In June 2014, as part of a HMRC’s Intranet replacement project, Invotra worked with the Digital Communications Team to tailor the publishing process, in order to improve the way HMRC manuals are maintained.
For (probably much needed!) reference, manuals contain guidance prepared for HM Revenue & Customs staff. The department publish these for taxpayers and their advisors, in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Once the manuals are created internally and published by Invotra – HMRC’s Intranet platform – they are distributed externally to GOV.UK at the same time. HMRC and GDS (responsible for GOV.UK) generated a list of user needs to define the ways in which they desired the end to end process to operate. This was a really exciting time for the both HMRC & Invotra, as we would be the first to publish to GOV.UK with the click of a button.
The alignment of the internal and external version of the manual is so important. Sensitive or redacted information can’t always be made public for obvious reasons. Invotra’s ‘Redaction at source’ capability enabled us to tailor the application to meet the needs of HMRC’s users. This effective, yet simplistic approach, made it easier for HMRC to update and maintain the content of manuals both on the backend and frontend, meaning GDS don’t then need to edit content on GOV.UK themselves, saving time across the board for all parties.
Once the pieces were in place to ensure that the manuals were maintained & updated, getting them published manuals was the next task. We enabled a workflow to allow HMRC to structure the way in which manuals are created and published across to GOV.UK. This effectively means that HMRC can assign specific roles to users to allow the team to work together effectively and ensure content is being thoroughly checked before it’s sent out.
It’s been a brilliant project, with an awesome team. “Hitting a huge milestone” is what it’s all about. The first manual was published on 11th February. take a look here….we’re all a little bit proud! http://www.hmrc.gov.uk.side-by-side.alphagov.co.uk/__/#/manuals/vatgpbma…
