Corporate report

DFID’s plan for migrating document types to open standards format

Updated 25 February 2015

This was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government

1. Introduction

Cabinet Office announced the selection of Open Document Format for editable documents on 22 July 2014, which established ODF (1.2) as the standard for holding and sharing documents across the government. PDF/A and HTML5 become the default format for documents intended for viewing. The open standards guidelines apply to all new documents published on GOV.UK.

The Open Standards Principles Policy requires the publication of implementation plans when standards are selected for use across government. The government’s Technology Leaders’ Network meeting on 26 September 2014 reiterated the need for Departments to publish implementation plans relating to open formats for documents. DFID’s plan is the response based on our current assessment of office productivity and web publishing tools available to staff in DFID for publishing content on externally-facing internet sites including GOV.UK, Development Tracker, data.gov.uk, the Supplier Portal and the Contracts Finder.

The move to open standards for documents published by government departments has benefits for government employees, for people reading our official documents and for the UK public as a whole.

For employees, open standards mean that collaboration with other government departments (or divisions within our own department) will always be straightforward, even if they are using alternative software packages. Departments and members of the public will also have the reassurance that archived documents will always be readable, as this is part of the standard.

Anyone wishing to access government information on the web will no longer need to purchase or use specific software packages on their computers or devices to read documents.

The public as a whole will benefit from the level playing field that commitment to open standards will bring about. By migrating document formats to this international standard, DFID will ensure that our Department is obliged to renew contracts with incumbent software providers. The Department will be able to choose productivity and publishing tools according to the needs of individual users, helping to ensure maximum value for money.

2. Current processes

At present, PDF is used for the majority of DFID publications on GOV.UK, and Word and Excel documents make up the remainder. CSV format is used to publish DFID transparency data on data.gov.uk, and its continued use is acceptable under the new policy.

The GOV.UK content management system is used to create content in HTML5, CSV files are created using Microsoft Office 2010. They will continue to be published in this format

Staff are currently provided with Microsoft Office 2010 and are able to generate and publish documents in PDF/A or ODF (1.1) formats. Office 2010 cannot generate ODF (1.2) documents. DFID will specify a requirement that a future office productivity suite (word Processing, presentation, and basic spreadsheet software) must be compliant with the selected open formats so that staff members are able to save and publish ODF 1.2 files.

PDF files are also provided to DFID by third party agencies using their own publishing tools. Not all of these documents are PDF/A compliant.

Content published on GOV.UK already meets HTML5 standards.

3. Plans

DFID is committed to moving to the use of open standards where affordable, technically achievable and after necessary training of staff delivering aid and humanitarian interventions

Our plan is split into 3 parts:

3.1 Part 1 of this plan outlines where DFID:

• can continue to publish in formats that are currently being used
• will make immediate changes to formats of documents it is publishing
• will make changes to integrated tools required as part of the publishing process that may take longer to draw up and implement

By 31 May 2015:

• all new text documents for publication on GOV.UK will comply with, open standards ODF 1.1

• all PDF publications published on GOV.UK will be in PDF/A format

• all PDF publications and documents intended to be information only (i.e. non-editable) published on the Contracts Finder will be in PDF/A format. This does not include documents provided by third party partners

• PDF/A-1 or PDF/A-2 documents will be used as a format in all cases where PDF files would normally have been used. PDF/A-3 documents will not be published

• all new documents published externally by DFID will be available in open formats as detailed in the introduction above

• documents whose primary use is for collaboration and commercial bids and tenders, including forms and responses to direct communications, will not be automatically available in open formats at this stage as this will require changes to integrated tools, however they will be made available in these formats on request and this will be clearly advertised at relevant entry points. This will apply primarily to forms on our Supplier Portal (for procurement), and answers to Freedom of Information requests

• DFID will start publishing newly created text documents on GOV.UK and Development Tracker in ODF 1.1 where appropriate. This will typically be in cases where a proprietary format was previously used, and PDF/HTML are not suitable, for instance if the document needs to be edited, or user research indicates that editable documents are preferred. Changes will be required to our electronic document and records management system to allow storage of ODF files as this is integrated into the publishing work flow of Development Tracker

• text documents will be in ODF 1.1. Publishing documents in ODF 1.2 will require updates to the department’s office productivity suite, which are not currently planned

• spreadsheet and Presentation documents will be not be transitioned to ODF, by default, until DFID is equipped to export these documents to ODF 1.2. This is due to ODF 1.1 not fully supporting required features of formulae within spreadsheet documents

• DFID will continue to use tabular CSV files for all raw transparency data published on data.gov.uk. Documents for machine readable purposes will remain unchanged

• DFID will update guidelines for content owners in the department to include the need to produce GOV.UK content that is compliant with the new standards

• DFID will inform its third party partners of the need to provide publications that are PDF/A compliant. All PDF publications published on DFID’s external web sites should then be in PDF/A format

There is no requirement to convert previously uploaded files to comply with open standards. Historic documents will be made available in open formats by request, and depending on demand, they may be converted on ad hoc basis.

3.2 Part 2 of this plan relates to office productivity tools within the Department.

In order to ensure that user need is central to our plans, it is necessary that the documents we produce can be opened, edited and saved by our staff.

By 31 March 2015:

• DFID will commence a discovery project to investigate the Department’s office productivity suite requirements and where necessary recommend suitable alternative solutions. User research will be part of this discovery phase.

• as part of this we will also speak to suppliers of productivity software to investigate what solutions they are able to offer. We will also need to consider interactions with the current and future Electronic Document and Record Management (EDRM) system. This is due to be refreshed by the end of 2015, and compatibility with Open Formats is a requirement for any system the department will use

• in drawing up this plan, the department will engage with staff within the Department both when considering options on how to implement the Cabinet Office’s directive, and while implementing the chosen option. This user research will take the form of interviews/questionnaires about current software use as well as running pilots to test the preferred option before full implementation. Work will also been done to investigate conversion of documents used as templates

• DFID will continue to engage with the Cabinet Office team, other government departments and with the vendor community

By 30 June 2015:

• research will be completed.

By 31 August 2015:

• the department’s plan to address these requirements will be published after the cross-government spending review process that will follow the election in May 2015

• while this plan is being formulated, there will be frequent progress updates on the departmental intranet, and where appropriate, staff working with third parties should update them on any changes to our methods of working that may be relevant

3.3 Part 3 of this plan relates to enabling open document formats with the Department’s integrated tools.

When considering the productivity tools that will be used in the Department, we will need to make sure that back-office processes are not adversely affected by a change in document formats. This includes use of the EDRM software, communication tools that interact with the EDRM system and systems that identify documents from the EDRM system for publication online (e.g. to our Development Tracker).

Work has already been done to identify any potential issues, and this will be taken into account when determining potential solutions, and when implementing the chosen solution.

Issues that affect small groups of users in the department will need to be investigated on a case-by-case basis. This includes the use of Excel with “add-ins” for statistical analysis, retrieving management information from databases and the use of legacy proprietary file formats.

These should be audited at the same time as the user research taking place, enabling DFID to begin longer term planning to transition away from the use of macros and scripting within the documents.