TMS engagement hub
To ensure industry input into the development of the Titles Management System (TMS), Mining, Exploration and Geoscience has undertaken, or is undertaking, a variety of consultation and engagement initiatives. These include:
TMS webinar hosted by Association of Mining and Exploration Companies
A webinar facilitated by Association of Mining and Exploration Companies (AMEC) for its members on TMS was conducted on 18 March 2021. The event attracted 61 attendees and the session took the audience through a background of the system, its benefits, what it can currently do and what is proposed for future releases, plus some insights from actual users on their experience using TMS. The highlight of the session was a demo showing how to create a new account, navigate the dashboard, lodge an Exploration Licence (EL) and manage an account and company profile on the system.
There were many questions raised, including some specific feedback about the useability of the Application Area selection interface, accommodation of alternative shape file formats and availability of other dealing types. The TMS team will continue to explore improvements to address individual concerns.
We are hoping the session encourages potential users to jump in and start using TMS.
TMS industry engagement for phase four
In February 2021, the TMS team held engagement sessions with a few industry members to review functional design regarding report lodgements. These sessions confirmed we were on the right path and helped us understand industry priorities and identify future enhancements.
TMS industry testing for phase three release
In October 2020, the TMS team conducted a series of one-on-one testing sessions with six user groups from across industry. The focus of the guided sessions was to introduce the users to the new functionality built in a TMS testing environment, which included being given a preview of the enhanced dashboard. This was followed by a demonstration then hands-on test drive by the testers on the creation and lodgement of Transfer and/or Agreement dealings, which were not currently available in the current R4 (Phase 2) version.
The following is a summary of the key observations and outcomes from the testing sessions:
Summary
| Functional scope | Specific area | Feedback received and responses | Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enhanced dashboard |
Format, layout and new functionality |
Very well received by all testers, with one user so impressed to see functionality that they remarked had surpassed their expectations of what TMS could or would deliver |
Favourable feedback |
|
Customisation of Action Required and Applications views |
Explanations and demo were very well received Ability to be prompted on outstanding actions and tracking of a user’s portfolio of cases would save them time tracking this separately offline |
Favourable feedback |
|
| Profile management |
Ability to manage a company profile and associate cases with companies |
Very well received, including the ability to request access from an authorised manager of the company profile |
Favourable feedback |
| Apply screens – for Transfer, Part Transfer and Agreements |
Sharing of drafts – The question of ability to share a draft application in progress amongst other parties (e.g. colleagues while on leave, for checking by supervising manager, signature by authorised company director, JV partners, etc) was raised. |
Currently only the user who created the application can access the draft PDF of draft allows for sharing of partial applications offline The TMS team would consider other ways of achieving this online, e.g. reassigning a draft, using docu-sign add-ons, etc. |
Potential further functional improvements for future releases |
Post-phase two release user engagement survey
In September 2020, registered users of the TMS were invited to provide feedback on their experience using the system, following the Phase 2 and Phase 2.1 releases.
Approximately half of the respondents indicated they had used the system to successfully lodge an application for either grant or renewal.
Pleasingly, there was a positive sentiment to many aspects of the system such as the ease of adding relevant parties, uploading attachments, exporting application details to a PDF, ease in navigating the case tracking feature and usability of the dashboard. In general, users could find the information they needed and were happy with how informative the dashboard, help text and the TMS newsletter were.
The responses also identified a few areas for improvement, including system tweaks and highlighting the existing guidance information to enhance the user experience. This feedback will be considered by the team for future releases.
Most respondents found the level of industry engagement over the last six months to be good or very good, demonstrating the Department’s success in ensuring stakeholders continue to be consulted while delivering the system.
A detailed summary of the feedback is outlined below:
Summary of survey findings and outcomes
This diagram provides a snapshot view of the questions and the responses received, coded broadly in Green (G) for favourable, Amber (A) for neutral and Red (R) for unfavourable.
In the table below, we highlight the specific areas of interest and concern (i.e. those questions with red responses), along with proposed actions and solutions to address these issues:
| Functional theme | Survey | Inference outcomes |
|---|---|---|
| Q3. Ease of adding parties relevant to the application | Several respondents found this difficult to do. | Identified need to draw attention to the Help text provided on the screen - to be provided in the next newsletter. |
| Q18. Level of engagement over last six months | While the majority of respondents found the level of engagement to be good, there was one who found the engagement unsatisfactory. | Explore other channels for engagement with potential TMS users, beyond the existing feedback, consultation and survey modes adopted so far. |
| Q20. Subscribing to the TMS monthly newsletter | A large proportion (56%) of respondents had not subscribed to the TMS newsletter. | Explore other ways to promote the newsletter as a supporting resource for users, both on the system itself and on the Department’s website. |
| Q21. Is the TMS monthly newsletter informative? | Although a majority found content useful, there was one who didn’t. | Ensuring content is targeted towards TMS usage and improving the user experience. |
| Q28. Use of EROL to lodge reports | Around 30% of respondents found it difficult to lodge reports using EROL. | Feedback taken on board for consideration in future Phase 4 TMS release. |
| Q32. The overall report assessment progress (i.e. EROL, Assessment, DIGs, etc) | Around 30% of respondents found the overall report assessment process unsatisfactory. | Feedback taken on board for consideration in future Phase 4 TMS release. |
TMS industry engagement for phase three release
In the lead up to the release of Phase 3 of TMS in December, nine early one-on-one engagement sessions were held in August with representative stakeholders.
Their purpose was to help the project team focus and prioritise the new functionality being developed for Phase 3, including a refreshed user dashboard and new profile management for user accounts associated with a company’s portfolio of titles.
Engagement outcomes are summarised below:
Summary of early engagement sessions and outcomes
| Functional theme | Feedback and discussion | Outcomes |
|---|---|---|
| General expectations for the system |
|
Supports an approach to consolidate the number of online channels run by the Department. |
| Feedback on current system |
|
|
| Dashboard features |
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Better, seamless integration between TMS and the Resource Regulator’s portal. This continues to be explored, along with access to payment history. |
| Profile management |
|
The feedback received validated the team’s approach. |
| Work allocation to staff |
|
User and staff allocation by client name and project or mine operation/colliery to be facilitated. |
| Technical manager appointments |
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Process to be updated in relation to the new Minimum Standards for Mineral Explorers requirements. |
| Submission of Statement of Corporate Compliance (SCC) and other standard documents |
|
More streamlined lodgement of SCC to be coordinated with the Resources Regulator |
| Case lifecycle – from NoPD to grant of licence |
|
To be implemented as part of Phase 3 for major dealings such as grant, renewal, approvals for transfer and part transfer. |
TMS industry testing for phase two
Thank you to those that nominated to participate in our industry testing prior to the release of Phase Two of the system in June. A total of 12 industry participants took part.
Participants were able to test the new functionality in Phase Two and provide their feedback via an online form. The feedback received was generally positive, with some new TMS noting how easy the system was to use and navigate.
These testing sessions were followed by a quick debrief with each participant to clarify their feedback. Upon collating and reviewing all feedback, the TMS team was able to action some immediate changes to the system, with all other feedback taken onboard for future improvements and refinements to the user interface.
Broadly, the feedback from the testing can be summarised as:
Summary of feedback received
| Functional theme | Observations | Response and outcomes |
|---|---|---|
| Dashboard: case-tracking | Would like to see more granularity and visibility regarding an application’s status | As part of the launch of Phase Two of the system, six new status categories were made available to industry. Further granularity over those stages are currently under review and may form part of future releases. |
| Application details | 1.The technical manager identification process is not ideal, especially if the person is not registered on TMS. 2.Only two Group Types can be selected. |
1.Alternative interim solutions are being considered to accommodate the selection of a technical manager that is not registered in TMS. This may include the introduction of a form confirming the person’s consent to use their details in TMS. 2.The Group Types are dependent on the dealing type applied for and this is not fully set up in TMS yet. In the meantime, you can treat this as optional, and the application can still proceed if you skip this section. |
| User interface and experience |
1.The application area input could be more seamless. |
1.Spatial usability is being explored to see if any improvements can be made for future releases. 2.This cannot be addressed at present, as the 50-character limit is a limitation of the Pega platform being used to develop the system. |
| Ease of uploading documents |
The uploading of multiple documents in the same category is not possible (e.g. multiple compliance history documents attached to a single application). |
The TMS team put in place a temporary workaround. Users were able to upload multiple documents using the ‘Other Documents’ type from the drop-down menu. This issue was addressed and resolved in the d in an intermediate release Phase 2.1. |
| Profile management |
Unable to amend user profile |
This functionality was not active at the time of the industry user testing but was made available as part of the Phase 2 release, allowing for updates to be made to street addresses and contact details. To change usernames or email contact the TMS team directly. |
| Justification information for renewals |
The 1,000-character limit was inadequate for the renewal justification component of coal renewal applications |
This item was addressed in the interim Phase 2.1 release, with the character limit increased to 4,000. |
TMS pulse check survey
The wider industry was also invited to respond to a TMS pulse check survey released in April 2020. 53 responses were received, with encouraging results suggesting most participants found the system quite intuitive and easy to use.
Respondents highlighted the importance of greater visibility over the progress of pending applications and enhanced dashboard functionality to allow greater visibility of reports, renewals, conditions and payments as being potential improvements to the system.
The TMS team is working to incorporate this feedback into future releases.
The full findings of the survey are summarised below:
Summary of survey findings
| Functional theme | Observations |
|---|---|
|
Intuitiveness and ease of use |
Sample of comments coming out of the survey:
|
|
Ease of submitting applications |
More than half the responders indicated submitting applications was easy or very easy |
|
Usefulness of the dashboard |
80 per cent of responders indicated the dashboard was useful and only one responder indicated it was not useful |
|
Overall satisfaction with the system |
50 per cent of responders indicated they were satisfied or very satisfied with the system and only one responder indicated they were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied. That said, the TMS team acknowledges there is more room for improvement in future releases. |
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Functional priorities to be built in the system |
Responders identified these features as being most important:
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Features industry would like to see added |
Suggestions received include:
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Awareness of TMS and benefits over existing systems |
Results indicated there was a lack of Industry awareness of the system and its benefits. Further engagement will be undertaken to inform our customers of TMS, its key functions and benefits and its advantages over alternate forms of submitting applications. |
As part of this Pulse Check survey, we also asked for feedback on MEG’s overall levels of customer service. We appreciate the time and effort taken to provide feedback and the candidness of the responses. MEG will be undertaking further initiatives to strengthen and improve our levels of customer service and engagement.
Virtual Roadshow
In April 2020, the TMS team conducted a virtual roadshow comprising ten separate engagement sessions with agents and holders from the coal and minerals sectors. These sessions included targeted feedback on existing system functionality as part of Phase 1, a demonstration of Phase 2 functionality and discussions on key functional priorities for future releases of the system.
The feedback received from the sessions is summarised below:
Summary of session feedback
| Functionality theme | Details discussed | Response and outcomes |
|---|---|---|
|
Access to previous docs lodged |
E.g. Work Programs or Renewal Justification Statements (RJS) |
As part of Phase 2, customers can view all previously ‘Completed’ applications and their supporting documentation. As more applications are submitted, the system will build its repository of data and documents. |
|
Ability to toggle back and forth between application stages |
Useful for non-linear upload of information if you don’t have all the information ready and can build an application progressively as a draft in the system |
Due to the way information is organised and captured in the portal (i.e. your responses determine what is subsequently displayed), you must complete screens before you can toggle back to an earlier section. |
|
Reminder notifications for renewals, reports and payments, etc |
Current email notification sent when:
|
This is now available for all portal lodgements. |
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Not having to deal with multiple systems and logins |
Dealing with multiple system logins when dealing with a single application. |
This is currently under review and the proposed decommissioning of legacy systems (e.g. EROL) will reduce the multiplicity and provide a single point of entry for industry. The Resources Customer Portal (RCP), the alternative online lodgement portal was decommissioned, making the TMS the only way to lodge an application online. |
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Profile management capability |
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These are currently being explored, with early engagement taking place in August for some enhancements to be implemented in the next Phase 3 release. |
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Ability to set priority of work |
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Under investigation for future releases. |
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Nomination of ‘Technical Managers’ – mandatory |
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A solution to allow for nomination of parties who may not be registered in TMS will be rolled out in an interim Phase 2.1 upgrade. |
TMS industry webinar for phase one
To ensure the system was fit-for-purpose prior to the launch of Phase One in December 2019, MEG held an industry webinar to gain feedback on key features being considered in the development of the portal. MEG would like to thank the webinar participants for taking part. Valuable insights were gained to help us improve the portal.
- View a video of the full TMS industry webinar
- View the responses (PDF, 154.75 KB) to questions raised by industry at the webinar
Prior to the system’s launch, MEG sent out a letter to all applicants and authority holders in TAS, advising the commencement of TMS and requesting validation of their contact details.
Your ongoing feedback
We are committed to improving our services and keeping the engagement going. We welcome your feedback and suggestions based on your experience with TMS.
You can provide feedback by emailing us at tms@planning.nsw.gov.au.