York County, PA, Shares Their Success Story in New White Paper
May 19th, 2009 Comment on this articleWhen we last heard from York County, PA, IS Department Senior Project Administrator Mary Jane McCluskey, she shared how the York County court system had revolutionized its business processes since implementing Laserfiche in 2005.
Since then, York County has turned into a flagship case study into just how much Laserfiche can do for a community given the chance to grow wherever it’s implemented. As McCluskey puts it, “It’s evolving.”
While the Clerk of Courts’ office continues to use Laserfiche to simplify case processing, the Sheriff’s Department now uses a time-saving process in Central Booking. Police from 15 districts drop off suspects, while Sheriff’s deputies process those arrested using customized e-forms that are saved into Laserfiche to document all aspects of the arrest and preliminary arraignment. The automated e-forms save time and paperwork—no more trying to read an officer’s handwriting, no more having to drive another five miles to dig up a file when someone who’s been released claims they didn’t get their cell phone back—because it’s all right there in Laserfiche.
WebLink makes arrest documentation immediately available to the magisterial district judge (MDJ), who then appears on a monitor in Central Booking’s processing room for a video arraignment to set bail.
Files are still printed out and faxed to the 19 district justices who hear cases, but that process is on its way to being automated with Laserfiche. And office staff love being able to look up previous arrest information when they have a question about someone who has a hearing at their office.
York County illustrates how Laserfiche can adapt and respond to the unique needs of each department it serves even as it shows just how different those needs are. In Central Booking, that means its e-forms are part of the next-generation arrest and video arraignment technology. But in the Children and Youth Services (CYS) Department, Laserfiche simply complements the existing database. For over 20 years, the ZOC database has stored original client information, but now Laserfiche provides access to other relevant files from a newer database of scanned documents directly from the Laserfiche database.
The County’s Laserfiche reseller, John Evans of DocuScan, customized a batch header sheet program generator which allows the scanning personnel to get all the batch header sheets for an entire family’s set of files with a few simple clicks of the mouse. “The batch header program can accommodate a family with up to 26 children—we actually have one family with 23 children,” McCluskey explains. “So we’re saving significant labor for our scanner operators, and frustration in generating batch header sheets for all those case files!”
Next up for York County is installing Laserfiche in its Treasurer’s Department, which supports 172 tax collectors. “Our reseller created mock-up folders so the staff can play around and search prior to finalizing the structure,” McCluskey notes. “If we need to make changes to give them everything they need, we can do that before we implement the system.”
Seeing the automation process spread so organically and variously across York County’s departments has given McCluskey some perspective. “Success builds on success,” she says. “Other departments see what’s already happened and now they’re asking ‘How quickly can you get to us?’
“We have projects planned until 2011,” she adds.
To learn more about York County’s story, download our new municipal government case study white paper.
- Start small to keep things manageable and realistic. “We talk a lot about baby-steps,” says Mary Jane. “That’s the way we implement every project.”
- Work with your reseller to initiate pilot programs. “A partnership with a reseller who has the ability to customize integrations is really important,” says McCluskey. “Whenever we could, we’d have our reseller mock-up folders.”
- Educate. “We worked very hard to work with clerks—and even judges—to offer hands-on training. Even if it was on their lunch hour.”
- Trust the process—and it is a process. “Once you get a taste of how things are done in Laserfiche, it’s ‘How can we shave seconds off a process?’ Which, if you have 15,000 folders, time savings are exponential.
- Attract more than promote. “Success builds on success.”
Tags: expansion, implementation, mainframe integration, video arraignment, WebLink