GEDA: electronic document management for CEMAC Representations

Before GEDA, the Representation's document process was entirely manual and fragmented. Records lived in physical paper files and in scattered digital folders on individual computers and in personal email inboxes. Finding a specific document meant relying on human memory and long physical searches, which led to duplicated files, misplaced records and version confusion.

There was no central repository, so sensitive diplomatic and financial records had no standard access controls or traceability. The institution was exposed to data loss and unauthorised access, and its institutional memory was at risk every time staff changed.

• A document library with titles, dates, confidentiality levels and services, sortable and filterable.
• Four confidentiality levels on every document: Confidential, Restricted, Internal and Public.
• Full-text search, including scanned documents through OCR, returning results in about two seconds on average.
• A section for physical archives, so paper records are managed alongside digital ones.
• A retention period on each document, with dashboard alerts when documents approach it.
• Version history for every document.
• User management with role-based access, and sign-in through OpenID Connect.
• A dashboard with totals, monthly consultations, retention alerts, recent activity and storage use.

GEDA · document libraryReady

• opening document registry
• applying confidentiality levels
• indexing for search
• library ready

• An append-only audit trail that records who viewed or downloaded each document, and when.
• Encryption with AES-256, and TLS 1.3 for traffic.
• Encrypted backups with rsync and GPG.
• Self-hosted: installed on site with Docker Compose on Ubuntu or Debian servers, so documents stay under the institution's control.

GEDA · document viewerVerified

• opening document
• reading retention period
• verifying append-only audit log
• audit trail verified

I built GEDA in two weeks, installed it on site in two days, and trained the staff in one week. I was the sole builder, from design to installation and training.

It began at the Representation in Cameroon, with 7 users, and now also serves the Representation in Gabon, with 9 users. Together they hold more than 87,000 documents, combining the archive migrated at setup with documents added through daily use.

Adoption was immediate. A retrieval task that used to take an afternoon now takes about two seconds on average, using the built-in full-text search.

Physical retrieval delays have all but disappeared, and the Representative now has real-time, append-only audit trails. A vulnerable manual process became a centralised, secure and efficient digital workflow.