Government agency chooses web management

By ADAM GIFFORD

The E-Government unit within the State Services Commission has bought a subscription to Portera's web-based ServicePort for programme management.

E-Government programme architect Brendan Kelly said the unit needed a tool that could manage dispersed work teams and people from different agencies working on the same project. A traditional client-server application on a local area network would not work.

"Also, by using internet technology we are demonstrating what we want Government agencies to use."

Portera, based in Campbell, California, has provided a client-server programme management product for more than a decade.

New Zealand customers for the older product include the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Optimation and Simpl Group.

The online ServicePort suite, which is aimed at consultancies and professional service organisations, has about 100 customers worldwide, including Hewlett-Packard and Apple.

"It's a tool for programme management, not project management," Mr Kelly said.

"We've got more than 10 projects running at any one time, so we need to manage resources over them all. That's impossible to do with just project management tools."

Asia Pacific managing director Mark Fiore said it allowed consultants to manage and record time spent on projects, organise documents and collaborate online, manage programme and project finances and keep a track of work in progress.

The application and database are housed on a United States data centre, with some of the static content cached on servers around the world.

It usually costs between $200 and $250 per user a month, depending on the functionality required.

Mr Kelly said up to 40 people in the E-Government unit and other agencies would use the system.

The State Services Commission has its own document management application, so ServicePort will be used for resource management and allocation, issue and risk management and financial management.

Serviceport integrates with common project management tools.