Office suites policy

Purpose

This Queensland Government Enterprise Architecture (QGEA) policy states the Queensland Governments direction regarding the standard office suite of document processing, spreadsheeting and presentation applications.

The purpose of this QGEA policy is to enable the exchange of electronic office documents - such as spreadsheets, charts, presentations and word processed documents - using office suite file formats that are consistent across the Queensland Government.

Policy statement

The Queensland Government will standardise office suite document formats to ensure interoperability and to reduce unnecessary effort in converting document formats.

Policy benefits

This policy will:

• ensure the interoperability of documents across the Queensland Government
• ensure the long term readability of office documents
• realise savings through a whole-of-government procurement arrangement
• realise savings through reduced training and support skills as a result of office suite standardisation.

Applicability

This policy applies to all Queensland Government departments (as defined by the Public Sector Act 2022). Accountable officers (not already in scope of the Public Sector Act 2022) and statutory bodies under the Financial and Performance Management Standard 2019 must have regard to this policy in the context of internal controls, financial information management systems and risk management. Please see the Applicability of the QGEA for further information.

This policy also applies to all budget-funded departments of the Queensland Government including:

• Electoral Commission of Queensland
• Office of the Governor
• Office of the Ombudsman
• Public Sector Commission
• Queensland Audit Office
• Legislative Assembly and Parliamentary Service.

Policy requirements

Policy requirement 1: Departments must use interoperable office documents

To enable agencies to exchange electronic office documents such as spreadsheets, charts, presentations and word processing documents without concern for the underlying office suite application, agencies must save and share revisable content in one of the following Queensland Government approved content formats:

• Office Open XML format (ISO/IEC 29500-1:2016) for document, spreadsheets and presentations (e.g. docx, xlsx, pptx for Microsoft Office 2008 applications)
• The Open Document Format (ODF) for electronic office for text, sheet, presentation, and graphics (ODT, ODS, ODP, ODG) International standard ISO/IEC 26300-1:2015.

Agencies must ensure they have the capability to read content created in Office Open XML format (OOXML) (ISO/IEC 29500-1:2016) and the Open Document Format (ODF) (ISO/IEC 26300-1:2015) and must ensure that they have the capability to create content that may need to be exchanged in at least one of the above formats.

Agencies currently using an Office product without the capability to read Open XML or Open Document Format content or create content in at least one of these formats need to provide a central file translation service.

Agencies with business applications that create Office content in formats other than Office Open XML format (OOXML) (ISO/IEC 29500-1:2012) or the Open Document Format (ODF) (ISO/IEC 26300-1:2015) must ensure they have an update or migration plan to move these applications to these formats.

Agencies with documentation management systems that do not support Office content in Office Open XML format (OOXML) (ISO/IEC 29500-1:2012) or the Open Document Format (ODF) (ISO/IEC 26300-1:2015) must ensure they have a plan to update their documentation management system to support these formats.

Advice

Further details of the relevant standards are available here:

• ISO/IEC 29500-1:2016 Office Open XML File Formats
• ISO/IEC 26300-1:2015 Open Document Format for Office Applications

Issue and review

Issue date: 9 April 2019
Next review date: April 2021

This QGEA policy is published within the QGEA which is administered by the Queensland Government Customer and Digital Group. It was developed by the Queensland Government Chief Information Office and approved by the Queensland Government Chief Information Officer.

Implementation

This policy comes into effect from the issue date.