ProgettoEnte® Protocollo e Atti is an IBM Lotus-based solution for the management of:

• DocArea-certified "Protocollo Informatico"
• Decisional Acts
• Document Management
• Contracts Management
• "Albo Pretorio"
• Administrative Proceedings
• Decisional Support
• Digital Signature
• Digital Imaging

Overview

PeA is a Web-based Lotus groupware solution modeled around the General Affairs Office of Italian Local Public Administrations, displaying the following features:

• Dialog-driven management of decisional acts

The user is helped in the management of the life cycle of every decisional act. Awareness about which step is next is granted by specific dialogs according to specific workflows.

• Standardized quality and formats

Compliance with Italian regulations and laws is granted, along with homogeneity in formats. Productivity is increased and personnel turnover problems are minimized, so enhancing the organization quality level.

• Decisional support

Organization deciders are supported by tables and graphics, that help in evaluating the efficiency of administrative actions, and in controlling the activities of each single operational unit as well as of the organization as a whole.

• Services to the citizen

PeA is conceived to deliver services to the citizen, like fast and precise answers from the front office, about the state of any specific procedure, and the possibility of publishing data in Web-compatible format, thus allowing for Internet access.

• Integration with productivity tools

PeA is integrated with productivity tools such as text editors, and documents may be saved in non-modifiable formats like PDF.

• Integration with image scanners

Optical acquisition and archiving of incoming as well as outgoing documents is performed by the integration with image scanners.

• EDS – Electronic Digital Signature

Pursuant to Italian national regulations about document flows among Public Administrations, each document should be digitally signed by the sender. This feature is integrated in PeA, and also the verification process of incoming signatures is similarly available.

• E-mail integration

PeA accepts documents e-mailed to the certified mailbox of the organization. Thanks to the encoding of a national standard metadata packet, received documents are automatically filed in the local information system. Outgoing documents are completed with metadata packet, to be similarly managed by the receiving system.

As opposed to the plethora of technical offices of any municipality or National Health Authority site, the “General Affairs” offices deals with those matters, that are relative to administrative and jurisdictional activities of the Administration. Each of the activities listed below is the subject of a number of laws and regulations aimed at ensuring an uniform national standard in the expenditure of public money, in the accountability of every administrator, in the compliance to a code of ethics, in the classification, security and traceability of the mail flows.

The main logical blocks of PeA are:

• “Protocollo informatico” is the quite articulated system for the management of any Public Administration mail. Each and every incoming or outcoming mail (in digital or physical format) is numbered (this unique number, “numero di protocollo”, will legally identify the item nationwide) and classified according to a national standard classifier, is marked with a bar code label, is digitized in pdf format, may be digitally signed, and all the needed metadata is stored in the database. An XML representation of each mail metadata, compliant to a national standard, travels with the mail, so that any  receiving “Protocollo informatico” system may acquire the incoming e-mail without the need of any manual processing. Integration with the IPA (acronym of “Addresses of the Public Administration”) web service, a centrally managed national directory of the addresses of Public Administrations, is granted both on line and off line.
• “Atti Decisionali” (“Decisional Acts”) like “Delibere” and “Determine” (meaning “resolutions” with different undertones) are the public decisions about any activity implying expenditure of public money or affecting citizen’s life in any way (from the temporary closure of a public building to an increase in taxes or the appointment of a new city manager). Every such resolution is published on paper in the so called “Albo Pretorio” (a public register and also a physical showcase where the  printed matter lays). The same name applies to the digital infrastructure where the resolutions in their final form are accessible.
• The “iter” (course) of any resolution may be quite complex. For the typical Italian municipality, the administrative bodies (“giunta”, committee, or “consiglio”,  council) assemble to discuss an order of the day made of “proposte” (proposal). Before being inserted into such an order of the day, the proposal must be approved by the competent authority following a specific approval workflow (as an example, proposal implying expenditure must be approved also by the accounting office).
• “Contratti” (contracts) are economic resolutions following an administrative approval act, managed through a specific course and a respective workflow.
• “Firma Digitale” (“Digital signature”) is the support to the digital signature of any document according to the Italian national standards.
• “Gestione Documenti” ("Document management")is the management of documents in a most general sense. A Document may become a part of a folder (“fascicolo”), or be assigned a “numero di protocollo”.

Each of the elements mentioned above is the result of a more or less extensive customization of Lotus native features, with an emphasis on groupware, compliance to laws and national standards, security and workflows. The entire project is centered on the concept of “pratica” (a term that may be loosely translated as “dossier” o “workflow”, or better as “thread”), that may also be defined as “Procedimento Amministrativo” (administrative proceeding): documents and resolution pertaining to any specific subject may be traced as part of a specific thread, even though each element remains accessible as a resolution, a document or a “protocollo”.

Among the specific elements of PeA, that in our opinion better express the potential of PeA:

• “Web 2.0” AJAX technology: Simple interface, type ahead, intelligent LOVs

All the list of values relative to names and hierarchical structures are managed with a type ahead logic that ensures a fast response and improves usability.

• “Web 2.0” AJAX technology: join of data from different databases

Data about users may be stored in different databases: an AJAX implementation allows for the transparent and flawless join of data between Names and Application DBs.

• Integration with IPA (LDAP of Public Agencies)

This integration is usually achieved in real time by a connection to the on line national service. If unavailable, a locally cached copy of the IPA database is accessed.

• Workflows: “automatic approval”

Along a given workflow, some steps are subject of “automatic approval” (a feature expressly requested for some municipal offices) and this automation is displayed in the demo, as opposed to “manual” approval of other similar steps. Also an usability feature is displayed, that is to say the concurrent approval of more than one step in one or more workflows.

• Barcode Scanner integration

Fast retrieval of documents is granted by integration of handheld barcode scanner. A sticker is printed for each “protocol number” received, and is stuck to the physical document. At the moment of processing the paper with the image scanner, the reference to the protocol record is acquired with the barcode, saving search time.

• Text Editor integration with PDF generation and Electronic Digital Signature

Text editor files may be uploaded with a single click, without the need of detaching the file to the desktop. Documents can be saved in PDF format and digitally signed.

• “Certified Electronic Mail” among Italian Public Administrations

Each outgoing mail can be completed with the automatic encoding of a national standard metadata packet, including all the information needed for the automatic filing of the mail in any receiving system compliant with the same standards.