Automation of Project Management Processes in the National Parliament

STATUM together with its business partner Fx2 implemented in the National Parliament the automation of the Project Management processes with Apia BPMS contemplating the different activities from the origin to its promulgation, going through all the intermediate stages in House of Representatives, Chamber of Senators, Executive Power.

Information:

In this note, we spoke with Jose Russomano de Fx2 who, 2 years after the start of production of the Bill Project Processes, tells us his vision about it.

The processes implemented in the framework of the project are highly complex if we consider: i) the number of heterogeneous users and different offices that participate in it, ii) the number of associated business rules for correct automation and iii) confidentiality and security that is required to handle with all the information of the process.

At each stage of the process, actions, modifications, improvements and adjustments are carried out that are reflected in the Bill with a strict audit control that allows to determine who worked on the project, when the work was carried out, what office did it carry out the actions, at what stage of the Bill.

The process to generate a Bill is initiated in Apia BPMS by the House of Representatives, Chamber of Senators or the Executive Power and then goes through different stages:

• Assign to the House, when the initiative is of the Executive Power and the chamber is assigned that will begin to work with the Bill.
• Assign Folder, where a folder that contains all the files and works corresponding to that Bill is created and assigned.
• Assign Commission, where the commission of the body that will work with the Bill is assigned.
• Treatment in Commission, where the corresponding commission works with the Bill.
• Treatment in Room, where the whole body works with the Bill and its approval or rejection is voted.
• Go to another Chamber, where it is determined to which camera the project must be derived for its treatment.
• Treatment of the Bill, where the camera proceed to work on the bill.
• Go to the first Chamber, when amendments to the Bill are presented and again must be treated by the camera that originated the project.
• Treatment and Pass to the General Assembly, in the case that a consensus can not be reached.
• Approval or filing of the Bill.

The entire process is carried out electronically, involving different offices of the House of Representatives and the Chamber of Senators:

Chamber of Senators

• Documentary Administration
• Room Officers
• Processing of Documents
• Secretariat of the Senate
• Commission secretaries

House of Representatives

• Chamber Dispatch
• Commissions Division
• Document Management and Quality
• Legislative Information
• Commission secretaries

Each of the activities includes the forms, documents, document management and business rules that provide the process with the necessary intelligence to determine its behavior and the flow to follow in each specific bill, as well as the integration with the Parliamentary Information System (SIP), providing you with data of each Bill automatically and allowing online monitoring of the parliamentary process on the Parliament's website (https://parlamento.gub.uy/).

"The management of the Bill for the Parliament is clearly a neuralgic process, so the stage of survey and specification was extensive. This required numerous meetings with the different participants of the process and, at the same time, required to align the ways of working of the Chamber of Senators and Chamber of Deputies", said José.
The development stage required numerous validations and prototypes to work with the users who made contact with Apia BPMS for the first time. Multiple instances of training were carried out according to the specific needs of each area, activity and work office.

In general, the implementation of APIA BPMS in the Parliament allowed systematizing, ordering and managing, in digital form, an important amount of tasks and documents that were previously done manually and on paper, now contemplating an automatic and reliable publication on the site. Parliament's website, avoiding a double registration and the errors that this entails.
Users have personalized inboxes and an ordering of pending tasks, which allows them to work more efficiently through specific and detailed forms in each stage and automating many activities that previously had to be carried out manually.
 
"Users have adopted the tool and the process itself in a very good way. It has allowed them to concentrate on their specific tasks and delegate to Apia the tasks inherent in the management of the process", said José.

Next stages

Work is already underway on the continuous improvement of the entire process as well as on the design and implementation of new "satellite" processes such as Senate Distributions, Distributed and Request for Reports.

Business Associate

Fx2 began implementing implementations in Apia BPMS with STATUM, since 2008, in organizations such as the Communications Service Regulatory Unit (URSEC) and the Ministry of Labor and Social Security (MTSS). "Since then we have maintained a close relationship with STATUM, which was strengthened with the signing of the partnership and approval of the company to provide services in Apia BPMS in 2017", said Russomano.

Regarding the recognition as a Certified Partner, the director of Fx2 said: "It allows us to certify to our clients and potential clients the level of knowledge we have about Apia BPMS, as well as to demonstrate that we have the support of the company that develops and maintains the product".