Overview and Scrutiny Management Committee Briefing Note

Transcription

1 AGENDA ITEM NO. 7 Overview and Scrutiny Management Committee Briefing Note Update on Paperless Meeting Pilot July 2012 The Paperless Meetings pilot has now concluded. A report (see attached file) was discussed with the Strategic Leadership team on the 12 th June Summary of Pilot Findings Devices are easy to use once users are familiarised There is less paper to carry The devices enable mobile working There is better access to information in meetings Lots of potential but needs to be enabled for personalised working Reliance on Wi Fi alone was difficult, prefer 3G Some users have been able to reduce / stop using Blackberries by using their own phone (not all users would want to do this) Need a consistent approach to preparing, organising and distributing documents Users would like more support on how to get the most out of the devices, particularly navigating documents and making notes Haven't got the best out of Alfresco document repository Not everyone is willing to use tablets Some users have reduced their use of a PC, but don't see tablets as a replacement The conclusion of the discussion was: 1. SLT agreed in principle that the service should now move to a wider operational phase 2. The original pilot group (SLT / Cabinet / OSM) would retain their devices 3. The project would go back to SLT with a proposal for a limited further deployment, which details how this will happen, including putting more robust training and support in place. 4. The proposal would outline the impact of this operational service in terms of cost and benefits. 5. The operational service will need to assess any information security risks and outline how these will be mitigated 6. The proposal will identify the extent of the future roll out, i.e. which teams should be included, e.g. DLT s.

2 7. Any other wider use is subject to strategic director sign off within an overall total limit we will set. 8. That any wide scale deployment of new devices is driven though Bristol Workplace as part of the programme, to ensure technology aligns with the target workplace environment. 9. There will be no further extension of users pending the report 10. A similar discussion with cabinet on any wider use for members is yet to be had. The project is aiming to submit the proposal to SLT by the end of July, by which point ICT should be in a position to roll the service out straight away. Luke Smith

3 APPENDIX A Paperless Meetings Pilot - Detailed Findings For reference, more detailed findings; does not need to be read as information is summarised in the presentation. Background The pilot group was made up of Cabinet, SLT, OSM as well as democratic services and support staff. The pilot distributed the following devices to the pilot group: ipads x 22 Samsung Galaxy Pads x 3 Blackberry Playbook x 1 ipad Costs: ipad (wi-fi + 3g, 16Gb): 410* Apps: 30 Accessories (stylus + anti-glare screen + case): 35 3g Connection ( 7.50 / month ): Support: Mobile Device Management 90 p/a 50 p/a 50 p/a Year one cost: 665 Ongoing cost: 190 p/a *3g version chosen for flexibility, Wi-Fi only is slightly cheaper. Have now been able to source ipad2 s for 270, reducing year one costs to 525. Android Galaxy Tab Costs: Samsung Galaxy Tab (Wi-Fi + 3g, 16Gb): 415* Apps: 10 Accessories (case): 15 3g Connection ( 7.50 / month ): 90 p/a Support**:? Mobile Device Management 50 p/a Year one cost: 580** Ongoing cost: 140** p/a *Cheaper Android devices are available depending on the needs of the user, from 100 upwards **Can t find companies to provide ongoing support / maintenance / training. 1

4 Benefits Financial Benefits (estimates based on 2011/12 council year and printing cost of 0.04 per page) Group No. of members No. of meetings Estimated annual printing cost Year 1 cost Year 2 cost Cabinet* , OSM* SLT SODB SLT Full council 54 *** 7 7,500** Support Staff All Groups * Some councillor's haven t participated in the pilot, this reduces the start up costs, but also reduces the savings that can be made through reduced printing. ** Actual cost is 15,000 but 50% is printing of public papers. *** Assuming Cabinet and OSM members are provided for already Most members of these groups will attend more meetings than these, as they sit on several committees / boards. Non Financial Benefits Access to online information during meetings can inform a discussion Enables mobile working Can improve accessibility, ie enlarging text Access to old papers via Alfresco or Savings in staff time preparing meeting papers, up to 4-5 hours a week Not having to carry bulky / heavy papers Reduction in time converting electronic notes to minutes of meetings Use of Alfresco can reduce storage requirements Other areas savings could be made Trade in a Blackberry Some of the pilot members have said that they would be willing to give up their Blackberry for an ipad for and use their personal phone. This would save 228 p/a. 2

5 Trade in home working kit Some of the councillors have said that they only use their home kit for responding to s and would be willing to give up their home working kit. This would prevent a replacement cost of 460 for a PC or laptop. Cheaper Android tablets There are cheaper tablets available, based on the Android operating system. There are fairly good devices available from 250 up. Also smaller 7 devices are cheaper. However the familiarisation with Android devices tends to take longer as the user interface isn t as intuitive. There are also issues finding enterprise maintenance and support arrangements. Wi-Fi only devices 3g ready tablets are more expensive than Wi-Fi only. For example the 16Gb ipad3 Wi-Fi only is 399, the 3g & Wi-Fi version is 499. However this does limit some of the functionality. Generally Wi-Fi coverage is increasing. Risks There may be a large number of requests for tablets from staff, who may not The devices are reasonably expensive and would be easier to misplace than a laptop The devices can hold lots of files in a single place and they ve not been set up with very strong security, however this can be improved if it is thought to be necessary. Without a confirmed MDM solution we don t currently have the means to remotely lock or wipe the devices Issues that arose during the pilot Wi-Fi Connectivity The councillor tablets were Wi-Fi only, and not all of them had Wi-Fi at home. This meant they were restricted to using them in the council house. Not all the councillors who had Wi-Fi at home could connect their tablets as the way they were configured made it difficult. This has largely been resolved but not in all cases. If we roll this out further we will need to be prepared to either provide 3g cards or home Wi-fi for all councillors. We also will need to review how we set up home Wi-Fi in terms of security. Recommendation: Review home working kit for councillor's and costs for standardising Wi-Fi provision. 3G Connectivity There were a couple of issues getting the 3G cards working for SLT, but these were resolved, however there will be an ongoing administration task to set these up for new users. For the pilot we set up pay monthly service with a 500mb data limit. Graham Sims was using his ipad in France and overrun his data limit so couldn t use his ipad. This was easily resolved, but for a while he was without use of the tablet. 3

6 Recommendation: For full implementation we should review which data plan we need to meet the needs of our users. Training and Support During the pilot there were distinct differences in user abilities and how long it took them to feel confident using the devices. Other users found it much easier to get up to speed. Some of this depended on their access to experienced / confident users. Quite a few users would like to have access to hands on-support for the devices. There appear to a variety of suppliers for ipad support and training. Options for Android training seem to be much more limited. Recommendation: Find a supplier that can provide support for the devices and familiarisation training for users. Develop on online support portal for ipad users. Preparation of Papers Using tablets for paperless meetings has changed the way papers need to be prepared. The users have requested that papers are sent as single PDF documents with bookmarks. This has meant that some of the support staff have had to pick up new skills and in one instance purchase Adobe Acrobat. Recommendation: Printing Review how papers have been distributed during the pilot, what has worked and what hasn't. Discuss with supplier to suggest improvements. Some of the pilot members did want to be able to print documents. Tablets require wireless printers so they were sending documents either to their desktop PC or to a PA for printing. It is possible to set up our corporate printers for wireless printing, at a cost, but may discourage paperless meetings. Recommendation: Investigate costs of providing wireless printing What device to support We have managed to find several support and training options for the ipad however there is a very little on offer for Android devices. This is probably a result of the way the market has developed and the continuing dominance of Apple for tablets, sales of the Blackberry Playbook have been poor and the Android market, though large, is fragmented among vendors and versions. This means that to support other devices ICT would need to work with a third party supplier to develop some kind of training or support. Recommendation Use third party suppliers to support the Apple ipad while this market continues to mature and while we develop our BYOD strategy. 4

7 Apps and Accounts The core set of Apps provided with the devices were sufficient to run the pilot, however the way the accounts were set up made it very difficult for users to download other Apps that could provide additional ways of working. Without volume licensing a better way to provide Apps is to set up users with individual accounts using their BCC address, and they can then download / purchase their own Apps as required. For BCC provided Apps, either look to set up a private store or gift Apps from a central BCC account. The Groupwise accounts have some deficiencies and will be obsolete when we move to MS Exchange, there are many apps that support exchange including the native ipad client. However there are issues if we allow devices to sync mail and calendars as this puts potentially restricted content on the users devices. Recommendation Set up individual user accounts for each device that allows the user to purchase their own Apps, and determine the process for distributing standard Apps to each account as required. Security and remote administration The devices don t currently have and Mobile Device Management Software on them. This means that if the device is stolen or misplaced there is no way to remotely lock, encrypt or wipe the device. For the pilot we have advised users not to access confidential files, however if this becomes a supported device then we need to be able to manage them. Recommendation Before a full roll out we need to decide on an appropriate mobile security package. 5

8 Appendix: Selection of Comments and results of the Pilot Survey Have you had problems connecting your tablet to the internet? (For accessing GroupWise etc) Can only get Wi-Fi at home on laptop as do not have Linksys password, no-one knows what this is. Can't connect with mobile connection and have to use Wi-Fi. Trying to work from home no access to Internet or GroupWise because of poor signal. On the train could not access 3G service. Have been Wi-Fi hot-spotting from a 3G phone. At home and in the Council House is fine. I tried to connect in the hotel at Conference found I needed the Apple User ID in order to download an App. I definitely need more training in this or better software installed. What I have not been able to resolve is downloading the bridge software to enable the Blackberry Playbook to link with my blackberry phone. Without this link it makes the Playbook not very helpful. Survey 1 (8 responses) Survey 2 (14 responses) Survey 3 (13 responses) Were you able to access the documents you needed before and during meetings? Mainly not knowing where they were. Alleviated by officers ing again before the meeting. Would be better if they were attached to the meeting in the calendar. 6

9 There was a problem in accessing documents via alfresco which downloads all the documents for a meeting as one file and makes it very difficult to switch between reports etc. Downloading reports from the councils website worked very well but off course some reports and committee papers are not available via this route. No. This occasionally happened but solely because of compatibility issues between Opera, Android and GroupWise Webaccess. GroupWise app was a nightmare. I do not rely on the internet during meetings I use the saved version on PDF Expert or Alfresco Need to sort out best way to bring forward documents. Survey 1 (8 responses) Survey 2 (14 responses) Survey 3 (13 responses) What difficulties, if any, did you have reading / using documents on your tablet? Problems with going back to earlier parts of a report. I still need training on bookmarking and finding and saving passages. Sometimes a document needed scrolling from left to right, sometimes from up to down, meaning that the full page was not always visible. I haven't got on with Alfresco so well... probably due to unpredictability of documents being placed there, rather than any technical issues. I have sight problems and find the explosion to bigger text a great advantage. Not all documents will expand and I have not worked out what will and what won't. No bridge software and the screen size of the PlayBook was far too small. The ipad I use is brilliant. Have you reduced your printing? Some documents not available for tablet. However, we still print agendas for meetings to avoid having to skip from one document to the next and back to the agenda between items. We also still print off 7

10 papers for smaller, one off meetings as this is less time consuming to do. Volume of meetings too great to do for every single one. Sometimes I wish to make notes on a document and I have not discovered how to do it electronically. I do think the experiment has many advantages. Easier to access & especially read documents on ipad compared to Blackberry. I have been slowly reducing the number of printed copies over some time, so the impact is not huge. Also Cllr Negus has not participated in the project so hard copies are still supplied to him. Survey 1 (8 responses) Survey 2 (14 responses) Survey 3 (13 responses) What behaviours have needed to change to run a paperless meeting effectively? For me I have had to change the way I highlight the important issues in a document there is a direct connection to the brain from writing which does not appear in typing! Also I have sometimes been the only member of a meeting to be using a tablet and this feels odd/a disadvantage. I have never attended a meeting where every member was using a tablet. Highlighting bits in reports that I intend to present is handy & saves making separate notes. Need to be confident about navigating around the "papers" on the ipad. Need to be able quickly make notes on the docs during meetings. I have had problems with long reports in referring back to pages previously read, and being able to cross reference them. Also trying to make verbal comments at a meeting had been more difficult as I cannot always immediately find the pages I want to refer to. When I had a paper copy I could put markers in to find what I wanted. It may be that this can be done on the tablet, but I do not know how to do this. Some thought and training beforehand. Not easy to move between agenda and papers. Changes eyeline and engagement. I need to open relevant documents in advance of meeting on tablet, so I can find them. 8

11 Reports need to be more concise, all pages need to be numbered. More training in how to flip between reports without losing one s place! Well bookmarked and bringing together reports into one set. I feel this should be done at source. Still receiving last minute documents from colleagues which is not ideal due to the processes of PAs loading docs onto ipads and ipad owners needing to read these papers in advance. Some documents are sent in batches (not all together) so it is time consuming for PAs to upload these onto ipads and ensure they are in the appropriate order for the meeting agenda. We have not used Alfresco at all seemed to be an extra step in the process that was not really necessary and added further confusion. Instead, sub-folders were created in GroupWise and PDF expert to access the documents. It is more difficult to flip backwards and forwards through a document when it is electronic. I find it easy to take to a variety of meetings and it is not as intrusive as a laptop. The key issue has been taking the time to familiarise myself with the ipad thus in effect eliminating the need for a paper version of documents. Still need to print agenda if chairing as difficult and slow to switch between docs. Have you used Alfresco to access documents? Horrible because it loads all reports for a meeting as one document and is therefore extremely difficult to interrogate. Not helpful at all. Not often as I don't think it is very user friendly. OK, but no use for external meetings given the internet connectivity issues. I would say average. Set up was a bit difficult. I would be disappointed if this ends up being the simplest way to manage documents. Okay, but I prefer to use the PDF versions saved down from . Survey 1 (8 responses) Survey 2 (14 responses) Survey 3 (13 responses) 9

12 Have you reduced your use of a work Blackberry as a result of having access to a tablet? I actually lost my Blackberry about 3 weeks ago & not had it replaced, though I have bought my own iphone & will use this for work as a phone. I really only used Blackberry for & the ipad is much better for this. I tend to use my Blackberry when on the move and I mostly use it as a phone. I have not yet had a huge amount of confidence to take the ipad to other venues other than my home or committee meetings, so I still read some s when I am away from home and the council house. Don't do as many s Survey 1 (8 responses) Survey 2 (14 responses) Survey 3 (13 responses) Have you reduced your use of a desktop PC? It is much easier to deal with s and files on my PC. Nothing is stopping me really I find it easier to read the screen on the ipad compared to desktop I suspect that this is due to varifocal glasses. Don t see the need given the way I work I primarily use the NHS system. PA still uses PC fully, plus Director uses Microsoft Outlook instead of GroupWise. Can't use ipad at home. I occasionally need to print something off for signing I don't want to reduce desktop use, tablets aren't a substitute for desktops PCs 10

13 As the desktop takes a lot longer to boot up I am using the ipad more as it speeds up access. Whilst working, I tend to prefer using the PC, because of the larger screen and key board. Also the ipad is not connected to a printer. The ipad is generally used for attendance at meetings and at home (particularly e mail). There needs to be a more coherent and organised approach to setting up a filing system on the ipad to act as a replacement. Survey 1 (8 responses) Survey 2 (14 responses) Survey 3 (13 responses) What other benefits have you found from using tablets? Numerous. However, internet access during meetings was particularly helpful. Being able to search documents in a meeting. Being able to cut agenda and paste it into Notes as a basis for my notes and actions. I carry around a lot less paper. I keep notes on the ipad so always have them associated with the original doc. Easier to keep records, organise documents recall information. Can use it in any room in comfort, can use it in the Council House. Can work while travelling on train, saves paper. Very useful for taking meeting notes, which can then be edited following a meeting. Very easy to pick up s whenever on wireless network. Greatly assists working at home or away from the office. Much more convenient than paper, also easier to switch documents and move to different parts of document. The angle of the screen is better for me 'cos of eyesight issues - I wear varifocal glasses. 11

14 Taking work home is now easier. I like the way I can upload documents for the team without having to have the ipad itself. Additional papers can also be uploaded whilst someone was in a meeting. Useful if papers arrive late. Less weight of documents to drag around. Much larger screen than the Blackberry. A vastly faster access to s and other information than waiting for the laptop to do all it's checks. Being able to work in comfort rather than sitting at a desk by a power point. Easy access, less papers to carry to meetings, agenda and reports all in one place. (I was always looking for my papers) easy reference to reports after the meeting. Recording one to one meetings in the room. How could the pilot have been improved? More discussions about how we work and then look at how the technology can support rather than the other way round. More training, regular support sessions that you could pop into, staff who knew more about how the tablets worked so that problems could be resolved easier. What about a "hints & tips" doc...this could have speeded up learning. Could have done better in finding an easy way of sharing the learning with one another. It's been very ad hoc. I don't know how to better organise docs within day folders; my PA sorts this for me! Not sure I am doing things in the most effective way. Role of PA's not really thought through - have to keep giving her tablet to bring forward papers. IT staff still do not understand how ipads work as fully as they should. There is still too much of a "laissez faire muddle through" approach (ie "play around with it until you're familiar"). The least IT literate officers/councillors will need a more structured approach to get them fully engaged in the scheme. 3g units. Scrap GroupWise ASAP. Mobile internet access. Access to Wi-Fi at home. Without wider access to the internet, it is not possible to use the ipad either in all council premises or other locations. On the app for accessing the internet, it would be useful to have a page linked to the intranet. I don't think the file and document management has been sorted yet. Ian Hird sends out cabinet papers as one document which is great. Other officers send out papers as 7 or 8 attachments to one . GroupWise is very clunky about downloading these to the ipad. Sometimes PDF files were corrupted - although there was nothing wrong with the master copy. Documents then needed to be re-sent to Groupwise in order to access from the ipad. Problems viewing documents that had both landscape and portrait pages in them. 12

15 It would be better if it could be linked to a printer. We need access to app store as currently the pilot doesn't allow for personalised working. Would you like any more support or training? I feel I could benefit from a bit more knowledge as I am sure that I do not use the ipad to its full potential Yes. We could probably do with getting us all in a room, with tablets and run a training pretend meeting showing different documents, making notes, making actions, etc. I still use my black note book! Yes. On the enlarging text issue Not really. I found it quite easy to quickly find my way around the use. Any other comments or questions: I feel that we should all have ipads but that we also require blackberries or equivalents to be able to be fully portable. Printers at home and in the council house should be available with wireless access for when we do need to print materials. No member should now need a laptop or desktop. I think very initial support will be helpful for new users - I have heard quite a few comments indicating that tablet use presents a steep initial learning curve; but once familiarisation has taken place, they are reasonably self-sufficient and confident about use. IPad doesn't seem to like Groupwise - have to log in several times. Often log in is unsuccessful. One drawback is that I cannot print from the tablet so if I want to print a paper I have to do so either via my laptop, or via my own PC Overall, I am convinced this is the way forward from the Democratic Services perspective - both in terms of achieving cost savings and a more efficient new way of working - recommend we roll this out to all Dem Services staff and meetings asap The Leader has now requested that page numbers are cross referenced on the front of agenda. Whilst this is possible, it is an additional taks which needs to be done as part of the formatting of documents. I love the ipad! 13