Press Release

City of Mitcham leads the way with Authority 6.0

June 19, 2009

The City of Mitcham in South Australia has become the first Council to implement Authority 6.0, the latest evolution of Civica’s enterprise software suite for local government, successfully going live on 1st June, 2009.

“I see the key aspect of Authority 6.0 being the change to a rapid release strategy which will see the product released every four months,” said Richard Love, Council’s Manager Information Technology.

“This will enable Civica to make future development of Authority much more agile and greatly improve the speed at which new development can be delivered.”

He is also impressed by the way in which Authority 6.0 improves the application’s look and feel and says other Councils will see a big increase in usability from migrating to Authority 6.0.

“We are making the Authority Portal the key application for all staff to use every day, so that it becomes a one-stop-shop,” said Richard. “The way we set up our permissions and security in the Portal means that staff see all the software menu items relevant to their day’s work, but only information to which they have authorised access – so they don’t access the information that’s not relevant to them.”

He sees the Authority Portal as providing a central, single point of access for a range of applications for all staff and management. Mitcham’s IT team are moving more software applications into the Portal, including Civica’s Online Requisitions tool and the Employee Kiosk which allows staff to access their pay slips and leave details. As well as Authority applications, Mitcham is also adding third-party applications to the Portal, including Council’s suite of management and executive reporting tools.

Council implemented the Authority Portal within the Authority 5.0 environment with one of their staff focused solely on the Portal implementation. This strategy enabled Mitcham to manage the change to the Authority Portal before they began their Authority 6.0 implementation.

As the beta test site for Authority 6.0, Richard believes Mitcham really benefited from having Civica’s expertise on site at Council during the three-week testing and implementation process.

City of Mitcham agreed to become a beta test site after Council’s 16 module champions agreed that the process would greatly increase their understanding and knowledge of the Authority application.

“Our Authority module champions received very high level training from Civica’s business consultants and we were able to identify a range of areas in which we can utilise existing and new functionality to enhance the way in which staff work. This will improve efficiency throughout Council as we make better use of the software,” said Richard.

The testing process took three weeks with up to six Civica staff on-site. During this time a number of level 1 and 2 ‘bugs’ were discovered, enabling Civica to have all of these issues fixed before the ‘go live’ date on 1st June.

“Our staff found the testing process to be very positive because Civica’s staff were excellent, and because our people learned so much more about the particular modules they specialise in,” said Richard. “From the experience, we have developed an extensive list of new projects. The process was so positive; I would thoroughly recommend beta testing to other Councils.”

City of Mitcham will review work processes in a number of key departments including Finance, Planning and Environmental Health, to improve efficiency and make better use of Authority 6.0.

The City of Mitcham, comprising an area of 75.7 square kilometres and with a population of 61000, is Adelaide’s second oldest Council area founded in 1853. It is situated some 6kms from the City and extends into the beautiful Mitcham Hills.

Mitcham is a safe, healthy, tolerant and prosperous community, living and working in harmony with the environment. With an enviable blend of both urban and rural environments, a prestigious heritage and sense of tradition, the City of Mitcham offers a unique experience for those tempted by cultural exhibitions and festivals, native bushland, heritage and architecture, scenic views and more.