across the country and across Europe: SoftCo R8's success in Planning has encouraged Donegal County Council to extend its use to the Housing and Finance departments, and additional deployments are also being considered. The Donegal Online Planning System (DOPS) has picked up multiple national awards for its R8-powered processes; it has also been recognised by the European Union as an eGovernment best practice example under the Interreg IVA PIKE Project. This best practice has been adopted and adapted by a number of public administrations across Europe.

The choice of SoftCo as its partner a decade ago has proved to be the right move for Donegal County Council. "We have a very good working relationship with SoftCo – they're very professional and detailed in their approach, and they have the expertise to deliver," said Sean. "The R8 rollout was also very smooth. You can't have a major upgrade without a bit of disruption, but SoftCo helped us limit that; the project was well planned, hiccups were minimised, and SoftCo was very cooperative in working after hours."

Looking forward, Sean says he sees real additional potential for the solution across the Council.

"We see R8 as one of our key software solutions, and while we haven't had the resources to roll it out any further, we'd be very keen to do so if other departments approached us," he commented. "Applications like SoftCo's, especially if they have a Web interface for customers, can make big savings for public sector organisations that have reduced resources. We are great advocates of this system."