TRE-TO focuses on collaboration and invests in technology with Google Workspace
About TRE-TO
The Regional Electoral Court of Tocantins (TRE-TO) is a judicial institution responsible for all matters related to elections, rulings on candidacies and accountability in the Brazilian state of Tocantins.
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About Safetec
Safetec, a consultancy firm offering corporate solutions, builds experiences using collaboration and cloud technology solutions.
By adopting Google Workspace, a process facilitated by Safetec, TRE-TO stood out as one of Brazil’s judicial institutions fully prepared for remote work.
Results
- Opportunity to drive collaborative work among employees.
- Cost savings and less time spent on tool management.
- Created a Virtual Counter to provide online citizen services.
- Streams plenary sessions and other events via Google Meet.
Migrated almost 5 million items.
The Regional Electoral Court of Tocantins (TRE-TO) manages elections and hands down decisions over candidate registrations and accountability in the northern Brazilian state of Tocantins. It currently has between 800 and 1,000 employees.
Known for constantly seeking new tech processes to improve its work routine and, therefore, its citizen services, TRE-TO began looking for options to solve some problems faced back in 2019.
As it worked with on-prem file and email servers, the Court had to endure frequent service shutdowns. Furthermore, the team did not have services, such as chat and corporate video conferencing, which would later prove essential.
“With our previous system, file backups took nearly 48 hours to complete, i.e., nearly two days, an untenable time given the demand we handle. The aim of choosing Google Workspace was also to reduce the pressure on physical devices, media, and employees,” explains Fernando Jorge Ebrahim Lima e Silva, TRE-TO’s Infrastructure Manager.
Consequently, the partnership with Safetec was essential to leverage new opportunities arising from using Google Workspace. The migration started with email and was performed by the Court’s support team together with Safetec. Other tools were incorporated later on.
In-person project support
During the process, TRE-TO received in-person support from Safetec for data migration, tool parameterization, and team guidance, among other aspects.
“I spent two weeks in Tocantins supporting the migration phase and conducting training sessions with the infrastructure team. Back then, we launched a portal with video tutorials on how to use Google Workspace, and TRE-TO leveraged those too,” explains Marcos Coelho, Safetec’s Solution Leader.
Under the premise of expanding new tech testing, the Court wholeheartedly embraced change. Gmail was followed by Drive - creating shared folders, modifying logs, and ensuring work on the operational system continued without incident.
Drive enabled 500 TRE-TO employees to work in a home office and ensured information was centralized and accessible. Nearly 500 licenses were deployed, and emails, contacts, and calendar information were migrated. In total around 5 million items were moved to Google Workspace, a sizable volume of information.
With the arrival of COVID-19 in 2020, Google Meet took on a leading role supporting meetings, lectures and other activities. During elections, Meet was used to stream plenary sessions and other events to the public.
The team also used the tool to create the Virtual Counter (Balcão Virtual), an initiative that allowed the Court to provide online citizen services. TRE-TO also uses Calendar so that residents can check its weekly schedule online.
“When the pandemic began, we were one of very few courts using collaborative tools. Today, we can say that we are ready to evolve along with Google Workspace’s solutions. We have adapted to all the resources to handle internal tasks, online sessions, and the Virtual Counter.”
—Valdenir Borges Júnior, IT Secretary, TRE-TONoticeable benefits in citizen services
Google Workspace transformed TRE-TO’s citizen services. Whether in-person or online, the Court can ensure the same quality level and a dialog with the community. A key indicator was the institution’s good ratings in a citizen satisfaction survey.
“Switching from an on-prem platform to Google Workspace changed the way of working, provided a far more collaborative experience, improved communications, reduced the time it takes to perform activities, and optimized TRE-TO’s employees’ work.”
—Marcos Coelho, Solution Leader, SafetecAccording to Safetec, the project’s success is mostly due to the training provided and knowledge replication in users, which was part of the adoption strategy. Data security, resulting from consultancy services and the introduction of best practices of Brazil’s Data Protection Act (LPGD), has made a difference with how the platform is used.
“If we needed software for licensing, we would certainly have much higher costs, along with email and video-conferencing platforms. That is why cost savings and flexibility are assured with Google Workspace. Another key factor is that we spend less time managing tools. We trust the infrastructure.”
—Fernando Jorge Ebrahim Lima e Silva, Infrastructure Manager, TRE-TOBesides these benefits, ensuring all employees can collaborate has transformed TRE-TO’s way of working, as people can now edit content together, review knowledge, and improve their daily tasks.
“We intend to provide more group training sessions. One of our proposals is adopting Currents, another Google product that will help us internally and with our communications. Another goal is to maintain security as a priority, so we want to move other services to the cloud,” TRE-TO’s IT secretary said.
Tell us your challenge. We're here to help.
Contact us
About TRE-TO
The Regional Electoral Court of Tocantins (TRE-TO) is a judicial institution responsible for all matters related to elections, rulings on candidacies and accountability in the Brazilian state of Tocantins.
About Safetec
Safetec, a consultancy firm offering corporate solutions, builds experiences using collaboration and cloud technology solutions.