State and federal governments in Switzerland are aggressively pursuing IT initiatives powered by open source software as a flexible and cost-effective alternative to proprietary software. This was also the direction taken by the state of Vaud, with a population of 657’000 one of the larger cantons in Switzerland, in its search for an open source, eGovernment solution to provide access and management of millions of electronic documents. A key requirement was a system flexible enough to support all branches of state government and integrate with the legacy applications used by individual departments. Another key requirement was to have a system without a high license cost (like proprietary softwares), which favored an Open Source solution.

After an extensive market study conducted by experts within the IT department, the state's CIO, Jean-Claude Ghaleb, selected the Alfresco open source enterprise content management system and Optaros was chosen after a process of request for proposals to do the implementation based on its broad experience with Alfresco and its strong presence in Switzerland. Optaros built an integrated content management solution based on reusable services that can be readily adapted for the needs of different eGovernment initiatives. The state of Vaud’s IT department can now offer a scalable and flexible platform to the departments and agencies that are its internal clients.

The implemented solution incorporates extensive search capabilities, including phonetic search, category navigation and search, OR/AND/NOT search functions, and a tree view to assist with navigation. The entire solution can be accessed directly from the applications used by different government departments.

“Open Source is not the solution, but there is no solution without Open Source” says Trong-Thanh Do, CTO at state of Vaud. ”We now have a powerful enterprise content management platform that can be reused and extended for different departments.”. Optaros Assembly Methodology (OptAM) is the right approach for Open Source solution implementation, and Optaros has delivered expertly, on time within the aggressive schedule”, adds Monique Losey, Senior Project Manager at state of Vaud.

One of the most valuable features is the ability to create new services that generalize requests from individual users or groups to address similar challenges faced by other departments. This was the origin of the phonetic search capability described above. The service was requested by users as an extension to Alfresco ECM, and is now available as an integral part of the solution. This ability to extend a solution to meet emerging needs is one of the key advantages of open source software.

The initial rollout supports the state’s tax department, providing 750 users with integrated document management and searching tools from within their current Automated Tax Filing application. The whole department documentation with its extensive legal library is stored in the 100 GB system, which is expected to grow as additional documents are progressively integrated and as users come online. Implementation is underway for a second department, supporting an additional 1300 users accessing 300GB of documents from the beginning (including authorized users from other departments). State of Vaud is also planning to use Alfresco to publish official documents through its internet web site by the end of this year. Rollout for a third department is in the planning stages, and expected in late 2007 or early 2008. Ultimately, the state of Vaud aims to open the platform for citizen access providing easy-to-use Internet based services.

“The implemented solution provides the state of Vaud with a cost-effective platform for document management that interoperates with current applications and can be adapted as needed for different departments. The solution also meets the enterprise-class requirements of high availability, scalability, and security that government operations demand. These are some of the reasons why governments across Europe and many other countries are turning to open source solutions”, says Frédéric Weill, Managing Director Europe of Optaros.

“The Optaros e-Government solution will be widely integrated across state departments and is a key step in our eGovernment strategy,” adds Marie-Noelle Baechler, Head of Transversal Solutions. “The State of Vaud also strongly encourages inter-state partnerships that enhance the sharing of infrastructure. The exchange of information and experience between departments is strongly encouraged, as long as it respects legal constraints. As part of this effort, we plan to make the platform available to other state organizations in Switzerland as well as at the federal level.”