OneCouncil is a one-stop software solution for councils

OneCouncil combines all the tools needed to run various operations such as finance, property & compliance, enterprise assets, human resource and payroll, and document management functions.

OneCouncil supports the day-to-day operational and strategic requirements of communities in local council areas across the country in a single integrated solution

Ed Chung likens it to a Swiss Army knife for local government.

TechnologyOne’s chief executive is speaking of the firm’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) ERP solution called OneCouncil, which supports the day-to-day operational and strategic requirements of councils across the country in a single integrated solution.

“Imagine a local council is trying to find efficiencies and, to do so, they implement a chatbot to automate responses to residents on their website,” he said.

“While this may slightly improve the customer service experience, it is a specific, isolated use of technology to address a particular need.

“Now, consider the same council rolling out a technology platform for customer inquiries and integrating it across financial management, citizen services, human resources and workforce management. The council can now address isolated challenges and completely revamp how they do things from top to bottom. The software becomes an enabler of efficiency, collaboration and strategic decision-making.”

He said OneCouncil combined all the tools needed to run operations smoothly and efficiently into one neat software solution, covering finance, property and compliance, enterprise assets, human resource and payroll, and document management functions.

“Everything is run from one single code line, which means every department uses the same system – whether finance, HR, asset management – to manages rates, strategic planning or the customer-facing platform, giving the council and residents one single source of truth with all the data in one place,” Chung said.

“If a resident rings council to update their pet registration details for example, at a glance the council worker can also see any outstanding cases for that one resident record and help them with it, because information flows through the entire system, as opposed to being siloed by departments.

“The customer platform allows people to self-serve as and when they need it, helping lower call demand, which allows staff to provide more personalised human support to the people who need it the most, whether there is an emergency, or an issue that’s more complex, or for those who can’t navigate or understand online services.

“OneCouncil also gives councils valuable insights for decision making, whether it is to help cut costs, or better manage resources, critical future services and future economic opportunities. It is really an opportunity to future-proof.

“Our integrated ERP approach also means there is no need for messy integrations that increase cost and complexity. We eliminate the need for multiple vendors and complex ecosystems. This reduces operational risks, overheads and costs, while providing a single point of accountability.

“That is also a big tick from a cybersecurity perspective. You are not shifting users and information from one platform to the next.”

OneCouncil was specifically designed for local government, leveraging TechnologyOne’s 3½ decades of expertise in the market, and 73 per cent of Australian and New Zealand residents live in a council powered by the Brisbane firm’s software.

TechnologyOne CEO Ed Chung says his company is increasingly using new technology to help improve OneCouncil’s functionality

It comes as governments Australia-wide are increasingly adopting TechnologyOne’s innovative Saas Plus approach, which addresses the key obstacles of time, value, cost and complexity that often impede government investments in digital infrastructure.

SaaS Plus replaces traditional upfront costs with a single annual fee, simplifying the entire process of implementation, operation and support.

A 2020 report by IBRS into Australian local government technology found there were significant economic dividends from transitioning to citizen-facing digital services, including savings of $20-$50 per transaction for digitising a simple transaction, to $90-$350 for digitising a complex one.

OneCouncil can even help councils manage land and property information, permitting, and zoning processes, making it easier for businesses to set up and invest in the community.

It can also assist the planning and management of renewable energy projects, facilitate partnerships with private sector entities to promote green industries, and support economic development initiatives aimed at attracting future industries.

For residents, OneCouncil’s SaaS solution completely reimagines the way they interact with their council.

For example, those residents who might want to pay for their dog registration from the comfort of their car while waiting for school pick-up can now do so, because the platform is available anywhere, anytime on any device.

TechnologyOne has conducted research in New Zealand, which it believes is largely equally applicable to Australia, showing most citizens believe local and federal government digital services are convenient and save them time.

The study also found people overwhelmingly want information to be easier to find, while offering them clearer instructions on how to do things or get services.

“For the community,” Chung said, “OneCouncil is a gamechanger. It also helps empower council employees to do their job anywhere, as well. Whether it is processing payroll or approving a barbecue booking, they can do it from any device. The technology works seamlessly from any web browser, because we know this is how people work now.”

TechnologyOne is increasingly using new technology to improve OneCouncil’s functionality. For example, its modern digital experience platform for local government, DxP LG, combines natural language processing machine learning and other AI techniques to deliver more accurate and relevant results for residents who wants to report, for example, a missing bin.

“They don’t need to trawl through pages of self-help articles. They can just type: “my bin is missing”, like they would in Google, and the system automatically recognises who they are, takes them to the right page and prefills a form for them based on the information already in the customer platform. It’s truly a transformative way to interact with your local council,” Chung said.

TechnologyOne is working on an ambitious plan to help councils implement ERP software in just 30-days, instead of the many months and sometimes year it can take currently; automation and AI will play a key part in that.

“As a tech company we are constantly leveraging innovation to be more efficient and improve our products and processes,” Chung said.

“We can use AI to help code the mundane stuff so our team can focus on building complex, beautiful software that solves customers’ problems.”