This state government agency is the lead institution for the conduct of American diplomacy facilitating the promotion and protection of interests for US citizens globally. The department operates more than 270 embassies, consulates, and other posts worldwide. These provide policy guidance, program management, administrative support, and in-depth expertise in matters such as law enforcement, economics, the environment, arms control, human rights, counter narcotics, public diplomacy, security, consular services and more. To collaborate, one of the primary communication methods between these bureaus for government to government communication was a primitive black and white ASCII-based cable system established circa World War II.
The restrictions associated with the legacy cable-based communication system limited the department’s responsiveness and did little to control the human capital costs associated with the need to scale up the number of employees to address the manual effort required to appropriately process the cables in a timely fashion. In addition, the department was required to become compliant with NARA.
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is the nation’s record keeper that archives important business, legal and historical documents forever. The agency like many other organizations are required to submit their files to NARA in PDF/A (the PDF format for Archiving). So the decision was made to look into technology that could revolutionize their antiquated cable system and provide a reliable, yet scalable solution that would store and archive their cables, enable sharing and improve information accessibility through search, while providing protected access to information by employee clearance level. A secondary, but nice-to-have requirement was the capability to enhance communication by including support for rich media options such as fonts, attachments (like images) and support for Microsoft® Outlook® to easily draft cables.
The department had challenges with:
Legacy Data Sharing Practices: The administration relied on a dated ASCII-based cable system for inter-bureau communication. This severely limited the department’s data retrieval responsiveness and increased overhead costs associated with information processing.
Inability to Efficiently Comply with NARA Requirements: Each cable communication needed to be converted into a standardized PDF/A format for long-term (50 years) preservation and submission to NARA.
Integration with Internal SMART System: The new solution needed full integration with the State Messaging and Archive Retrieval Toolset (SMART), which combines all diplomatic text cables, emails, and memos into a single messaging system for classified and unclassified networks.
After doing their research, the agency determined they needed reliable and feature-rich document transformation technology. The two recommended vendors were Adobe and Adlib. Adlib was ultimately chosen based on ease of installation, the automation capabilities of the entire document E2E process and Adlib's pixel-perfect accuracy. Adlib’s transformation technology became a key element to the State Messaging and Archive Retrieval Toolset (SMART) system. A system designed to combine diplomatic text cables, email, and memos in a single messaging system for classified and unclassified networks. SMART also provides collaboration tools, such as instant messaging, document management, document search and improved record keeping.
"Automated PDF transformation from Adlib has enabled us to reduce our costs associated with the delays and errors of manual intervention within business processes."
- IT Project Manager
The Adlib solution is now processing anywhere from 3000-5000 cables per day. Those incoming cables and their associated attachments are automatically converted to PDF/A (PDF for Archiving), then stored in Microsoft SharePoint. Once the solution was fully implemented it assumed the role of an official Archive. Some value-added functionally was leveraged by enabling content “tags” which associates the newly generated PDF/A files to a set of rules that determines the length for which that PDF/A file gets stored for (i.e.: Store file for 2 years to 50 years). In addition, roles-based access control through Microsoft BizTalk was established to determine who can and cannot access specific documents. Roles-based access allows SMART users based on their profile (by citizenship, classification, location, topic and clearance) to have controlled access to documents. In addition, document access controls were implemented through DRM (Digital Rights Management) to control document open and print capabilities.
The department is able to recognize new found efficiencies through server-based document-to-PDF/A process automation in the back office versus their former method of manually processing documents at the desktop operation level. The newly automated process enables its employees to better focus on their day jobs, therefore saving time and money by not wasting time with error-prone manual document processing and PDF/A conversions. In addition, it was easy to implement an accurate process for standardizing document naming conventions, the application of document metadata and ensuring the PDF/A documents end up in the right place. Costly and inefficient paper storage and information look-up processes was replaced by an efficient system to store and provide controlled access to digital assets. All of these efficiency benefits were achieved in parallel while also enabling the agency to seamlessly share documents and be in compliance with NARA.
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