Managing New Social Work Caseloads

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) sent many government and county social service agencies scrambling to process the sudden increase in welfare assistance applications. For Olmstead County, Minnesota, the new law catalyzed the need for a more responsive case management paperwork process in the County’s Community Services (OCCS) unit. “The ACA scared us to death, because we didn’t have a document management product at the time. The State of Minnesota has a very complex eligibility system for assistance benefits. There’s a lot of variance in the paperwork,” said Olmsted County Community Services Director Paul Fleissner. Without a technology solution, the county anticipated needing to hire 12 full-time employees to handle the expected caseload increase. “We already handled hundreds of thousands, even millions, of pages per year. We had piles of paper everywhere and would occasionally lose a page or file. We needed to find a way to operate more efficiently.”
Paul Fleissner, Olmsted County’s Community Services (OCCS) Director
Rob Ronnenberg, Olmsted County’s Continuous Improvement Manager

OCCS’ need to improve its efficiency was supported by Olmsted County’s LEAP (Lean Efforts and Automated Processes) Initiative. The LEAP Initiative uses the Lean methodology—creating greater value with fewer resources—in combination with Laserfiche software to create efficient and sustainable operations throughout the county. “With ACA, the staff and funding we needed just weren’t going to be there,” said Rob Ronnenberg, Continuous Improvement Manager. “We needed a better way to do things. To provide the same level of services, we had to be 5% more productive with 5% less funding.”

Implementing Digital Case Management

Before Laserfiche software could be implemented in OCCS with the LEAP Initiative, the LEAP team had to show county administrators and commissioners that it fully understood OCCS’ needs and that document management software was the appropriate solution. “Right from the start, it wasn’t the IT director saying, ‘I have a new toy I want to play with,’” said David Nault, ITS manager. “All 12 county departments and the state district courts signed a service-level agreement and came to the IT department saying, ‘We need your help to implement this.’” With everyone highly motivated to do away with paper processes before ACA came into effect, the department implemented Laserfiche quickly. OCCS scanned 15,000 paper case files and converted paper information to electronic data, and the results were immediate. The new ECM-powered process allowed OCCS to:
  • Increase case worker productivity by 20%
  • Hire only three additional case workers instead of the estimated 12
  • Eliminate nearly 125 filing cabinets

“The number one result was improved staff productivity. Everyone felt Laserfiche made their jobs easier,” Fleissner said. “Time spent filing papers, shuffling papers, sorting and distributing mail or scanning files for telecommuters, was replaced with the task of scanning each document once and never touching paper again.”

Ronnenberg added, “Telling social workers that they don’t have to skip their lunch — that they can take a 15-minute breather and still ensure that their clients are taken care of — that’s powerful.” Overall, Olmsted County believes that investing in technology is a sound strategy for the future. “We as government can be more efficient. There are tools out there to do it, and it’s worth the investment,” says Fleissner. “I think there’s a great return on investment story to be told when you automate the right way, for the right reasons and in the right business areas.” Want to improve case management in your office? Schedule a demo of Laserfiche software for case management today!

How Steinhafels Automated 100+ Employment Forms

Improving HR Efficiency with Updated Employee Forms
  • Lost paperwork
  • Inconsistent filing
  • A lack of security and confidentiality
  • Missed review deadlines
  • A lack of transparency
  • Lost time (up to 10 hours per week were devoted to physically managing files
  • Lack of integration between legacy software systemsAs Malmberg jokingly puts it, “We had more issues than Reader’s Digest!”

Implementing New Job Requisition and Employee Onboarding Processes

“When I tell people about our culture and technology change, I frequently get the question, ‘Where do you begin?’” says Malmberg. “Well, how would you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” Malmberg and her team first sat down to create a list of what frustrated them the most. “We literally put up giant Post-it® notes across my office wall. Then we got out markers, scribbled notes and redrew our process workflows. It was a little tedious, but it saved a lot of time on implementation.”

With a strong understanding of its ideal processes, Steinhafels’ HR department turned to Laserfiche and Laserfiche solution provider CDI to facilitate the flow of information across different locations, managers and systems. Steinhafels’ first order of business was to eliminate all of the non-standardized forms. Using Laserfiche Forms, Malmberg’s team turned the paper forms into a smaller set of standardized electronic forms a hiring manager and new employee can complete and submit through an their intranet website.
Lynda Malmberg, Steinhafels’ Senior HR Manager
Electronic forms can be submitted online and automatically routed to key staff for immediate action.

With Laserfiche, users don’t need to constantly reenter the same information on each form. For example, when a manager enters an employee ID into the new hire form, the form prepopulates with data mined from the initial job application. This eliminates duplicate entries. Likewise, when employees fill out their new hire paperwork, entry of the employee badge number auto-populates the necessary demographic data. Steinhafels also automated various stages of the process:
  • A completed job requisition form launches a workflow that notifies a recruiting manager to review and approve the form prior to posting
  • Approved job requisitions are automatically posted to specific third-party career sites like Monster.com|
  • Employment applications (along with any uploaded resumes) are stored together with the requisition, and the hiring manager is notified by email that they have a new application to review
  • The pre-hire process, which includes a background check, is launched via a status change to the metadata on the application
  • Once the application is changed to “hired,” Laserfiche:
    1. Generates an employee and digital employee folder
    2. Sends an email link to the hiring manager to complete the New Hire form
    3. Sends a welcome email to the new employee
    4. Automatic processes purge documents that have reached the end of their retention schedules

Becoming Experts in HR Automation

“This is what our IT department does for Laserfiche: it sets up the server, monitors the server processes and occasionally installs updates. That’s it,” says Malmberg. “Once we learned how to build workflows, we copied and pasted and changed what we needed to make them work for the new form we developed.” However, Steinhafel’s IT department still keeps busy. “They have bigger fish to fry and are happy to let us take the lead on HR-related projects,” says Malmberg. Left to its own devices, the HR department has achieved major success. By becoming more efficient, HR was able to continue driving Steinhafel’s growth without expanding its own department. This has resulted in annual savings of $80,000 that would have gone to more HR staff. Additionally, the HR team has more time to devote to engaging employees and helping them solve issues as they arise. The HR department’s results have inspired other departments to try Laserfiche. “We started with 36 HR forms in the repository. Now we’re up to 88 forms across all departments—from Sales to Merchandising,” says Malmberg. “Laserfiche spread everywhere after people got used to seeing what we built and how easy it was to work with.”

So what do you think – is it time for HR automation at your organization?

Try Laserfiche Cloud for Free.

It is the ultimate content management solution with a centralized, secure repository that’s accessible no matter where your work takes you.

Growing Bank Expedites Loan Application Processing in 20-Plus Branches

SITUATION

• A growing bank’s acquisitions led to many ways of managing documents.
• Locating missing information resulted in wasted time.

SOLUTION

• Laserfiche helped to centralize information and save time searching for documents.
• Laserfiche automated loan applications eliminated repetitive tasks and accelerated the process.
• Bank employees have immediate document access from any of the bank’s branches.

For this bank, growing from a startup with less than 10 employees to a bank with multiple acquisitions and 250 staff came with a challenge.

“The banks we bought all had different ways of managing documents — some of them used paper files, while others had software in place,” said one of the bank’s assistant vice presidents. “As a result, we spent a lot of time calling other branches to locate missing information.”

Having disparate approaches was a liability to bank operations and client service. New account applications had to be mailed or faxed from branch offices to the main office, resulting in lost documents — and wasted time.

“We wanted a centralized system to house our information,” the AVP said. “We needed something that would be fully functional across all departments and locations.”

The organization found Laserfiche document management software. “We chose Laserfiche for its flexibility. We like that the system can be used by all our employees while still being customized to fit specific departmental needs.”

Streamling Loan Application and Approval Paperwork

“Our top goal was that loan application processing or opening a new account wouldn’t take forever,” said the AVP.

Using Laserfiche, the bank automated the processing of new accounts and loans:
  • The customer fills out and submits new account paperwork, which can include signature cards, credit card applications and online banking enrollment forms.
  • A personal banker scans the documents into Laserfiche.
  • A customer data specialist enters important document metadata into Laserfiche, such as name, account number and Tax ID.
  • Laserfiche automatically routes the documents to the appropriate department for review and approval.
  • The department marks the document as approved, rejected or still in process, and the customer receives notification of the decision.

Growing Bank Expedites Loan

“This process saves time on administrative tasks and provides immediate document access from any of the bank’s branches. For example, if a customer questions a check, the signature card can quickly be found in Laserfiche and a copy of the signature can be instantly retrieved for verification.

“Every department wants Laserfiche,” the AVP added. “They all have different ideas about what they want to do with Laserfiche.”

How Laserfiche ECM Helps Financial Advisors Compete with Robo-Advisors

Today, financial advisors operate in a far more competitive landscape than in years past. Robo-advisors and other technology-driven changes are impacting the traditional practices of advisors, creating urgency to adopt the latest industry innovations.

Here are three factors that are contributing to the industry’s shifting landscape and how enterprise content management (ECM) systems helps financial advisors adapt to them.

Robo-advisors

The term, “robo-advisor” refers to algorithmic technology that is helping investors—particularly beginning investors with smaller portfolios—cost-effectively make more informed financial decisions.

One of the ways traditional advisors can compete with robo-advisors is through software integration. When they integrate primary applications like a customer relationship management (CRM) and ECM system, advisors can quickly collect business-critical data and gain insight into their organization’s processes.

As robo-advisors enter the wealth management space, advisors must re-think their approach to technology in order to increase productivity and remain competitive.

RIA Growth Curve

The number of registered investment advisors (RIAs) has grown steadily in recent years and is expected to reach 28% of market share by 2018. This figure has grown from just 11.9% in 2013. In fact, research group Cerulli Associates recently identified RIAs as the fastest growing segment of the financial advisor market.

With many new practices entering the industry, it is crucial for advisors to focus on establishing competitive differentiators. ECM systems gives advisors a comparative advantage by streamlining business processes that can take their competitors longer to complete. For example, some ECM systems can:
  • Auto-populate electronic forms, reducing the processing time and errors of manual data entry
  • Automate compliance review and approval processes, allowing advisors to quickly book new trades
  • Email electronic forms to account holders for e-signatures, saving significant document turnaround time

Compliance

With a renewed focus on compliance from regulators, advisors can expect more frequent and in-depth audits than ever before. Top advisors are using ECM systems to prepare their firms for strict compliance regulations.

When advisors automate business processes like new account opening, blotter submissions and trade approvals, some ECM systems record an audit history of every action that takes place. This allows RIAs to easily discover documents requested during an audit.

Advisors can also use ECM systems to manage client records by automatically assigning retention and destruction dates based on their records management requirements. Girard Securities—a San Diego-based RIA—uses Laserfiche ECM to improve productivity and compliance around its blotter process:
 

The combination of robo-advisors, new competitors and stricter compliance makes for a tipping point in the wealth management industry. The advisors that come out on top will be defined by how they streamline their operations with technology.

eBook: The Ultimate Guide to HR Automation

Let ECM manage information—so you can manage people.

Inefficient, manual human resources (HR) processes keep professionals focused on short-term, “busywork” tasks rather than long-term recruitment and retention goals.

The Ultimate Guide to HR Automation includes everything you need to know about transforming a paper-burdened HR department into a productive and valuable business unit.

HR automation

In this free HR Automation eBook, you will get:

  • A concise explanation of the essential functions of automation technology.
  • Detailed examples of how HR processes, such as employee onboarding and records management, can be automated.
  • Five essential steps for driving organization-wide adoption of an automated HR department.
  • And much more!

CIRCOR Pibiviesse

CIRCOR Pibiviesse Creates Enterprise-wide Efficiency
Headquartered in Milan, Italy, CIRCOR Pibiviesse designs and manufactures state-of-the-art valves for cryogenic, high temperature and subsea applications.

With three manufacturing facilities, year-long production cycles and more than 400 compliance standards to adhere to, CIRCOR Pibiviesse put a focus on reengineering its operations.

“We needed to give management better visibility into the status of the production cycle,” says Continuous Improvement Manager Ivan Fantin. “Customer requirements are also increasing in our industry, which makes compliance more and more challenging each year.”

Many of Pibiviesse’s transparency and compliance challenges resulted from creating databooks—documentation containing hundreds of pages of materials certifications, product drawings, internal procedures and more. Without a completed databook, Pibiviesse’s valves cannot pass industry inspections and be activated at a plant.

“These documents are compiled throughout the lifespan of a project, which may last from six to more than 18 months,” says Fantin. “You can imagine how many logistical challenges this creates for a company with so many employees and departments.”

Pibiviesse turned to Laserfiche to gain visibility into its operations and comply with stringent manufacturing standards. One of the benchmarks for the software was whether or not it could improve the firm’s on-time delivery rate of databooks.

Enterprise-wide Transparency

The first order of business for Pibiviesse was making sure its employees, departments and facilities were on the same page regarding the status of pending projects and the availability of valve documentation.
With Laserfiche, the firm achieves this goal by:
  • Storing all documents related to valves in a centralized, digital repository
  • Creating order status reports to identify production delays
  • Providing mobile devices to staff in the field, so they can instantly respond to time-sensitive production tasks

For example, Pibiviesse uses Laserfiche to make sure the tools used to measure valves are regularly calibrated. As a tool approaches its expiration date, the system automatically emails a reminder for the specialist to calibrate the tool, which helps avoid manufacturing delays and liability from faulty valves.

“With Laserfiche, we’ve implemented an efficient process that ensures follow up at different levels of the enterprise and stages of the production process,” says Fantin. “The flexibility of the software allows us to monitor and control our business processes while better serving our customers.”

One System Satisfies 400 Standards

Pibiviesse hoped to leverage its newfound transparency to comply with more than 400 industry standards that were notorious for halting the production cycle.

“We decided to analyze how many different types of documents the customer normally requires, and we came up with about 200,” says Fantin. “Those different document types became our basis for building new compliance processes.”

Pibiviesse used its list of required documents to build checklist templates in Laserfiche, so the system can easily identify documents that are required to fulfill a customer order.

For instance, Laserfiche ensures that suppliers provide required certificates every time materials are delivered by:
  • Monitoring the receipt of materials as they enter a facility
  • Cross-referencing incoming materials with a list of existing materials certificates
  • Generating a daily to-do list to gather missing certificates

The improved compliance process ensures that materials certificates are accessible across the enterprise and electronically delivered to the customer before a valve is delivered to a plant.

“We had documentation on-time delivery rates in the range of 30-40% before changing our processes with Laserfiche. Now we are proud to say that we have reached 100%,” says Fantin.

As a result of this improvement, Pibiviesse has dramatically increased customer satisfaction and minimized regulatory penalties incurred from databook delays.

Creating a Culture of Efficiency

Pibiviesse plans to continue using Laserfiche as the foundation for operational efficiency and compliance, which Fantin believes must happen through effective change management.

“Business process reengineering is a top-down process,” Fantin says. “Nothing will change if management simply decides on some new strategies for the future. They have to go to where things happen, show leadership and involvement to the staff and drive people toward the new processes.”

As Pibiviesse continues to help its employees become more efficient with Laserfiche, it has advice for other organizations seeking to do the same.

“Start by focusing on your processes—not the functionality you need to improve them,” Fantin says. “We took a close look at our processes and that’s why we were able to gain the maximum benefit from our Laserfiche implementation.”

The DCD Group

An international engineering company headquartered in South Africa, the DCD Group is comprised of 12 business units in four different divisions: rail, mining and energy, marine and defense, with some companies in the group having been in operation for over 100 years. As a highly respected industry leader, DCD is always looking for innovative ways to provide top engineering services.

Dawie Marais, General Manager Support Services, had a vision to find an enterprise content management (ECM) solution that would eliminate administrative lags, improve the efficiency of business functions and add true value to the company. “It just made sense from a cost, support and maintenance standpoint to choose one ECM system that has flexible business process management tools that could be deployed in all our departments,” explains Marais.

Having one comprehensive solution like Laserfiche meant that we only have one system to oversee. We could cut down on the need for support, eliminate the extra time spent on overlapping systems, increase staff’s productivity and allow information accessibility throughout the enterprise—it was the most cost-effective choice.

Streamlining HR, saving $150,000 per year

The same contract employee may be re-hired up to four times a year at DCD’s Marine Division, depending on the amount of projects and the different skills needed at specific stages of each project. Over a short period of time, DCD’s contract staff can fluctuate between 300 and 2,500 employees, with most contracts lasting 90 days or fewer. Each year, 2,000 to 5,000 contracts are processed.

The huge amount of records associated with hiring and managing this temporary staff created a time-consuming and difficult administrative workload for HR staff. “Before implementing Laserfiche in our HR department, onboarding a new employee took 45 minutes,” Marais says. “Now, it only takes 15! Having Laserfiche has empowered our staff and made their work so much more efficient. They no longer have to search through stacks of employment records just to find something—all the files are now digitized.”

By using Laserfiche Forms and Laserfiche Workflow, the HR department was able to reduce the steps in the onboarding process for both staff and applicants.
  • The need for printing multiple paper documents was eliminated as applicants can use Laserfiche Forms to enter their information on a computer at the HR office.
  • Populated forms are directly routed into the Laserfiche repository by Laserfiche Workflow.
  • For new contracts, new folders are automatically created. For re-hired employees, existing folders are located and automatically updated, reducing the risk of errors and centralising the data.
  • To simplify change management and improve staff adoption, HR staff continued work from their existing human capital management system. Laserfiche is integrated into the back-end to help minimise time-consuming and manual administrative work.
  • Employee records are digitised and scanned into Laserfiche, freeing up physical storage space.
  • Authorised personnel are granted appropriate access to employee records, improving the flow of information.

With Laserfiche, we speed up our employment process, saving at least $150,000 a year and reducing administrative work by 50%,” Marais explains. “HR staff at DCD Group feel empowered by Laserfiche—it lifts a lot of pressure off our staff. There were minimal disruptions during the implementation since we could retain the familiar user interface; there were no additional username and passwords to remember; employee records are all scanned, making searches simple; and all employee details are now secure and in one, easy-to-find location.

Making purchase requisition paperless from start to finish

Before implementing Laserfiche, purchase requisition at DCD Group was a paper-based process, where employees manually searched for expense codes and descriptions before filling out each request by hand. This process was prone to mistakes; hand-written requests were difficult to read, and there were a lot of easily damaged paper documents. The approval process was also time-consuming, as the employees had to physically track down the appropriate manger to get approval.

Using Laserfiche Workflow and Laserfiche Forms, DCD Group succeeded in making the entire purchase requisition process paperless, increasing efficiency and productivity. Thomas Matthee, Manager Systems Development and Implementation, adds, “Laserfiche simplified the purchase requisition process. Staff used to have to run around trying to find the right person for authorisation. Sometimes the managers just weren’t available and there were times where the requests didn’t even get looked at or they got lost. Now, everything is transparent.”

The new, streamlined purchase requisition process works as follows:
  • Requests are now made through Laserfiche Forms, where departments and expense codes can be easily selected through drop-down lists, reducing administrative work and minimising errors.
  • Laserfiche Workflow sends the appropriate manager a notification of the request and directly routes the populated forms for approval.
  • Once approved, the workflow will automatically route the request to completion.

Matthee notes, “I would estimate a minimum of 15 minutes per requisition is saved by using Laserfiche, boosting staff productivity. Employees now spend less time on administrative tasks, and they don’t have to file extra paper work or worry about lost documents. With Laserfiche, automating business processes is so easy.”

Producing efficient and compliant project documentation

For the manufacturing process in the mining and rail sectors, mandatory certifications are done through the submission of data packs, which contain testing information, documents, welding certificates, drawings, and quality assurance information. It was a constant challenge to manage the data packs, which could involve anywhere from five to 50 boxes—all ordered by date and free of duplication.

Before we implemented Laserfiche,” says Marais, “the administrative work involved was a nightmare to handle. It was difficult to keep track of the versions of the documents and also the duplications. And once we’d organised the paper documents, we’d have to send all of the boxes over to our clients. There was too much room for error and damage during the whole process.

He explains that DCD Group needed to find an ECM solution that would meet the company’s stringent quality assurance standard while decreasing the administrative burden placed on employees. “Today, all data packs are submitted electronically, which increases document security while decreasing costs. We also have a check in/check out process where only one copy of the most up-to-date document is stored in the Laserfiche repository and only one person can update it at a time,” says Marais. “By digitising and automating this process, we’ve improved productivity and boosted staff morale.”

Driving efficiency across the organisation

Marais particularly appreciates that Laserfiche is not limited to one department. “Laserfiche’s deployment flexibility made it easy for us to implement it in multiple departments, including Human Resources, Sales and Marketing, Quality Assurance, Scheduling, Project Management, Planning, Buying, Finance and Maintenance,” he says. “At DCD Group, we believe it is important not to chase technology but to find a technology that truly adds value to our company. With Laserfiche, we continue to increase our overall operational efficiency and gain more value from the system.”

University of Ha’il

University of Ha’il (UoH) was established in 2005 and continues to grow rapidly. A distinguished university in northern Saudi Arabia, UoH’s enrolment has grown to approximately 40,000 students across six campuses located in Ha’il city. The university strives to use technology and innovation to achieve change and success.

“In 2012, the university had minimal e-services implemented,” says Dr. Majed Alhaisoni, the Dean of IT and e-learning, University of Ha’il. “Within a year’s time, we had won multiple awards for our university’s e-initiatives and paperless campus. A large part of our success is due to Laserfiche.”

UoH Chooses ECM over DMS

UoH’s IT department had a strong vision of what it wanted to accomplish. It needed more than just a document management system (DMS) that would store digital documents; it needed a full-featured enterprise content management (ECM) solution that would enable complex digitisation via workflow automation.

After extensive research, UoH chose Laserfiche as its ECM solution. “Laserfiche Workflow was what really stood out for us,” explains Dr. Alhaisoni. “Laserfiche Workflow is robust, efficient, scalable and resilient. It allows us to easily customise document-driven workflows to meet the needs of our university.”

Automating Inter-Departmental Communication

Official communications and the dissemination of information between UoH’s multiple campuses and departments must be done through written and signed letters. Automating this paper-intensive letter system was one of the first projects Dr. Alhaisoni and his team tackled. With Laserfiche Workflow, UoH was able to set up a sophisticated workflow system that automated and digitised this process for more than 97 departments on four campuses.

Because letters could be circulated to as many as 20 different departments, Dr. Alhaisoni notes that “there was a high probability of losing documents when everything was paper based. We lacked transparency and efficiency. It was hard to keep track of the status of letters, whether or not they were being reviewed or if they’d been approved.”

Before implementing Laserfiche, Dr. Alhaisoni worried that designing a workflow system to meet all of UoH’s technical needs would be a long and tedious process. However, he soon discovered that Laserfiche Workflow made the process easy. “Building with Laserfiche Workflow is really as simple as drag and drop!” says Dr. Alhaisoni. “We were able to develop our workflows without any issues or technical errors.”

With 700 users and a high circulation rate, scalability is essential for UoH. “Currently, we have found that no matter how many people are working, how many letters are being sent and received, or how big the letters are, it doesn’t slow down, freeze or create any errors in our system. Everyone can efficiently work in real-time,” explains Dr. Alhaisoni.

Managing Change at the University

Changing the perception of the end-user can be a large obstacle when implementing a new technology. As Dr. Ahaisoni says, “Even with the best system in the world, if you are unable to deploy and implement the system properly, get the users involved and trained during deployment and change the perceptions of the management team itself, the system will collapse and people will go back to doing work in the traditional way.”

To ensure successful deployment of Laserfiche, the IT team at UoH spent a lot of time on due diligence and getting the management team’s support for transitioning to a paperless environment. Thus, when Dr. Alhaisoni’s team presented the ECM project to the president of the university, it gained his full support. “The president announced that his own office would be the first to use the new paperless system—that he would stop receiving any paper letters and his office would only be sending letters electronically,” explains Dr. Alhaisoni. “It was the tipping point for getting everyone else on board.”

Dr. Alhaisoni and his IT team were then responsible for carrying out a university-wide training plan. “We taught trainers, leaders and deans how to properly use the system,” he says. “With these preparations, we were able to expand the training very quickly and efficiently throughout the campus.”

Through UoH’s successful approach to change management, physical letters do not have to be hand delivered across departments and campuses, since this process is now automated in real-time. Mail clerks that used to deliver letters all day have been redeployed to perform more efficient and meaningful tasks for the university.

“Our users are excited to use Laserfiche, to turn it on and see if there are new items in their inbox every day. They want to be a part of this,” explains Dr. Alhaisoni.

Going Mobile

With its Laserfiche reseller, Integrated Solutions for Business, UoH built a web interface to enable mobility and flexibility across the university. End-users access the web-based portal as they would access any website—without the knowledge that Laserfiche is integrated as the back-end control centre. This minimises the burden on end-users and simplifies IT’s work in managing users’ needs.

“Work is no longer limited to just the office; we can work from anywhere now. Our interface is compatible on any mobile phone. All the actions I can do on a computer at work, I can do from my phone. It’s become a lot more convenient and a lot more efficient,” says Dr. Alhaisoni.

The Future of a Digital Campus

When asked about the future of UoH, Dr. Alhaisoni says, “We want to continue to optimise mobility with every workflow and form. We are also working with the Ministry of Education to demonstrate our system and hopefully our solution can benefit all universities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”

Emirates National Oil Company

Since its establishment in 1993, Emirates National Oil Company (ENOC) has provided the energy behind Dubai’s phenomenal growth. With clients ranging from military bases to big-name manufacturing agencies across the United Arab Emirates (UAE), ENOC touches almost every facet of the Emirate’s development and puts its name firmly on the overseas arena. Today, ENOC owns directly and indirectly more than twenty subsidiaries.

ENOC operates through five business segments:
  • Supply, Trading & Processing: Condensate and gas processing and oil trading.
  • Terminals: Storage for various petroleum and chemical products.
  • Marketing: Marketing of aviation fuel, lubes, chemicals and industrials products.
  • Retail: Retailing fuel and non-fuel services at retail stations.
  • Exploration & Production: Development and production of oil and gas.

ENOC first began investigating enterprise content management (ECM) for one of its subsidiaries, Emirates Petroleum Product Company (EPPCO), which was having a hard time managing customer documents. Piles of paperwork were scattered on different employees’ desks, making it hard to locate documents on demand and promptly respond to customer requests.

Although a number of departments within ENOC were already using Microsoft SharePoint, it didn’t meet EPPCO’s needs due to its lack of a scanning solution. After hearing about Laserfiche through Laserfiche reseller Global Technology Services (GTS), ENOC conducted a thorough evaluation of the software to see if it would meet EPPCO’s needs.

According to Ram Mohan Narayanan, Manager of Planning and Performance Management in ENOC’s IT department, “We did an onsite study of the Laserfiche implementation at the Abu Dhabi Water & Electricity Company, where GTS had implemented Laserfiche to archive customer billing documents. It was clear that Laserfiche had provided a great advantage for the utility company, which gave us the confidence to go with Laserfiche.”

The fact that Laserfiche is fully supported in Arabic also played a role in ENOC’s selection process.

Improving Customer Service

To better manage its customer documents, EPPCO was the first part of the organization to implement Laserfiche. EPPCO serves 75 million customers each year through its network of more than 170 ENOC/EPPCO service stations across the UAE.

EPPCO has built its brand on innovation. As such, it launched the first fuel card in the UAE in 1991. To ensure the continued success of the fuel card program, EPPCO’s card marketing department wanted to accelerate customer service. With roughly 300 new documents coming in each day, storing everything in file cabinets was costly and inefficient, and employees were having difficulty finding the right paper documents to process them in a timely manner.

By implementing Laserfiche to store customer request documents and automate the document approval process, Card Marketing is now able to deliver much faster customer service. In addition, it has integrated Laserfiche with a variety of other software applications to improve the customer experience as follows:
  • By integrating with its interactive voice response (IVR) software, EPPCO has enabled its fuel card customers to fax their invoices through the IVR system.
  • These invoices are generated in an Oracle management application and moved into Laserfiche as PDF files.
  • Monthly statements are automatically sent from Laserfiche to customers via an integration with RightFax.

In addition, an IVR-based request from the customer triggers a that automatically sends the PDF invoice to the customer on demand.

“Not only have we improved our customer service, but we’ve reduced our papers expenses,” said Narayanan.

Increasing Efficiency across ENOC

The use of Laserfiche soon spread beyond EPPCO to a number of departments within ENOC. In the past, ENOC had relied on file cabinets to store paper documents. Imaged documents, meanwhile, were stored on a shared “U:\” drive, and electronic content was managed in SharePoint.

This lack of a centralized content management strategy was inefficient, costly and prevented the automation of paper-based business processes. ENOC needed a standard systems architecture and methodology for enterprise-wide content management.

In particular, ENOC’s internal audit department has saved time and money by automating the submission of its Employee Acknowledgement and of Interest forms, which all 1,500 ENOC employees need to sign and submit to the department each year.

Narayanan explains that the Laserfiche SharePoint Integration, a two-way integration that enables paper-based capture and DoD 5015.2-certified records management in a SharePoint environment, allows employees to scan these forms directly into SharePoint, where they are converted into PDFs and automatically filed in the correct HR folders in the Laserfiche repository.

In addition to the benefits Laserfiche has brought to the internal audit department:
  • The HR department uses as a secure, centralized location for all employee documents.
  • The department validates, stores and distributes supplier invoices to their respective PO owners using Laserfiche Workflow
  • Procurement uses to create and store contracts and vendor management documents.
  • The chief executive and general manager office use Laserfiche to track and store all incoming and outgoing correspondence.

Narayanan estimates that ENOC realized a full return on its Laserfiche investment in just eight months. “By using Laserfiche to scan and store paper files, we save at least 6,000 hours of staff time a year, which translates to US $240,000. We’ve also been able to eliminate US $28,800 in paper storage costs per year.”

Sina Khoory, ENOC’s Group IT Manager, adds, “Using Laserfiche Rio, EPPCO and a number of departments in the ENOC group have gained centralized control over our data. Rio’s powerful tools and the Laserfiche SharePoint Integration have simplified information sharing and automated operations between departments.”

Colorado Department of Natural Resources

Colorado’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) manages a wealth of information across eight divisions, including:
  • Colorado Division of Forestry
  • Colorado Division of Parks and Wildlife
  • Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining, and Safety
  • Colorado Division of Water Resources
  • Colorado Geological Survey
  • Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC)
  • Colorado State Land Board
  • Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB)

According to Susan Lesovsky, Application Support Manager for the CWCB, the DNR purchased a Laserfiche enterprise content management (ECM) system in 2005 to replace a legacy IBM system that lacked an out-of-the box web interface, optical character recognition (OCR) functionality and the ability to automate business processes. “Our old system was pretty much limited to search and retrieval,” she explains.

She notes that a top priority for implementing Laserfiche was making it easier for citizens to stay informed about government activities. “Ultimately, our customer is the public, and our success is measured on how we provide and process information for them,” Lesovsky says.

To that end, the DNR upgraded to Laserfiche Rio in 2009. According to Lesovsky, “Laserfiche Rio has allowed us to increase the transparency of information to the public, and it’s done it in such a way that we don’t have to worry about connections or cost.”

In particular, she describes the benefits of upgrading to Laserfiche Rio as:

Laserfiche Rio Enables Citizens to Cut through Red Tape

Lesovsky notes that Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper recently called for every department in state government to reduce red tape. Good government, he says, is characterized by “efficiency, effectiveness and elegance.”

“As one of only two recommended content management systems for the state, Laserfiche epitomizes all three E’s,” Lesovsky says.

She explains how easy it is for citizens to access documents such as the CWCB’s meeting documents:
  • The current year’s materials are available on the Board’s website in a table that provides direct links to PDFs stored in Laserfiche.
  • Archived materials are accessible through a custom search box (created using the WebLink Designer) on the lower right side of same page or through this link.
  • The custom search box is limited to three fields (title, date range and document type) to streamline access and reduce user confusion. (Custom search components have been included throughout the CWCB’s website to help direct the public’s search for Board-related documents.)

Colorado’s Decision Support Systems website also includes custom search boxes throughout its Website, such as the one at the top of this page that searches according to document type and a few other parameters, while a set of “Google-like” search results based on document type displays below thanks to an encoded URL string.

“We used the WebLink Designer to create custom searches because we noticed that our users would get overwhelmed when presented with a long list of templates and fields,” says Lesovsky. “Each custom search focuses on a particular program area or topic and uses a limited set of search criteria within the associated template.”

Quick, easy and efficient searches support Hickenlooper’s goal of driving the “three E’s” into government operations. Lesovsky explains, “In the past, people had to come to our offices to request information. Laserfiche WebLink provides a simple and elegant way for the public to get immediate access to the information they need whenever they need it.”

Integrations Make ECM “Mission-Critical”

By integrating Laserfiche WebLink with other software applications, the DNR has been able to make information even more accessible. For example, by integrating Laserfiche with ESRI ArcGIS, staff can click on a stream and retrieve associated court documents, while public users can quickly access information associated with flooding and flood hazards in the state.

To see the public-facing integration in action:
  1. Visit Colorado’s Flood Decision Support System page
  2. Click on the Flood DSS Map Viewer.
  3. Agree to the disclaimer.
  4. Click the Documents tab in the top menu.
  5. Enter your search criteria in the pop-up window. For example, select:
  6. Group: Historical Flooding.
  7. Document: Historical flood photographs.
  8. Type: Photographs.
  9. Hit the search button.
  10. A new window displays the results (produced on-the-fly by an encoded URL string) in a grid format.

It’s the integrations with applications like ESRI ArcGIS that make Laserfiche “mission-critical.” According to Lesovsky, “When you integrate Laserfiche with business-specific systems, you embed it into your existing workflow processes and it becomes integral to how you operate.”

ECM Enables Electronic Forms Processing

Laserfiche Rio has been a particularly effective ECM solution for the DNR because different divisions can configure it to meet their unique needs. For example, the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) uses Laserfiche to enable an eForm application that provides an interface for oil and gas operators to enter and submit permit forms and supporting documents. There are currently six active forms and three in development.

According to Ken Robertson, Application Developer for the COGCC, “Uploaded files are stored in our production web server. Once the operators submit the form to our internal server, we export the attachments to Laserfiche.”

He explains that the public can view the files directly from the production web server or wait until the files are imported to Laserfiche and use Laserfiche WebLink to access them. Furthermore, he outlines how the COGCC has used the Laserfiche SDK to create customized Laserfiche scripts and programs.

Robertson says, “For those attachments still sitting in our production web server, we created a Windows service to check queued files in the Web server every 15 minutes and use the Laserfiche Toolkit [SDK] for .NET to import files to the Laserfiche repository server. In the meantime, we also collect the Laserfiche reference numbers in our attachment table so that system (eForm) can provide a Laserfiche WebLink download page for users to view the attachments.”

He notes that there is a separate application that allows oil and gas operators to upload well logs, which are imported into Laserfiche using Laserfiche Import Agent, a tool that captures and processes electronic documents. Scanning staff members use Laserfiche Quick Fields to index other types of electronic documents.

The biggest benefit of processing permits and well logs with Laserfiche is time. Robertson says, “We used to shuffle files from one person to another until they were approved, and then we scanned everything into the system. Having the operators upload their attachments to their documents saves an average of 15 minutes of scanning and indexing time for our staff, not to mention the time saved on data entry.”

He goes on to explain that having everything available electronically at the beginning of the process allows multiple people to work on the same forms simultaneously, further reducing processing time.

“Not only do we save time,” Robertson says, “but the approval process is now more transparent for the public.”

Lesovsky adds, “Laserfiche is powerful, flexible and easy to work with. Even though all our divisions use the same system, we can all use it a little differently.”

Looking Ahead

Lesovsky is particularly excited to use Laserfiche to harvest data across organizations. She explains that the CWCB has already conducted a feasibility study and has a grant in place to make it happen.

“Colorado State University has an ECM solution other than Laserfiche but a healthy collection of water information. The Colorado Water Resources Development & Power Authority and the Colorado River Water Conservation District currently use Laserfiche, with repositories of useful water documents. By hooking our systems together and using common metadata, we’ll be able to search for information across all four entities and gain a more complete picture of accessible water information in the state.”

She says that the DNR is also working on integrating Laserfiche and SharePoint. “Most of our divisions use SharePoint for their external websites. Right now, people have to conduct separate searches if they want to find content stored in both Laserfiche and SharePoint. What we’re looking to do is enable searches that return results from both systems at the same time.”

All in all, she says, “Laserfiche Rio is a great tool. The bottleneck now is just finding the time to make it do everything we want it to do.”