Training sessions held for officials on using the eOffice and eArchive
Over the past eight months, 15 training sessions have been conducted for heads and officials of municipal and city administrations with the aim of enhancing capacities for providing electronic services and using the eOffice software.
These training sessions were supported through the project "Public Procurement and Good Governance for Greater Competitiveness," financed by the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida), with Svetlana Jovanović, a senior advisor in the Cabinet of the Prime Minister of Serbia, serving as the instructor.
In the first phase, from July to September 2023, five live training sessions were held in Kragujevac, Novi Sad, Niš, Belgrade, and Šabac for 123 officials and heads from 60 local self-governing units. Participants were trained and strengthened in the domain of electronic administrative procedures - including the use of the eGovernment portal, Eid portal, electronic signature and seal, as well as familiarizing themselves with the institutional and regulatory framework of eGovernment in Serbia. They also had the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the eOffice software, with instructor Svetlana Jovanović demonstrating the entire process of filing and tracking the status of documents, as well as electronically sending responses to stakeholders.
In the second phase, from October 2023 to February 2024, four online training sessions were conducted exclusively dedicated to the use of the eOffice software for officials from local self-governing units. There was significant interest among officials in organizing training on this topic, as many local self-governing units had begun using this software solution but faced numerous challenges. The response for participation in these sessions was exceptionally high, with 679 officials attending. After the completion of the training, recordings were provided to all participants so they could revisit the content at any time.
In the third and final phase, from November 2023 to February 2024, six field visits were organized to local self-governing units - Niš, Kragujevac, Belgrade, Novi Sad, Pirot, and Čačak - to conduct training on the use of the new eArchive software solution, which became a legal requirement as of January 1, 2024.
During the past year, four field visits were used to gather officials from all 38 public archives in Serbia to provide them with a premiere demonstration of this software solution. The remaining two visits, in February 2024, were used to showcase this software to officials from local self-governing units. The number of participants in all these training sessions exceeded expectations, with 269 officials participating from both public archives and local self-governing units. In addition to Svetlana Jovanović, instructors for these sessions included Vojkan Gligorijević from the Office for Information Technology and Electronic Administration, Marija Milošević from the Ministry of Culture, and Aleksandar Rafailović from the State Archives of Serbia.
- NALED will continue to organize training sessions for officials in local self-governing units with the aim of strengthening their capacities, particularly supporting major reform initiatives such as eArchive and eOffice, which are intended to facilitate the almost complete transition of the state to electronic office operations," concluded Ilija Gavrilović, regulatory reform associate at NALED.
