Elkera legislation publishing system
The Elkera legislation publishing system is based on the systems originally developed by Elkera for Parliamentary Counsel’s Office ACT. The system was originally developed in 2001 and has recently been completely redeveloped with extensive enhancements (www.legislation.act.gov.au).
The Elkera legislation publishing system provides a modular, foundation platform for document management integration, job management, publishing work flow and automated website publishing. It is a scalable platform that can be adapted to any legislative drafting agency’s requirements.
The Elkera legislative publishing system can be offered using either Microsoft Word document authoring or a structured XML based authoring system for legislation that supports fully automated single source and multi-channel publishing of legislation.
The Elkera legislative publishing system is developed using the latest Microsoft and open technologies.
The functional components of the Elkera legislation publishing system are shown in the following schematic diagram.

Key benefits of the Elkera legislation publishing system
The Elkera legislation publishing system avoids duplication of data and automates publishing process to ensure minimum cost of data capture and maximum consistency, accuracy and timeliness of published information.
Key benefits include:
- The Elkera legislation publishing system provides a fully integrated database, workflow and automated publishing system to manage legislative documents and metadata from the drafting stage for proposed laws to the repeal of enacted legislation.
- Legislation metadata is recorded once only so that the same data is used for internal reporting and for presentation to users on the legislation website.
- The system integrates with off-the-shelf applications for document and records management, currently Micro Focus Content Manager (formerly TRIM), Microsoft Office applications and website search (currently Perceptive Search).
- All metadata and document version changes are automatically recorded by the system to support automated publishing of changes to the legislation website. This automation ensures that all data on the website is concurrently updated and coordinated.
- The system provides dynamic status information on the legislation website so that, for example, as future dates take effect, no user action is required to ensure that the correct status information is displayed.
- The system runs on the Microsoft Windows Server and SQL Server platform.
- The system is fully documented and maintained by Elkera’s expert personnel.
The Elkera legislation publishing system is a proven, cost effective and low risk solution for any legislative drafting agency that wishes to complete the transition to a fully digital service model.
For more information, please contact Peter Meyer at Elkera.