Since its incorporation in 1921, the city of Lynwood, CA, has endeavored to build a safe, self-reliant and pride-filled community that welcomes citizens and businesses alike. But while this goal hasn’t changed much in the past 80-plus years, the demands of residents and city staff have. With a Laserfiche document management system at the heart of its technology strategy, however, Lynwood is positioned to meet the needs of its more than 73,000 residents, and to continue on its path of forward progress.

According to Administrative Analyst III Daniel Baker, Lynwood was looking for the technological answer to a variety of challenges. “The city environment was changing in a technological sense,” he recalls. “Community members wanted information quicker.”

Citizens weren’t the only ones with demands. Lynwood faced many of the classic challenges of working with paper documents: mounting shipping and handling costs, proliferating documents and dwindling storage space. City staff were growing tired of inefficient paper-based business processes, especially when it came to producing discovery for an influx of litigation. “We were spending a lot of our funding digging through loads of paper documents in response to discovery,” Baker remembers. “The City Attorney would assign short deadlines for finding documents for ongoing litigation, and if staff couldn’t find documents in time, the City could be penalized. That required staff to work a lot of overtime.”

These issues were overwhelming on their own, but were made even worse by Lynwood’s lack of an official records policy. “We needed to develop and maintain guidelines for an efficient records program,” According to City Manager Roger L. Haley. “Furthermore, we had no backup plan in case of fire, flood, earthquake or other disaster.”

Expanding Laserfiche proved to be more than an answer to any specific challenge; in fact, it empowered Lynwood to maximize the value of citizens’ tax dollars.

“The city has a responsibility to provide excellent customer service,” Haley continues, “including quick access to city records and improve service with today’s technology.”

Laserfiche’s tried-and-true document search, retrieval and distribution capabilities proved fit for the task—and for keeping costs down.

“Laserfiche has decreased our printing of paper documents by making it so easy to send files digitally,” Baker says. “The majority of agreements, letters, resolutions and other correspondence are now being e-mailed to vendors instead of mailing a printed copy, which reduces our dependence on the postal system and lowers costs.”

Baker also reports faster response times for records requests, such as resolutions and agendas, while finance department staff can confirm if bills were paid by looking up scanned checks. Staff members looking for copies of resolutions, agendas and agreements no longer trek to the City Clerk’s office, meaning staff productivity and efficiency have increased. “Documents are now at our fingertips instead of in a box in the basement,” Baker says.

Of course, even the most powerful software is only as useful as it is intuitive. That’s why ease of use played a major role in Lynwood’s purchasing decision—and why Laserfiche was the clear choice. “Laserfiche’s functionality is not only rich but easy to learn,” Baker says. “It gives people who aren’t very computer-savvy the confidence to use computer programs in the workplace.”

It’s no surprise that Lynwood would want to extend easy information access to the community. But while city staff quickly came to understand and appreciate Laserfiche, many citizens were hesitant to retrieve documents via Laserfiche rather than making pilgrimages to City Hall. “Many residents refused to change the way they were retrieving information, because they couldn’t understand how valuable a tool Laserfiche is,” Baker recounts.

Lynwood’s electronic document management team adroitly addressed customer concerns, taking Laserfiche’s user-friendliness to new heights with a custom WebLink interface.

“Most public document search engines come off as intimidating to the public, and as a result, few people use them,” Baker explains. “We wanted our approach to be user-friendly, with a likable theme to encourage use.”

Baker teamed with IT Technician Mike Ochoa and Graphic Technician Jamel Goodloe to create a public records portal with an emphasis on accessibility. “We wanted to people of all ages and experience levels to be able to search for documents,” Baker says. The resulting site, called My Doc Spot, features a public records mascot, Spot, who “fetches” agendas, minutes, resolutions, budgets, RFPs and agreements for Lynwood citizens.

Response to the records portal has been overwhelmingly positive, from both citizens and the city staff who formerly had to manually respond to records requests. In fact, My Doc Spot helped Lynwood fetch a coveted 2008 Laserfiche Run Smarter Award. Of course, it also helps that the city now has a codified records policy in place.

“Laserfiche has provided us with a system to cope with our records challenges while meeting ISO standards,” says Baker. “We can now easily classify, store and search for all our records, which satisfies the California Public Records Act,” he adds.

Laserfiche has also helped Lynwood overcome its increased litigation challenge, dramatically reducing the time it takes to respond to discovery requests. “With Laserfiche,” Baker notes, “we can look up what we need to find by a simple keyword search, with no added expense. And instead of giving attorneys binders of documents, we can give them their requested documents on CD.”

The most important benefit of the Laserfiche system, according to Baker, has been establishing and maintaining a comprehensive disaster recovery plan, Laserfiche centralizes all of Lynwood’s vital documents—including agendas, resolutions, printed checks and invoices, agreements, minutes, budgets, city maps, and public requests—for storage and regularly scheduled backup. “Our Laserfiche system makes it very easy to copy images to a DVD-R or tape and send them to a protected location,” Baker says.

Laserfiche went five-for-five in meeting all of the city’s information management challenges. But it’s the unexpected benefits—like increased staff morale and a decreased carbon footprint—that have been especially satisfying for Lynwood staff. “Our staff have definitely taken a liking to the Laserfiche system,” Baker reports. “Most use it to store all their vital and general correspondence, with the confidence that their files will never be lost. By using Laserfiche so much, we’re also promoting a paperless work environment, which in the long run will save resources and promote cleaner air.”

Baker doesn’t hesitate to recommend Laserfiche to his peers. “My advice to those looking to implement document management is this,” he says. “Laserfiche is a ground-breaking solution that gives you the ability to be more efficient, confident and reliable as an organization. Once we installed Laserfiche, our information management challenges soon became yesterday’s news.”

Tags: compliance, disaster recovery, Local Government, WebLink

Posted on Tuesday, November 11th, 2008 at 10:38 am under Customer Stories, Municipal Government, State and Local Government. You can comment on this post.