Conundrum

You're liable if critical documents are not up to date

Virtually every municipality in North America maintains a municipal code book, an organizational policies and procedures manual and a collection of Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS). Master copies usually reside in the municipal clerk's office. There are usually copies in all departments where they may be needed.

These are crucial, active documents that define how the citizenry and its public servants shall behave within the municipality's boundaries. It is vitally important that master copies and satellite copies be updated whenever revisions or additions are necessary.

Imagine a failure to update even just one copy of a critical document that results in an injustice or otherwise avoidable accident. In worst case scenarios, the municipality can be held liable for this sort of records management lapse.

The master copies of crucial municipal documents are usually up to date. For a variety of reasons, the satellite copies just as usually are not. Number one, keeping the satellite copies current is seldom a priority. In addition, staff are very busy. The updates might be set aside until there are enough to make it worthwhile to go into the books. They might get left at the water cooler. They might get lost or thrown away altogether. It is an understandable but unacceptable situation.

Conventional Solution

You probably already have a system in place to ensure that copies are updated. One common solution is to assign one person to update all of a manufacturing company's printed manuals. Typically, that person will spend an entire day every few weeks checking every book, removing and destroying obsolete pages and replacing them with the new ones. It's a heavy investment in staff hours but is all but guaranteed to improve the situation substantially.

21st Century Solution

Leverage the World Wide Web to quickly eliminate all the things than might go wrong when trying to keep all copies of key municipal documents up to date

Create one perfectly updated, electronic master copy of each crucial document. This can be done either by scanning the hard copies into a document imaging system or by electronically transferring documents created in another software program into a document imaging system.

Then provide access to those documents to every authorized person on the municipal staff (and to the citizenry if so desired) by publishing the master copies on the municipality's website.

That way, there will be no margin for error because everyone will be referring to the same updated electronic master copy of each document. Everyone can get at the information, but only the designated point person for each crucial document can make deletions and additions.

If you'd like to learn more about Laserfiche WebLink, a Web-based document management solution used by dozens of municipalities, visit this website In addition to the basics of making information and updates available instantly to an entire enterprise, it lets users search by what they know about a document. It also allows them to print out excellent copies of pages when needed and execute a variety of other tasks.

If you have other questions, comments or would like to discuss your document problems with an expert, drop us an e-mail at info@laserfiche.com or call 800-985-8533. We look forward to hearing from you.