Open office implementation

OPEN OFFICE IMPLEMENTATION 12th.Apri,l2011 Mary Clarke, Galway City Council A Series of Milestones which commenced with the decision to seriously investigate the feasibility of a migration from Microsoft Office to Open Office in terms of Value for Money whilst retaining a reliable, user friendly efficient solution.

Considerations
Cost Benefit Analysis - Initial indications suggested significant savings
Compatability – All Major Platforms i.e Windows, Linux, AppleMac etc.
Reliability – 20+ years development, developed principally by Sun with contributions from individual users, groups and large companies e.g.IBM
Licenced - Yes under LGPL and SISSL Open Source Protocol
Security – Secure as proprietary software

Open Office in Government
Various initiatives in Government Departments to encourage migration to Open Source, principally Open Office in UK, Europe, Australia
UK – new ICT Strategy places emphasis on use of open source software as alternative to large-scale proprietary solutions
Netherlands – guidelines to includeOpen Source in Procurement
France – Trend to Open Source, Political Pact to use it

Australia
Open Office solution in use for many years
Circular 2009/004 – Include Open Source as viable alternative for software requirements in all procurement
Circular 2009/004 came into effect on 1 st April 2011

Local Testing - 5 Stages
Stage 1 General Performance (2 weeks)
ICT Web, Development, GIS and Tech Support Teams
Simple tests within their areas of expertise
Accuracy and reliability across Windows 2000, XP and 2003 Platforms and in conjunction with Microsoft Office 2000, 2003 and 2007

Local testing contd.
Stage 2 User Requirements(2 weeks)
ICT Teams and users within various departments
Normal daily document and spreadsheet tasks
e.g. File Create,Open, Edit, Save ,Print.
Tools such as Mail Merge, Formatting and Macros
Establish user requirements and levels of competence

Local Testing contd .
Stage 3 Core P roprietary Systems , SQL Backend but use MS Office outputs.(6+ weeks)
Development, Web and GIS Teams
Agresso – Accellerator(visual basic addin), requires Ms Excel
Outputs to MS Excel
Shared Files between Finance Senior Staff
Iplan – Outputs to Ms Office
Routeman – Refuse System uses MS Office

Local Testing contd.
Other Systems : Home, iReg, Payroll, Traffic & Community Warden systems :
generally web-based solutions output to generic format html, pdf or csv which are platform and application independant standards.

Local Testing contd.
Stage 4 – In House Access Database ad hoc systems :
Examine and categorise all ad hoc systems
Standardise Current systems
Migrate backend to SQL2005
Remove Ms Access from client Pcs
Install Runtime Access
Scheduled implementation dept by dept over a number of weeks.

Local Testing contd .
Stage 5
Mitel Telecommunications System – Linux
PrairieFyre Software Multimedia Windows based Solution
Customer Services Dept,
Managed Front-Line Services
Business reporting tools output saved as html files
Compatible with Open Office

Final Decision
MS Buyout 20/80 Professional/Standard Split
Senior Management Grades & High-end users such as the Finance Dept special teams to retain MS Office Professional
Ms Exchange/Outlook Environment - Purchase Outlook 2007 for Open Office Clients
Cost Benefit Analysis based on Ms Buyout prices – significant savings .
Would be 'Legal' and still afford to purchase additional items in buyout.

Implementation Plan
Insufficient ICT Staff to implement solution
2 ICT students from local VEC
Implementation Schedule :
Fortnightly Install
Department by Department
Commence with smaller non-frontline departments
Students to remain in support role in department for 2 weeks
Technical & Development Teams to support the students
Telephone & one to one support thereafter,

Controls/Securities
We incorporated certain controls into Install Procedure :
Prevent Client Updates – tiered Internet Access thin
Within Open Office we disabled the Updates Option
Simplify transition for users -
We configured the defaults to save files as MS File extentions
Created a Batch file run at Installation stage to associate MS Office products with Open Office.

Support Issues
General acceptance of change
Showed Initiative – asked the questions
Minority required assistance with basic operations e.g. Printing. Formatting
Identified problems in basic word processing/spreadsheet abilities :
Users could not perform basic document setup and styling
or
input a basic formula into a cell
ECDL/Other Training Programs – geared to meet our requirements

Support Issues contd .
Professional Staff e.g.Planners/Architects
Never received Office Applcations training
Used Old Templates and edited documents
They provided a list of problem documents
ICT reformatted and restyled pristine templates
Provided small group training in basic word processing and work related documents.

Problems Identified
High end ICT users identified some minor issues :
Macros
Find & Replace – both run on a slightly different version of VB using regular expressions as well as wild cards. It is a more powerful solution but cumbersome to use.
We have highlighted these problems with Open Source

Our Experience
Open Office :
Stable standardised environment requiring single installation
Single software suite with multiple functions operating in consistent manner vs MS multiple interconnected programs.
Interface similar to Ms Office – less of a transition than to MS Office 2007
Compatible with diverse file formats html, pdf,csv & all versions of MS Word.
Future proofed our office environment for next number of years.
Support available from SME's.

Open office implementation

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