Arriva Trains speeds up internal information on the Omnia platform
Danish rail operator Arriva Trains has reinvented its Document Management System and launched a new intranet on Omnia, with the new solution radically improving document search and management as well as internal communications.
– It’s now much easier for our employees to find quality and process guidelines and other structured documents crucial for their daily work. Navigating our former Document Management System used to be time-consuming and not very user-friendly. Our new system, however, not only looks good but also offers a fast route to relevant information. With Omnia, we now have a new and modern intranet loaded with all the functionality we need to boost internal communications and keep everyone in the loop in terms of what’s going on in the company, says Erik Vestergaard Møller, Head of Safety Quality & HSE, Arriva Tog A/S.
Cost-efficient platform ensuring speed and reliability
Arriva Trains is a subsidiary of the Deutsche Bahn (DB) Group and the second-largest train operator in Denmark. Operating regional train traffic in most areas of the Central Denmark Region, it carries approximately 10 million passengers per year.
The company previously had a SharePoint-based Document Management System which also served as a rudimentary intranet. The platform was out-of-date, however, and employees were constantly running into problems navigating the system and locating the right documents. Arriva Tog now wanted to replace the old system with a modern, robust, and flexible SharePoint-based intranet platform to which they could migrate their documents with the minimum of effort and cost. After thorough market research, they decided to go with Omnia.
– We looked at many different platforms and solutions and none of them came close to Omnia’s price relative to performance, usability, and flexibility. Furthermore, we also needed a Microsoft 365-friendly platform since this is our primary work tool and application suite. With Omnia being seamlessly integrated with Microsoft 365, our decision was made even easier, Erik underlines.
In the autumn of 2020, a workgroup began building the backend of the new system, a task that included sorting out, selecting, and retagging all the documents to be migrated to the new platform. Precio Fishbone’s experts helped Arriva retag the documents’ metadata using a script that saved a lot of work and time. The new platform also allows for smart targeting, automatically directing relevant information to the right user. Arriva Tog’s new intranet and Document Management System went live in May 2021, six months after the first project workshop.
– The new solution has been given a very positive reception by our organization. Above all, employees really appreciate the system’s ability to speed up the process of finding the right guidelines, work processes, safety protocols, and other documents vital to our operations. They also value its smooth accessibility and modern and attractive layout, as well as its information overview and advanced search filters, Erik points out.
GDPR proved to be a hard nut
One of the major challenges of the implementation project was how to ensure correct and safe document access while keeping to the letter of the General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR. Erik explains that they had to analyze every possible navigation and access route to each document and build several access security layers to guarantee full GDPR compliance.
– We spent a lot of time figuring out on which level we should put the necessary user access restrictions. It was a hard nut to crack. You can put a lock on the document itself, on the folder, or on the user interface. The user can also access documents via several access points, which makes the problem even trickier. We finally managed to build a smooth process, supported by Omnia’s built-in security functionality, which ensures that all the documents and other sensitive information are fully protected and in compliance with GDPR, Erik concludes.
Better grip on processes
The new platform is adapted both visually and in terms of content orientation to match Arriva’s 20 different user groups, mirroring the organization’s various work categories. For instance, train operators have a very different entry to the system compared with customer hosts as regards what type of documents, news items, and alerts they are entitled to access or are interested in. Arriva will furthermore soon implement Omnia’s mobile app, thus additionally improving usability and accessibility for the company’s frontline personnel.
According to Erik, the new intranet and Document Management System will not only speed up information search and processes but will also boost engagement as employees will now be better informed. Moreover, it will help Arriva evaluate and improve its processes.
– We will conduct user surveys regularly so as to evaluate how well our modernized digital workplace serves our employees. These surveys will also provide a better understanding of our work and quality processes and will signal when they need to be revised or updated. Omnia’s Quick Polls tool, user behavior data, and other forms and analysis functions all help us perform these surveys efficiently, Erik explains.
