Australia’s Defense Force (ADF) consists of members of the Navy, Army, Air Force and civilians in the Australian Public Service; it currently employs more than 90,000 people and controls an operating budget in the region of $20 billion per year.

The ADF is fully accountable to the Commonwealth of Australia Parliament, acting on behalf of the Australian people. To ensure the efficiency and effectiveness with which it carries out the government’s defense policy, the ADF has a commitment to keep the public informed about its activities, while maintaining national security.

With the ADF’s various global activities generating images and video footage, Defense Public Affairs was faced with the complex task of managing this material while also ensuring its integrity, security and timely availability. Access to network connectivity in remote locations was also problematical for personnel generating this imagery, which had an adverse effect in time-critical situations where information was required quickly for political, media or strategic purposes. Defense Public Affairs identified that a solution, which could be easily accessed anywhere, anytime and would be capable of enabling fast-track clearance of image and video material, was needed.

The ADF already employed HarvestRoad Hive digital repository in various areas across its operations. As a result, it was a natural progression for the ADF to explore HarvestRoad Hive’s additional features and functionalities as a means of providing a solution to the issues identified by Defense Public Affairs.

HarvestRoad Hive is a web-based application, making it an ideal choice where access in remote areas is required. HarvestRoad Hive’s publishing, workflow, content rendering and notification features ensure that content is managed in a secure and efficient manner.

In consultation with the ADF, a set of customized interface templates were developed to enable personnel in the field access the HarvestRoad Hive bureau. In this straightforward process, personnel are prompted to enter a title and description before uploading content. The system automatically publishes this file to its nominated category, i.e. imagery or video, and generates an email notification based on pre-determined workflow permissions to the appropriate personnel in Canberra. The authorized personnel may then approve the file and release it to the relevant unit within Defense for dissemination.

HarvestRoad Hive supports reuse and sharing of content, therefore permitting an item to be accessed and used in multiple instances without affecting its integrity or security. Interface templates are easily modified by checking them out of the Hive bureau, making the necessary modifications, and checking them back in. Access to the system anywhere, and at anytime means that material can be rapidly published, approved and made available.

The indiscriminate use of images from the battlefield may cause enormous operational and even political damage. 

HarvestRoad Hive has been rigorously tested in the field and has proven itself to be an application capable of operating within the most rugged operational environment and under time-critical circumstances. HarvestRoad Hive provides ADF users with a quality assured way of creating and delivering content in a timely, accurate and secure manner

The Australian Defense Force (ADF) is the military organization responsible for the defense of Australia. It consists of the Royal Australian Navy, the Australian Army, the Royal Australian Air Force as well as a number of ‘tri-service’ units. The ADF was established in 1976 by the Australian government, when these military bodies were brought together under a single headquarters.

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