The National Council on Substance Abuse (NCSA) is moving ahead with its digital transformation agenda, and has started the implementation of a Document Management System (DMS) with the assistance of the team from Productive Business Solutions Technologies (Barbados) Limited.

Change and Project Manager of the PBS Technologies, Ms. Shontelle Bryan says the project is timely and important since it allows the organisation to reduce the reliance on paper and to make files digital which will allow for easy access and will increase efficiency in the organisation since people can work remotely.

She says her team which comprises of Mrs. Nadia Corbin Babb and Mr. Kristopher Worrell are currently configuring the system and will soon begin testing and training with the NCSA staff, with a goal of going live at the end of June 2021.

“We are ensuring that security protocols are in place as protection of the data is paramount. Each time a document is accessed/ viewed/edited, an audit trail is created so that you know who viewed and edited a document, as well as the time when the document was accessed,” Ms Bryan said.

Manager at the NCSA Betty Hunte says they are excited about this project. “This is a long-standing deliverable and I am excited that our workflow will be greatly enhanced and that the NCSA will be foremost among agencies in Government’s thrust to full digitisation.”

The DMS is a centralised software system that facilitates the storage of documents in multiple formats as well as search and retrieval, collaboration and routing. It will contain documents that are currently in electronic format as well as images of scanned paper documents at our office.