Adobe Success Story

Spanish community government streamlines and secures complex document management and review process for executive office and community council

Automating and securing document management processes
Castilla-La Mancha is one of Spain’s 17 autonomous communities. It has a population of nearly 2 million people and occupies a territory of 80,000 square kilometers. The Government Council Department, which is dependent upon the First Vice Presidency of the Joint Communities of Castilla-La Mancha (JCCM), is the organization in charge of coordinating and developing the final documentation that is presented for discussion at the Government Council meetings attended weekly by the president and councils.

Benefits

• Secured document review and distribution process with permission-based access
• Automated document management
• Improved document storage and retrieval allowing users to read, print, and download documents according to assigned permissions

Project Details

Streamlining an expensive and complex process
The generation, distribution, and review of the extensive documentation presented to the Government Council used to be an extremely complex process. The councils sent printed documentation via messenger to the presidency, which meant expenditures in time, materials, and personnel. Added to this was the lack of security and integrity that came with using printed documents.

To streamline the process and reduce costs, the presidency’s IT department decided to adopt a paperless office concept. The organization uses Adobe Acrobat Pro and Adobe Reader software for the development and review of the documentation, and Adobe LiveCycle Rights Management ES (Enterprise Suite) software to apply the maximum level of security to control access to the documents.

“Combining the use of Adobe Acrobat Pro, Reader, and LiveCycle Rights Management ES, the Council has optimized the process of creation, compilation, and review of documentation that is presented in the Government Council meetings,” says Juan Carlos Sanz Díaz, IT and communications coordinator for the presidency of the JCCM. “Documentation is delivered in Adobe PDF, ensuring control and confidentiality because the content can be viewed, printed, or downloaded only by authorized parties, and within a specific period of time.”

Securing documents based on user profiles
Today, each ministry creates an Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) file of the documents that will be presented to the council. Paper documents are scanned and converted to PDF using Adobe Acrobat Pro. With Acrobat Pro, users then add bookmarks and hyperlinks to simplify navigation within the documents and streamline the review process. Documents are then sent to the Government Council Department, where they are compiled into a single Adobe PDF file. LiveCycle Rights Management ES software is used to grant access only to the council members and notifies them via e-mail of their availability.

“Adobe PDF is very familiar to all of our IT users. It’s easy to use, prevents manipulation of content, and thanks to the free Adobe Reader, it doesn’t force our users to purchase additional software,” says Sanz Díaz. “While developing this critical application, we were concerned with security and making the review process more efficient. Working with Adobe and Seidor, we were introduced to Adobe LiveCycle Rights Management ES and the value that it would bring to our project.”

JCCM uses Adobe LiveCycle Rights Management ES as a server-based rights management solution to manage document creation, review, and distribution. The application stores the documents and automatically applies security settings to the documents restricting or allowing access based on the user profiles. This system is used by the president of the JCCM, general councilmen, and secretaries, as well as authorized personnel from each council, who are in charge of creating the PDF files.

Online and offline document access and control
Access is created via an application developed in .NET by the presidency’s IT department and integrated with an SQL Server. Each time someone wants to access the Adobe PDF file using Adobe Reader, it connects with the Adobe LiveCycle Rights Management ES server, presenting an authentication screen for the LDAP server of the JCCM. Each user should have permissions assigned for the document. If the authentication process for the LDAP server fails, or if the user does not have the necessary permissions to perform the desired task, the request will be rejected.

The secure documents can be accessed online using a web browser via JCCM’s intranet or offline. Updated authorization is required for both methods of access, providing the system with complete traceability of its use, which in the case of printing consists of a watermark. Downloads are completely controlled, identifying each user, and preventing the document from being opened on a computer where it was not originally downloaded. An expiration date is also applied for each document’s use.

Documents from the different government councils are also archived within Adobe LiveCycle Rights Management ES. In the future, this process will use digital signatures and permission controls as validation to access the application.

The deployment of the solution took only a week, fitting in well with the council’s plans to test and launch the system in less than six months from the time of proposal. Training occurred simultaneously and focused primarily on the use of Adobe Acrobat Pro.

Better communication and collaboration
All participants in this process have expressed their satisfaction, from those who create the Adobe PDF files to the final recipients, who now arrive at the government council offices with only a tablet PC from which they access the Adobe PDF file. According to Sanz Díaz, “We’ve improved the user experience, reduced errors, ensured confidentiality of the documents, and saved time.”

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