Workzone at the Department of Public Health
Get off to a good start with Workzone
At Aarhus University, we use the filing system Workzone to file cases. This page will help you get started with Workzone.
If you don’t have access to Workzone yet, the first step is to register as a user. To do this, contact Lone Sand Simonsen who will give you access to the system. Please note that before you start using Workzone, you should at least have watched the Workzone introduction videos.
Filing practice: how to file
- Every employee is responsible for filing. You can read more about what needs to be filed further down on this page. If you are in doubt, please contact the superuser.
- You can choose to file yourself or you can get help from the secretariat.
- Once a case has been created, it is easy to file directly from Outlook if you are using Windows.
- Unfortunately, the Outlook plugin does not work for Mac. If you have a Mac, contact the department's superuser.
- We recommend filing on an ongoing basis to ensure that no documents are forgotten.
Click here for examples of filing practices at departmental and dean’s secretariats.
Visit the Workzone homepage on the AU website for more information.
Why
As a university, we have a record-keeping obligation, which means we must save certain documents and correspondence to ensure that:
- the university complies with the statutory requirements of section 15 of the Access to Public Administration Files Act
- critical documentation is preserved and can be found when needed
- we can quickly and efficiently accommodate requests for access to documents
- we uphold efficient and coherent administrative processes.
Documents and correspondence must be stored in an ESDH system that is designed to store documentation securely.
The senior management team has decided that Workzone will be used for cases with record-keeping obligations.
What
Not all documents or correspondence must be filed, but as a general rule, documents and e-mails that describe the content of a case, the progression of the case or the understanding of the case in question are filed.
This means that if a meeting is planned, the agenda, appendices and minutes must, as a minimum, be filed, but not agreements about coffee orders, conference rooms or the like.
The Secretariat keep records of the Department’s daily activities, as the administrative units at the faculty already log many of the cases we are otherwise working with or contributing to. This applies, for example, to:
- HR: Information regarding appointments and personnel matters.
- TTO: Collaboration agreements and contracts – these are filed in Inteum.
- Graduate school: Everything relating to enrolled PhD students – including employment information for those who are employed.
- Finance: Information regarding external grants: applications, setting up projects, budgets, status reports, etc.
At the Department of Public Health, the Secretariat must, for example, file the following:
- Management decisions
- Agendas and minutes of formal meeting forums
- Documentation of administrative projects
- Approved processes and guidelines
- Correspondence with external parties.
For researchers, this applies to research cases as well as to collaboration with external parties.
This does not apply to specific research data, but to the surrounding documentation in connection with the administration of a research project. If you think it would be a good idea to save a document in a folder in Outlook or Word, you should also save it in Workzone.
This might include incoming and outgoing correspondence/e-mails as well as completed internal documents such as agendas and minutes from meetings, research applications, concluded contracts and formal agreements, as well as significant documents or critical internal correspondence in this connection.
For collaboration with external parties, there is one case per activity. An example of an activity might be participation in councils and committees, enquiries from external stakeholders such as public authorities, companies, organisations and private individuals, or conferences held at AU.
Who
The managers of the individual areas are responsible for ensuring that the records are filed in accordance with the overall framework and guidelines.
The individual employee is responsible for ensuring that all case-relevant material received, sent or created is filed in Workzone in accordance with the filing practice in the area.
Only super-user Lone Sand Simonsen sets up cases in Workzone (for information about the process, see below).