Technology Helps Frisco Independent School District Manage Unprecedented Growth

Frisco Independent School District (ISD), located about 30 miles north of Dallas, Texas, has grown over 800% in the last 20 years. A focus on providing strong academics and outstanding opportunities for students has made the district a destination for families moving to the area. In order to continue providing students with personalized high-quality education, however, the district needed to address staffing needs and the administrative growing pains that coincided with a high enrollment rate.

The district assessed that it would need to double the number of educators on staff — a challenge made even more formidable with legacy manual, paper-driven HR processes. To accommodate a short hiring season of approximately four months, the district turned to Laserfiche enterprise content management (ECM) to automate the employee onboarding and resignation processes. Using electronic forms and an automated workflow created in Laserfiche, Frisco ISD’s onboarding process can now be completed in a matter of days rather than four to six weeks.

Staff and faculty members have since expanded their use of Laserfiche beyond human resources, in departments such as accounting, operations and student services. Laserfiche now streamlines more than 50 key processes throughout the district, enabling faculty and staff to spend less time on repetitive tasks and more time focused on the success of the district’s growing student body. Additionally, when the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in Texas, Frisco ISD was able to seamlessly transition to remote and hybrid work environments, and easily adjust its electronic forms and automated processes to address the needs of its staff and students.

Onboarding Employees at a Record Pace

Frisco ISD has almost 64,000 students, 73 campuses and 8,000 employees. The HR department is tasked with onboarding approximately 1,600 employees every year.

The legacy employee hiring process depended almost entirely on paper, and district leadership knew that it would not support future growth. The resignation process was similarly paper-based, and driven by manual, ad hoc tasks. As a result of delays in both processes—which often had to be completed simultaneously during a short, four-month period—it would take four to six weeks to onboard a single employee.

“The biggest challenge the human resources department faced with this level of growth was not having enough time in each day to get things done,” said Bob Allen, director of business applications and process at Frisco ISD. “The sheer volume of growth hindered our ability to keep up with not only the hiring process, but also real-life situations. Whether it’s a campus issue, an employee need, or just trying to get a project completed, time becomes a challenging factor.”

To manage the influx of incoming employees, Frisco ISD worked with DocuNav Solutions, a Laserfiche Solution Provider, to digitize and automate its HR processes.

First, Frisco ISD used Laserfiche to automate the new employee onboarding process and now, nearly 100% of the process is streamlined with electronic forms and workflow.

Today, when a candidate is recommended for hire, the HR department receives an electronic notification from the hiring manager that kick-starts the process. An employment-offer email is sent to the candidate, who can accept or reject the offer via a Laserfiche Form. If they accept, they can complete and submit all necessary paperwork online. The automated workflow then sends the information to the relevant personnel for reviews and approvals.

New hires also receive important information, such as the employee handbook and an overview of benefits, through Laserfiche. All of these activities can be completed remotely—which was not possible before digitizing and automating the process.

“The flexibility and convenience of being able to complete tasks from home expedites the entire process and creates a great experience for both the new employee and HR representative,” said Dr. Duana Kindle, managing director of human resources at Frisco ISD.

All employees involved also receive email updates every time a task is complete, or a deadline is missed. Onboarding documents are automatically filed and saved in Laserfiche, helping Frisco ISD maintain secure, consistent and accurate records management without placing additional burden on staff.

Automating the employee onboarding process benefited the district in new and unexpected ways when the COVID-19 pandemic hit Texas. Before COVID, the collection of the I-9 employee eligibility form and proof of identity was intentionally completed face-to-face, to personally welcome employees and provide a form of engagement. The district had to swiftly shift to virtual, however, when in-person interactions could put people at exposure risk. This overnight change was made possible by Laserfiche.

“Laserfiche streamlines the entire onboarding process from beginning to end,” added Dr. Kindle. “New employees are completing paperwork, receiving deadline reminders, and receiving new-hire documents through the system while we are receiving critical information in one centralized location.”

Today, Frisco ISD is in the midst of hiring new teachers and staff for the coming school year, with the aid of the American Rescue Plan Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ARP ESSER Fund) aimed at supporting educational agencies in addressing the impacts of COVID-19. The electronic forms and automated onboarding process are more important than ever before in supporting the district’s hiring needs while navigating uncertainty about the upcoming school year.

Taking a similar approach to the onboarding process, Frisco ISD has a Laserfiche automated workflow that routes the information to the appropriate managers for approval and notifies relevant employees along the way. In addition, the resigning employee is prompted to complete a questionnaire about their reasons for leaving Frisco ISD—providing valuable feedback for improving employee retention and organizational culture.

“Today, the resignation process is just as quick as the new onboarding process, which means we are no longer scrambling to free-up space for our new employees,” said Anna Koenig, managing director of human resources at Frisco ISD. “It’s all one seamless digital process.”

The new employee onboarding and resignation processes have improved tremendously since implementing Laserfiche. Today:
  • Onboarding an employee can be completed in a matter of days rather than four to six weeks.
  • Frisco ISD employees have the flexibility to complete tasks remotely.
  • The HR department has eliminated many repetitive, manual tasks, enabling employees to redirect time to addressing staff and student needs.
  • Employee records are stored digitally, in a central location using standardized filing practices.

Frisco ISD’s Journey Continues

Since these initial successes, Frisco ISD and Laserfiche have formed a strong partnership, and the district has continued to automate dozens of processes across the organization, including, but not limited to:
  • Invoice processing in accounts payable
  • Employee benefits document management
  • Compliance records management
  • Custodial, transportation, and general employee handbook acknowledgments
  • Employee address changes
  • Performance review acknowledgement and archiving
  • Employee transfer requests
  • Finance document management
  • Independent student mentoring registration
  • Student Gifted and Talented enrollment processing
  • Teacher certification tracking

Automating processes and eliminating repetitive, manual tasks has enabled the school district to scale as the student body continues to grow. In the district’s accounts payable department, for example, the staff is able to process 40% more volume with 25% less resources. Also critical to a fast-growing organization, the district now maintains a central location for records that is accessible to authorized personnel, improving information accuracy and governance district-wide.

Most importantly, however, Frisco ISD has established a culture of efficiency and automation. By streamlining the majority of its processes, the district can move quickly to respond to changes in policies or procedures, regulatory requirements and — perhaps most importantly — employee and student needs and expectations.

“We always talk about preparing students for the future,” Dr. Kindle added. “If we are not future-ready as educators, we can’t expect the same of our students. Laserfiche has supported us in being future-ready.”

District leadership knows that with this approach to processes, the organization will be able to gather data-supported insights into operations and make more informed decisions about allocation of resources.

“Our ultimate goal is to implement automation throughout the district so that we can collect process data and improve operations based on those analytics,” said Allen. “Laserfiche is an integral part of this strategy, and we look forward to implementing creative solutions that will ensure student success.”

Planning digital transformation for your district operations in line with the American Rescue Plan ESSER Fund? Join our education IT leadership panel for inspiration!

Keller Independent School District Builds a Culture Focused on Students

Everything that Keller Independent School District (ISD) employees do is focused on providing an exceptional educational experience for students, whether it be teaching in the classroom, maintaining the facilities, or offering support and guidance for students and staff alike. This commitment to student success is evident in all of the school district’s business processes, many of which have been automated and streamlined using Laserfiche enterprise content management (ECM). The school district now uses Laserfiche in almost all of its departments, increasing efficiency. This has resulted in staff time being redirected to address students’ needs, while also building stronger interpersonal relationships among staff members.

Championing Change

Keller ISD serves more than 35,000 students across Tarrant County, Texas, and employs more than 4,000 staff members. During a recent period of rapid growth, it became clear that there was a lack of uniformity across major business processes. Each department was leveraging a different ECM solution, and each team had their own way of managing core business processes and procedures. This created information silos, which delayed processes and built a culture of mistrust due to a lack of accountability.

New employee onboarding was one process in particular that lacked consistency. “Before Laserfiche the process was essentially a bunch of phone calls and hand-waves,” said Clinton Mehta, systems integration architect at Keller ISD. “It could take weeks, even months, before the process was complete because the process was different depending on the person or department involved.”

Previously, the onboarding process included more than 30 pages of paperwork that needed to be filled out manually. Once new employees completed the paperwork, they would have to physically mail in the documents or deliver them on-site. From there, the process varied from case to case.

Today, the process is completely automated using Laserfiche. The district implemented electronic forms in order to enable new employees to submit their required information online instead of being handed a pile of paperwork to fill out and return. After submission, an automated workflow shepherds the documents through the necessary reviews and approvals. Onboarding can now be completed in a matter of days rather than months, and all parties involved are kept up to date on the progress.

“The HR onboarding process was a quick win that we could use as a selling point to promote adoption in other departments,” said Joe Griffin, chief technology officer at Keller ISD. “There was an initial resistance to adoption because the trust and understanding was not there. This successful implementation in HR was the catalyst for a district-wide adoption.”

Reimagining Student Records

With the success of automating HR onboarding, the Keller ISD team wanted to use Laserfiche to completely reimagine how the district manages student records.

“There is one story that comes to mind when I think about how student records were managed before Laserfiche,” said Mehta. “We had an employee who was transferring student files to another location, and she had placed the folders in her Gucci bag. She had made a pit stop along the way, left the designer bag in her car, and someone broke into the car and stole the bag! Thankfully, we don’t have to worry about that anymore.”

Today, the district leverages Laserfiche to manage enrollment documents, test scores, sensitive personal information, legal documents, special education records and more. Laserfiche has enabled the team to centralize student information, manage the lifecycle of documents and automate routine tasks related to records. Authorized employees have easy access to accurate and up-to-date student information, and can seamlessly process student transfers. The electronic records management system has also helped the school district to standardize filing and better enforce records management policies, supporting regulatory compliance.

“Keller ISD is considered a pioneer in student records management, with other districts looking to them as the marquee example,” said Cody Bettis, CEO of DocuNav Solutions, the Laserfiche Solution Provider that supports Keller ISD’s implementation. “It’s exciting to see the district lead the way for tech innovation within the K-12 space.”

“It’s quite an accomplishment to have other districts mimicking our solution for student records,” said Griffin. “We have set up our system in such a way that if we were to ever change our registration system or process, we can easily migrate our workflows so nothing is lost and there isn’t a gap in performance. This has a major impact on student success, and it’s exciting to support our district’s mission through IT support.”

Looking Ahead with Laserfiche

Keller ISD has received a significant return on investment with Laserfiche. In addition to streamlining business processes and creating transparency throughout the district, the district has:
  • Replaced five different software systems with a single solution, initially saving the district $100,000, as well as an estimated savings of $70,000 annually.
  • Saved more than $11,000 as a result of reducing paper use in core business processes.
  • Met the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act, which imposes procedural requirements on agencies that wish to collect information from the public.
  • Created a culture of collaboration that has enhanced trust among district employees.

“Once we realized the full potential of Laserfiche, we were excited to expand the solution beyond the storage of digital documents,” said Griffin. “An added bonus was that the software doesn’t just streamline processes, but it also builds relationships by creating transparency and providing accountability. That was a major selling point for us.”

Today, Keller ISD uses Laserfiche in almost 100% of the district in departments such as human resources, finance, IT and student services. Looking ahead, Keller ISD has big plans for its use of Laserfiche in the future: With a successful district-wide implementation, the Keller ISD team is exploring how they can use the technology beyond administrative operations, and to improve processes for students and their families. Some of the student- and family-facing processes that the Keller ISD team plans to enhance with Laserfiche include student enrollment and registration, field trip permissions, and Career and Technical Education (CTE) practicum applications and processes.

“Eventually, we want to provide user-licenses to parents and students so they can be a part of the forms process,” said Mehta. “Right now, we are exploring how we can create a custom solution that would enable us to allow secure access to each parent. There is a lot more we can do in terms of use and integrations that go well beyond document storage. The options are endless.”

STEM Advantage to Celebrate Expansion to Cal Poly Pomona and all 23 California State Universities by 2023

STEM Advantage—a nonprofit organization that funds college scholarships, and provides internships and mentors for women and underserved communities—announced that it has successfully expanded to Cal Poly Pomona this year. The award-winning program has reached over 6,200 students and plans to expand to all 23 California State University schools by 2023.

“When we launched STEM Advantage in 2012 at one college in South LA, we never imagined the impact it would have today,” said Lee Ann Kline, co-founder and president of STEM Advantage. “The program now has an unprecedented 100 percent graduation and hire rate post-graduation. The students we work with continue to prove that there is a pool of talented, diverse students at less prominent schools who deserve a chance to be recruited by top companies.”

STEM Advantage will celebrate the accomplishments of students and recognize scholarship donors at the 7th Annual Scholarship Gala. The event will be held April 27 at the California Science Center, Samuel Oschin Space Shuttle Endeavour Pavilion.

George L. Pla, founder, president and CEO of Cordoba Corporation, will be the keynote speaker. In 2012, Pla was responsible for transporting the Space Shuttle Endeavour through the streets of Los Angeles. He is also on the board of trustees for the California Science Center and is an alumnus of California State University, Los Angeles.

“We give often overlooked—and yet, remarkable—students a platform with paid internships to increase their confidence and experience,” said Marlo Donate, head of enterprise marketing and digital IT for Farmers Insurance Group, which works with STEM Advantage to provide internships and is a sponsor of the gala.

“The work of STEM Advantage levels the playing field and helps students who do not have access to the same opportunities and networks,” said Thomas Phelps IV, CIO of Laserfiche, and executive board member for Southern California, Society for Information Management (SCSIM), both of which are also sponsoring the gala. “As an IT leadership organization, SCSIM believes that STEM Advantage helps solves a critical talent shortage at our member companies, while helping well-deserving students.”

For more information or media inquiries, contact leeann@stemadvantage.org.
About STEM Advantage

STEM Advantage’s mission is to mentor, prepare and inspire women and underserved communities to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math. STEM Advantage provides scholarships and paid internships to help students graduate with less debt, along with pairing mentors with students who typically are first generation and low income college students. The program is currently offered to STEM students at California State University Dominguez Hills; California State University, Los Angeles; California State University, Long Beach; California State University, Northridge; and Cal Poly Pomona—with the strategic “23 by 2023” goal to expand to STEM students at all 23 California State University campuses by 2023.

Media Contact

Lee Ann Kline

Founder and President

STEM Advantage

(949) 322-3320

leeann@stemadvantage.org

New Caney Independent School District’s District-Wide Digital Transformation of Student and Employee Records

New Caney Independent School District, located in the rapidly expanding Houston metropolitan area, serves more than 22,000 students across 23 campuses. With the area’s significant population growth, the district faced the challenge of scaling student services and operational processes to keep pace with soaring enrollment and hiring demands.

To proactively address these needs, district leadership embarked on a strategic initiative to digitize records, realizing this vision through the robust capabilities of Laserfiche’s search, electronic forms, and workflow automation.

“Laserfiche is one system with endless capabilities,” said Tammy Yarbrough, records management officer at New Caney Independent School District. “The solution’s user-friendly implementation enabled our small records team to create a searchable, secure database quickly — without investing significant time and resources into learning and training on the system. It has profoundly impacted the experience for students, parents, and staff alike.”

Creating More Efficient Employee Contracts

The district’s initial goal for using Laserfiche centered around updating HR contract processes. Using Laserfiche Forms, Yarbrough’s team digitized the creation, review and approval of employee contracts, as well as other HR documents including:
  • Incident reporting
  • Performance evaluations
  • Salary placements

The initiative was a quick win that demonstrated the power of Laserfiche, and paved the way for broader adoption beyond HR. “The deputy superintendent was amazed at the system’s capabilities,” Yarbrough said. “At a meeting about a district issue, he looked at my boss and said, ‘I don’t know what you need to do, but you need to make this ‘Fiche-y.’ We then created a process to help analyze and review the data.”

Digitizing Student Folders Simplifies Compliance and Enhances Access

Before Laserfiche, the district lacked a uniform approach to file management. A heavy reliance on paper led to physical storage challenges. “Every campus had huge storage spaces, filing cabinets after filing cabinets,” Yarbrough explained. “We were able to get rid of all of them, selling them in auction. We converted those storage spaces into offices or conference rooms. Across our 22 campuses, that’s at least 45 rooms now available for office or storage space.”

The district digitized over 17,000 cumulative student folders and created electronic folders organized by campus, grade level and student document categories and types. For both new and archived records, Laserfiche automatically applies document security by document type and employee role, enabling the district to assign and track nuanced levels of record access. Additionally, records retention schedules help administrators manage the lifecycle of student files, including disposition, facilitating compliance with recordkeeping requirements.

Yarbrough’s team now uses Laserfiche Forms to build solutions for every student and staff need, with over 400 forms currently in use. Administrators, teachers and staff can quickly upload documents —including new report cards, health forms, attendance notes and athletics physicals — into the digital student folder. The result is a more accurate, holistic student file that can be accessed on-demand through a web portal. “With Laserfiche, we will never have lost files,” Yarbrough said.

The shift to digital has been transformative for daily operations. “For instance, if a student is absent, parents can now use a Laserfiche form to upload the necessary documentation, including medical notes,” Yarbrough explained. “It flows directly to the attendance clerk, is coded into the student’s attendance file, and is either approved or denied.”

Even students are direct users. “In high school, students can exempt exams if they meet certain criteria, Yarbrough noted. “Students go in and request an exemption from a class, and then the teachers can review and approve it. So our kids are very familiar with Laserfiche as well.”

Expediting Student Enrollment and Record Transfer

By digitizing student files and forms, the district drastically improved the student enrollment process for both parents and staff. Parents now complete enrollment forms online in the district’s student information system, Skyward, and Laserfiche Workflow automatically files them in the relevant folders in the repository. For returning students, a database lookup populates the students’ information from the previous school year — reducing the number of forms that students and parents have to complete and lessening the document management burden on administrators.

Total enrollment processing time has been reduced by 75%. Additionally, all enrollment forms are available district-wide within 24 hours of submission. Beyond these benefits, the district’s student data is more accurate since Laserfiche eliminated much of the manual data entry and folder creation.

Because all student records are digital, file transfers with other school districts are also expedited. “When a student withdraws, you have to submit a TREx (Texas Records Exchange) record for the other campus,” Yarbrough explained. “We have it set up so there’s a Laserfiche form for a TREx Export.

Everything filed in that student’s folder is tagged as ‘TREx.’ Before, you’d have a folder you had to copy and copy. Now, it combines all tagged documents into a PDF file, and we just upload it to the state.” This process allows thousands of pages to be transferred seamlessly in just a few minutes.

Enhancing Public Information Requests and Staff Operations

Laserfiche has also revolutionized the handling of public information requests. “Public information requests used to be awful to deal with,” said Yarbrough of the requests, which are wide-ranging, from campus fight statistics to employee salaries. “Now, we are not going and searching for these documents. It only takes a couple clicks and we’re able to deliver those records in a timely manner, which is crucial, because on public information requests, you only have 10 days. Turnaround is very quick. We’re able to pull all the records we need and send them to the requestor, usually the same day.”

For staff, Laserfiche extends beyond contracts. “Not all our employees had a district email, like our bus drivers and custodians,” Yarbrough said. “So their notifications are through Laserfiche — whether it’s contracts or supplemental pay agreements. If they’re working extra hours, they fill out a timesheet, and Laserfiche calculates that for them to get paid.” This has streamlined processes for all 2,700 employees.

The Role of Ricoh Document Scanners in Digital Transformation

A critical component of New Caney ISD’s digital strategy is the widespread deployment of Ricoh scanners, specifically models 8190 and 8170. “We have about 500 scanners right now, with about 25 scanners per campus and five to six per department,” Yarbrough explained.

This pervasive access to scanning technology has fundamentally changed document handling. “When we first started, we used a copy machine, then emailed. That’s way too many steps,” Yarbrough said. “Now, with the scanners, employees can scan a driver’s license, all the documents they need, and get rid of paper. No one even has printers at their desk anymore. We can scan immediately right when the person is there during new student registration or onboarding, and give documents right back to them. There’s no copying needed.”

While the district aims for paperless operations, some physical documents remain, such as handwritten testing packets for special education students or parent notes. “We’re always scanning,” Yarbrough said, citing examples like teacher certificates, discipline statements, and out-of-state queue folders. The integration with Laserfiche ensures these scanned documents are immediately filed and accessible.

Tangible Benefits and Future Projects

The success of New Caney ISD’s Laserfiche implementation, bolstered by their investment in Ricoh scanners, has yielded significant, quantifiable benefits:
  • Massive Digitization: The district digitized over 370,000 HR records and more than 2 million student records and enrollment processes without requiring external IT expertise.
  • Cost Savings: Over $330,000 saved by implementing Laserfiche instead of outsourcing records scanning and storage. Paper usage has dropped by 40%.
  • Expedited Processes: Student enrollment processing time reduced from two hours to less than 30 minutes, with all enrollment forms available district-wide within 24 hours. Student file transfers to state agencies and other districts was reduced from 45 minutes to just two. And hiring new employees, which once took a month, can now be completed within a day.
  • Enhanced Compliance: Laserfiche has helped the district comply with FERPA and HIPAA regulations, enabling granular control and tracking of records access. Records retention schedules ensure timely destruction of files, a critical compliance measure that was previously unmanaged.
  • Improved Accessibility: Teachers and administrators can now access records from anywhere with an internet connection, eliminating the need to physically retrieve documents from a records warehouse.
  • Increased Efficiency: The district has saved significant time and money, enabling staff to “work smarter, not harder.”

The initial success of Laserfiche has led to rapid adoption across all the district’s administrative units. “When others see what Laserfiche can do, they want more,” Yarbrough says. “We can provide administrators with immediate solutions to district issues, like employee onboarding, class coding, and enrollment, and implement solutions in a matter of days by using forms and document management. When they ask for something, we can drop everything and can fix it quickly with Laserfiche.”

Looking ahead, New Caney ISD is expanding Laserfiche to operations, digitizing architect files for buildings and renovations, including three buildings being renovated and four new ones under construction.

Yarbrough frequently shares her district’s success, often hosting other districts interested in digital transformation. “Your possibilities are endless,” she added. “You’ve got to think out of that box because Laserfiche can do it. There is no limit to what Laserfiche can do.”

City University, Hong Kong

City University of Hong Kong created a shared services platform for human resources and finance using Laserfiche.

St. Paul’s College, South Australia

Laserfiche helps St Paul’s College automate various student services, saving staff hundreds of hours per year to better focus on value-added activities for students.

My name is Neville Atkinson. I’m the Business Manager at St. Paul’s College. My main responsibility is the financial oversight of the college.

My name’s Ann Haywood and I’m the Assistant Business Manager at St. Paul’s College.

St. Paul’s College is a Reception to Year 12 Catholic boys’ school in the Edmund Rice tradition. We’re part of a Catholic network across Australia of 5,000 staff and we employ around 80 staff here at our College.

What motivates me to come to work every day is the opportunity to help both staff and students access private education when they may not normally be able to afford that. The key bottleneck that we face is the management of any collection of data.

With the introduction of the Royal Commission in Australia, a lot of our student records and staff records need to be kept forever, so previously our system was paper-based and we needed a new platform to be able to retrieve the information in a timely manner.

I first realized that Laserfiche was a good solution for our organization when we began some training, and that was generally because we began to see the potential that the software product had and how we could apply in our situation.

Some of our expectations and goals for Laserfiche were the storage management and retrieval of large amounts of information that we used to hold in paper files. We were also trying to achieve easy searchability and retrieval for those documents.

The other key things that we use Laserfiche for is electronic forms. We’ve automated a number of our forms which means that our staff are able to access those anytime, anywhere and we’ve got a consistent process.

The feedback we’ve had from users about the system that it’s easy to use, the searchability obviously is a great function, and just to have things at their fingertips has been fantastic.

The Laserfiche project has delivered a number of good return on investment outcomes, one of the key ones is that all of our data that we got from our parents used to be keyed in manually and we’ve now been able to automate that process. We estimate that saved us over 200 days of input from our staff.

I see our organization using Laserfiche in the future with integration with our current software product, as well as online forms and the implementation of accounts payable.

Yeah, we’re really excited about the opportunities of using Laserfiche going forward. We’re continuing looking at our systems and processes and we’re hoping by the middle of next year we’ll have all of our documents digitized.

Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District

The school district used Laserfiche to process payroll without any delays during Hurricane Harvey, when employees needed it most.

Learning ARTS

Dedicated to the care of children with autism, Learning ARTS shares data about patients with their parents and behavior specialists in real-time to enhance care and programming, thanks to Laserfiche.

Oakwood University Centralizes Data and Streamlines Processes to Improve Student Outcomes

Oakwood University transformed student services by replacing its legacy document imaging system with Laserfiche to increase efficiency, reduce paper use and eliminate ineffective manual processes. By automating rudimentary processes with Laserfiche, the university has reclaimed staff and student time and redirected it toward student success.

Adopting a Culture of Automation on Campus

Oakwood University is a private, historically black university located in Huntsville, Alabama. The university, which services nearly 1,800 students, aims to provide the kind of education that will prepare students for the workplace. In order to achieve its mission, the university made it a priority to adopt a culture of automation to meet the expectations of today’s tech-savvy students.

“One of the strategic goals that the Oakwood University leadership team has been working toward is developing a culture of automation on campus,” says Oakwood University interim CIO Anthony Walker. “We are actively working to update manual, paper-driven processes. These updates will enable us to operate as efficiently as possible, ensuring the best possible experience for current and prospective students.”

In order to transform into a modern campus, Oakwood University assessed its technology and determined that it would need to replace a legacy document imaging system since it lacked the ability to automate processes. The university then turned to Laserfiche to improve efficiency, reduce paper use and eliminate ineffective manual processes.

Streamlining the Graduations Clearance Process

One of the first processes automated with Laserfiche was the graduation clearance process. Like many universities, in order to graduate from Oakwood, students need to obtain graduation clearance. This involves obtaining signatures from their advisor, the registrar and other university staff which previously took months. Students had to carry a paper form to multiple locations around campus to obtain all the necessary signatures. Students would have to start this process months in advance in order to graduate on time.

By redesigning the process using Laserfiche Forms instead of paper forms, Oakwood University reduced processing time from months to just a few weeks and increased transparency throughout the entire process. Additional benefits include:
  • If the students are not cleared, they are notified more quickly so that they have time to take remedial measures and graduate on time.
  • Advisors are not tied to their desks in order to review requests; they have the ability to do everything from mobile devices.
  • Students are notified throughout the entire process, eliminating trips and phone calls to the registrar’s office to confirm the status of requests.

Servicing Students at the Highest Level

Since adopting Laserfiche, Oakwood University has capitalized on an automated approach to student services.

“By leveraging process automation, the university has automated rudimentary tasks, allowing staff members to serve students in a quicker and more efficient manner,” Walker explains.

Some of the student-facing processes that have been enhanced through automation include:
  • General change form: Student requests including those relating to graduation and transcript changes can be submitted online, automatically routed to both administrators and students for review and approval, and filed in a standardized student record structure.
  • Photo ID importing: All new and updated student and employee photos are easily imported into Laserfiche from an external database, enabling seamless sharing of photos across departments.
  • Transcript request and review: Students request transcripts online, and administrators can easily send documents using workflows that automatically handle PDF creation.
  • Grant management: Staff use Laserfiche to increase communication and awareness of available grants, and coordinate the process of gathering required materials for grant applications.

“Oakwood University now has a holistic view of each student’s academic history, allowing professors to create a plan of action based on data if a student starts to fall behind,” says Walker. “This is a critical component in ensuring student success.”

In addition, Oakwood University also provides an opportunity for students to become gold certified in the Laserfiche technology. This training—that would typically cost thousands of dollars for future employers—give students a leg-up in the competitive job market, as well as higher paid work opportunities on campus to support the Laserfiche system.

“Not only is Laserfiche enabling us to provide personalized support and guidance for each individual student, but it’s also allowing us to help students achieve tangible, professional success,” says Walker. “Our mission is to prepare students for their professional future, and Laserfiche is helping us achieve this.”

Lebanese American University Shines with On-Demand Student Services

Lebanese American University (LAU) is an accredited American university operating in the Middle East with two main campuses in Beirut and Byblos, hospital facilities and an academic center in New York. The university consists of seven major schools and 800 faculty and staff serving approximately 10,000 students each year.

To maintain LAU’s status as a leading institution, the organization’s leadership is always looking for new ways to align its administrative services with student preferences, and reduce bottlenecks during busy enrollment and graduation periods.

Forming Digital-First Academic Services

“Students these days are digital natives, and they like to transact with us on their preferred devices, which are their phones,” says Camille Abou-Nasr, Assistant Vice President for Information Technology at LAU. “We needed really to automate all the processes that students carry out with the Registrar’s Office, and to do it in a manner that is plausible and really encourages them to do these kinds of transactions with us.”

Starting with the Admissions and Registrar’s Offices, the university used Laserfiche Forms to provide students with online access to transcripts and academic records. With on-demand digital access, academic advisors across student enrollment, recruitment, advising, student retention, outreach and student aid programs can now immediately review, approve or follow up with students in days instead of weeks.

Moving Towards Campus-Wide Mobility

Due to Laserfiche’s ease of use and open integrative capabilities with core systems like Banner and SharePoint, the university quickly expanded its initial mobile forms solution to other campus departments such as Student Development, Legal and Facilities Management. With a campus-wide solution, the university can truly enable students to submit any academic or administrative form online and get their results quickly.

Mobility has also benefited busy executives in the Facilities Management department, who oversee the numerous campus facilities. They can now use iPads to access and approve budget allocations in Laserfiche while traveling abroad.

“There is one platform where you can do document management, you can do forms, and you can do business process automation,” said Abou-Nasr. “It’s scalable.”

Benefits:
  • Student services, such as course petitions and transcript requests, can be initiated by students at any time via online forms.
  • Students receive immediate updates on their requests from advisors and can track the progress of submitted forms and requests at every step of the review process.
  • The university has greatly reduced the amount and cost of paper storage.

“Through mobility and document management, we were able to achieve our goal to go green, to make our services more accessible and deliver our services in a faster manner,” says Abou-Nasr.

Click here to learn more about using Laserfiche to enhance student services.