Supporting your team in the field and working from home with Objective Connect

From short-term sharing to long-term collaboration

When Objective Connect was originally envisaged, it was solving the problem of how to securely share content with external groups during short, time-bound projects - lasting a handful of weeks or maybe a month. In my time at Objective, I have seen Objective Connect evolve into a long-term collaboration ‘bridge’ between an organisation and their trusted external partners.

For example, we now see Objective Connect being used as:

  • A portal for sharing curriculum with a city’s teachers throughout the school year.
  • A system of record for a council’s Neighbourhood Day Care Centres that do not have the systems, or resources, to maintain detailed client and staff records.
  • A single-source-of-truth between a government agency that has outsourced a core deliverable to a private organisation.
  • A research hub, spanning the globe facilitating the review and approval of pharmaceuticals and pesticides.


A tool for supporting your team in the field and at home

In the past 18 months, government agencies have had to face a number of challenges. Across NSW for example, they have had to deal with bushfires, floods and now the spreading impact of the COVID-19. As organisations rapidly adapt to these events out of their control, there are a new set of problems that Objective Connect is solving.

Emergency Planning

Agencies at all levels have detailed emergency plans of what happens if you cannot access the office, for whatever reason. Previously the challenge is that the plans have been saved and distributed via memory stick, with the details being out of date as soon as it was given to your key employees. The other issues are the ability to quickly and easily expand the number of people who have access to these plans as the scope of a situation expands.

We are now seeing a majority of Connect-enabled organisations sharing Emergency Plans via Objective Connect.

When integrated with Micro Focus Content Manager (TRIM) or Objective ECM, an organisation has the peace of mind that any change to the plans in the EDRMS is instantly transmitted.

Using the Objective Connect for Mobile app means that key team members can have the latest information in the palm of their hand. From within the app, you rapidly add a growing number of employees who can access the plans. The ‘broadcast comments’ features have also meant that a workspace can also become a secure communication hub during a time of need.

Working From Home

Working from home is nothing new for anyone who is regularly on the road. Access to a corporately-approved laptop and a VPN connection has unshackled many team members from their desks. However, recent challenges have meant that working from home (WFH) is a reality for the whole team. But, how do you rapidly enable WFH, when your EDRMS is located on-premise and large cohorts of your team do not have approved mobile devices with a VPN connection?

Through a re-think of how Objective Connect can be used, agencies are now securely enabling their teams with a BYO device, within a matter of minutes.

Workspaces can be created for specific projects that team members are working on without having to take your entire instance of TRIM or ECM to the cloud. Team members WFH can then access the workspace with any machine with an internet connection.

The introduction of Secure Online Edit means that devices don't even need Microsoft Office installed, as a Microsoft 365 business account can be used. If the organisation is concerned about sensitive or confidential information being left in download folders, or on a myriad of unmanaged OneDrive accounts, there is the ability to block download, but enable edit. This means that Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents can be worked on, even co-authored, without leaving the browser, and all updates audited and versions / revisions automatically synchronised back to the EDRMS.

The team at Objective is constantly working with customers to ensure that our solutions support an agile and responsive workplace. Please reach out if you have any questions about how Objective Connect can support your organisation.