Dept Primary Industry & Resources - Tenement Management System

The Client

Primary Industries and Resources SA (PIRSA) is a key economic development agency within the South Australian Government, supporting industries with a total value in excess of $7 billion.

Tenement Management System
Click for Photo Gallery


It is committed to sustainable and responsible development as well as fostering of internationally competitive industries across the primary resources sector.

The Challenges

To develop a new web-based system for PIRSA to integrate the functions of several existing tenement management systems being:

  • MinReg which comprises a suite of databases relating to royalties, exploration licences and leases;
  • TenRent which records rental rates and generates invoices;
  • PSPP (Precious Stones Prospecting Permit) which records opal mining permits and miners rights;
  • Several "top-drawer" systems which are mainly Microsoft Excel spreadsheets;

To eliminate redundancies and duplication across the current systems and automate business processes not catered for by the current systems.

To identify and document the associated business processes requiring re-engineering and propose implementation strategies.

To develop a mobile offline application which gives inspectors access to tenement details whilst out in the field. Due to the environment in which the inspectors are operating, the preferred solution is to deploy the application on a handheld device such as a Pocket PC.

(Return to top)

The Solution

In the first stage of the project SRA produced a user requirements document and business process design following an approach that involved:

  • Familiarisation and planning;
  • Gathering information including review of existing systems and processes and workshops and interviews with relevant stakeholders;
  • Designing and documenting new business processes;
  • Documenting the functional requirements;
  • Designing and documenting a high level entity model;
  • Presenting a summary of the findings to the project board.

The project board accepted these deliverables and subsequently awarded SRA the design stage of the project.

The design stage included detailed design of 120+ screens and 80+ standard reports. It culminated in the preparation of an HTML prototype of the entire application that was presented in a walk-through to all users. The project board accepted the design and awarded the application development to SRA.

The new Tenement Management System has been developed with a front-end web interface adhering to J2EE standards and an integrated back-end Oracle database. The major system modules are:

  • System Administration;
  • Client Administration;
  • Tenement Administration;
  • Accounts Administration;
  • Rehabilitation Administration;
  • Operations;
  • Workflow.

Other significant system features include:

  • Spatial interface between the front-end application and the South Australian Resources Information GeoServer (SARIG) to enable PIRSA staff to view tenement data;
  • Interface to Mesadoc, the tenement files records management system;
  • Offline mode to enable inspectors to view data on their laptops when out in the field and disconnected from the online application.

There was also a considerable data conversion effort required given the number and range of legacy systems being integrated into the new system.

(Return to top)

Mobile Data Access

SRA also developed an application designed to run on a Pocket PC running Windows CE. The application enables inspectors to download a subset of tenement details to their device, giving them instant access to the data whilst out in the field without the need for a laptop or network connection. Once back in the office, inspectors can connect their device to the network, allowing them to synchronise their data and new versions of the application as they become available.

The Technology

Java and Javacript
HTML and XML
ESRI ArcIMS
Oracle 9i RDBMS
Oracle Workflow
Crystal Reports
Oracle Intermedia
Replication
WADE application server
Jcreator
Source Jammer (version control)
Oracle 9i Lite RDBMS
eMbedded Visual Basic
Windows CE

The Services

User requirements gathering and documentation
Business process design
IT infrastructure analysis
Project Management
User Interface Design
Database Design
Technical Development
Data Conversion
System Documentation
Testing
Training

(Return to top)


Return to Government Sector...