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Commercial fishing in Victorian waters is a $90 million per annum industry. Fisheries Victoria, within the Department of Natural Resources and Environment, is responsible for licensing approximately 900 commercial fishing enterprises.  Managing commercial fishing licences and permits in a consistent and timely manner was the primary driver for the development of the Fisheries Integrated Licence System (FILS).

The application replaces two existing applications based on older “Pick” and “dBase” environments, combining them into a single client/server application that utilises a Sybase Relational Database Management System (RDBMS).

One of the most complex features of the FILS application is the licence conditions maintenance section, where Licence condition profiles are set up for each Licence class.  These profiles are then used as the basis for recording conditions for each licence or permit.  The conditions may be further customised at a licence or permit level.  The facility uses a tree view interface similar to the Windows Explorer.  The system also maintains a history of activity on licences and permits, including transfers, quota changes and simple administrative changes.

The application has complex licence and permit printing capabilities with a batch system to facilitate issuing annual renewals.

In addition to the client/server application there is a Web-based interface for fishery officers around the state, allowing 24-hour access to essential details of licensed operators.

FILS also provides summarised data nightly to a “Catch and Effort” system, which is used to monitor fish resource levels to help determine future fishing limits and protected areas.