Municipality of Tuusula, located about 30 kilometers from the capital Helsinki is going to realize its new web portal service with the help of Teamware Group, a supplier of municipal and local portals. The objectives of the service, which is to be realized in stages, are the easy maintenance and updating of web pages, improved information management, as well as offering a live medium and a fast communications channel for different units within the municipality.

The municipality of Tuusula employs 1600 persons and they have not previously had a functioning intranet or a system for internal communication. The intranet project gained present interest because a paper bulletin was no longer seen as an adequate communications method and sending personal e-mail messages is not effective enough. In addition, other problem areas had been identified: for example, responsibility for updating web page content had not been clarified and it had been difficult to find up-to-date information. 'We decided to begin the renewal project by implementing an intranet system', relates Tuusula municipality PR Manager Riikka Uusikulku. 'We wish to firstly improve our internal management of information and put our own communications system in proper order. At the same time, all of our employees will be able to get practice with the new processes and new operations culture throughout late winter and early spring, before the service will be expanded to other user groups', Uusikulku continues.

The municipality of Tuusula has been using Teamware Office™ groupware for a long time. The current system can be easily expanded into a versatile web service using the Teamware Pl@za® solution. Up until now, the Teamware e-mail service has been used extensively but only a small part of the Teamware Office package has been utilised. Now this secure groupware will be expanded so that the entire municipal organization will be able to use it as a part of an interactive web service. The new user groups will be, for example, nursing staff in the health-care sector and in day-care facilities.

According to PR Manager Uusikulku, renewal of the web service requires a change in the operations culture as well. 'Information is shared and no longer hidden behind anybody's back. This requires a teamwork-oriented approach. We wish to make our communications process more open by using a fast medium by which everybody can be reached.'

Information within the web service based on Teamware Pl@za will be up-to-date and targeted to different users within the municipality. Personalised views, including information common to the entire municipality and information from each administrative branch, will be created for users of the system. An effective search functionality guarantees that information can be easily found. In addition, the new technical features of the system will enable decentralization of updating, and out-of-date information, such as standard municipal notices, need not be removed manually. Access rights management will be decentralized to different sectors because people in each sector are most aware of their own needs.

Virtual work spaces will be created on the web for projects within an administrative branch and joint projects for several branches. Thus, municipal projects can be easily prepared and discussed outside of official meetings without any need to physically go to a certain location.

These work spaces will be used especially in educational matters, such as when creating curricula. Another applicable area will be town planning. As the planning department creates information, it can be easily transferred to the public side. One platform and one system enable the management of information in different environments and for different user groups.

Finnish legislation requires a high level of openness between municipalities and their inhabitants. With 33,000 inhabitants, Tuusula is a growing and developing municipality. The population of the municipality has been growing by approximately 460 inhabitants per year over the last 10 years. Thus, increasing internal interaction is important but increasing public interaction is even more important.

The objective in Tuusula is to continuously develop the web service in order to improve the communications and operations of the municipality. When the intranet has been renewed, public communications on the web are to be renewed and electronic transactions made easier. The plans include an extranet to serve the elected municipal officials.

'Teamware offered a well-defined plan for our future development and expansion needs. Our long-term smooth cooperation with Teamware was an important factor when choosing the web service supplier', Uusikulku explains. 'The size and services of Teamware corresponded with the needs of our municipality. The company has a very convincing history in realising web services for administration in general and for municipalities in particular. In addition, Teamware is very well aware of the multi-branch nature of the municipal sector', Uusikulku summarises background of the project.

Teamware's municipal and local portals have been designed to intensify operations in municipalities, federations of municipalities and regions. Due to new software versions, Teamware Office can be smoothly and easily expanded into a fully functioning web service. Other background systems can be integrated with the portals as well.