How Automation Changed This Council’s Recordkeeping
A published customer story from City of Kalamunda, Australia.
Recordkeeping compliance matters and automation make all the difference, as this WA council discovered.
When your role spans records management, business systems, data compliance and Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, you quickly learn that the best tools don’t add work but take it away.
For Brett Byfield, Coordinator Data Information and Systems at the City of Kalamunda in WA, Brolly is one of those tools.
“As part of the ICT team, we manage the City’s records system and ensure we meet our digital recordkeeping obligations,” Brett explains. “FOI requests come through our team too, so ensuring we’ve captured the right information is critical.”
Here’s how Brolly helped them meet their recordkeeping obligations with minimal effort.
The compliance challenge before Brolly
Before 2019, the City’s social media records weren’t consistently captured.
If a customer sent a Facebook message that was essentially a service request, it might be logged into the system. But many interactions – posts, comments, direct messages (DM) – weren’t recorded in full.
“We weren’t capturing the full context,” Brett explains. “If something was deleted before we’d seen it, it was gone. That created a compliance risk under the State Records Act.”
Spotting the right recordkeeping tool
Brett first discovered Brolly at a local government conference.
“The market has broadened since then, but Brolly stood out and it still does.”
The City valued Brolly’s ability to:
- Ensure compliance with the State Records Act.
- Capture records automatically with minimal manual work
- Run as a cloud-based technology (no clunky desktop installs)
- Provide a proven solution trusted by other councils
Being part of WA’s local government records management group, the City could clearly see Brolly’s value.
Easy onboarding, immediate compliance
The City started with Brolly in July 2019.
“It was quick,” Brett says. “We linked our accounts and within hours, Brolly had captured all historic records back to when the accounts were first created.”
Since then, recordkeeping has been quiet and low maintenance.
“We do a monthly capture that is very hands-off. Occasionally, we update a password to make sure it’s linked in, but otherwise Brolly runs in the background and takes care of it,” Brett adds.
How Brolly supports FOI and sensitive issues
FOI requests and contentious conversations are where Brolly’s value is most visible for the City.
“If there’s a post that sparks debate or concern, we know it’s captured exactly as it appeared at the time,” he explains.
“Even if a comment is deleted, we have the full record.”
FOI requests can also include DMs between residents and council staff.
“These are part of the public record. With Brolly, we can search by name or issue and retrieve the entire conversation, not just fragments.”
A change the whole team supports
The ICT team liked the accuracy and ease, embracing Brolly from day one. The Customer and Public Relations team also benefit, especially when they need to report on metrics or revisit old posts.
“It’s straightforward and it works,” Brett says. “We’ve had no concerns with Brolly.”
Today, the City of Kalamunda has 146,515 records archived in Brolly and have secured:
- Meets their obligations without adding to the workload
- A reliable, automated social media archiving process
- A solution that is easy to implement and maintain
“It’s hands-off and an easy way to be compliant,” Brett says. “For us, that’s perfect.”
For any local government wanting to protect their public record, Brolly offers a secure, automated way to stay compliant.
The US parallel
US cities and counties answer to state public records laws the way City of Kalamunda answers to its records authority: posts get edited, replies pile up around contested decisions, and the earlier wording disappears from the public page unless something keeps it. Every version, reply and deletion in this story is the same record a US records officer is asked to produce.
Find your state’s response windows and statutes in the 50-state guide.
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Case studyLess Time, More Accuracy, Peace of Mind: How This Council Transformed Their Social Media RecordkeepingYour channels, on record from day one.
See how Brolly can capture your connected official accounts, preserve changes and support a well-documented response.