Meet the Client
Collin County sits in the northern Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. Over 1.2 million residents call it home. Major cities like Plano, Frisco, and McKinney host Fortune 500 headquarters, while rapid infrastructure expansion positions the region as a strategic economic driver. As Texas’s sixth-largest and fastest-growing county, Collin County needed technology that could scale with urgent demand.
Daily Detour: Paper Forms Can't Fight Pandemics
March 2020 changed everything. The county’s Health Department managed disease investigations using paper forms and spreadsheets. When cases exploded overnight, this approach simply broke. Staff couldn’t keep up with data entry. Contact tracing workflows collapsed under volume. Cases fell through the cracks.
State reporting deadlines became impossible to meet. The public needed accurate information, but collecting and aggregating data from multiple sources took too long. Meanwhile, IT faced another crisis. Hundreds of employees suddenly needed to work remotely. Laptops were limited. Without a structured process, IT drowned in ad-hoc requests while employees waited days for answers about whether they could work from home.
Then came the vaccine. On Christmas Eve, Tim Nolan, Applications Manager at Collin County, received the call. The county needed a vaccine waitlist system. Not in months. Not in weeks. Now. What started as a simple waitlist request became a high-stakes race against time. The sooner the system launched, the sooner residents could get vaccinated.
“We quickly realized the need for streamlining processes and adding more Laserfiche Forms,” Nolan noted. The county had already automated public information requests and permitting before the pandemic. Those departments commented that remote work felt just like coming into the office. Meanwhile, departments still using paper struggled to maintain basic service levels.
About our Client
CLIENT NAME:
CHAMPION:
Tim Nolan
Senior IT Manager
POPULATION:
est. 1.255 million residents
SOLUTIONS:
The Solution: Five Days From Call to Launch
Working with their Laserfiche solution provider MCCi, Collin County built and deployed multiple automation systems in less than a week. The team’s deep knowledge of the platform meant they could focus on process design instead of learning new software under pressure.
Remote Work Request System
The county built a smart approval workflow:
- Exempt employees went straight to IT for equipment assignment
- Non-exempt employees required HR approval first to address timekeeping concerns
- Equipment tracking updated automatically as laptops were deployed
HR could approve requests from their phones. IT could see real-time equipment availability. Employees got clear answers within hours instead of days.
COVID-19 Case Management
The Health Department’s new system handled the entire lifecycle:
- Initial case intake captured all necessary medical and demographic information
- Automatic assignment distributed cases to available investigators
- Workflow-driven follow-up schedules tracked symptom progression
- Secure collaboration allowed cases to move between team members seamlessly
- GIS integration provided geographic analysis for outbreak tracking
- Automated patient communication managed recovery documentation
When caseloads spiked, the county could reassign employees from other departments to help with case management. Because the forms were straightforward and training minimal, people who had never done epidemiology work could contribute effectively. This flexibility prevented furloughs and got cases processed when it mattered most.
Vaccine Waitlist in Record Time
Five days after the Christmas Eve call, the vaccine waitlist went live. Citizens could visit the county website, complete an electronic form, and join the queue. The system processed thousands of requests per hour in the first few days.
Residents immediately started calling with questions about their position in line. The team quickly added a search feature. Citizens could monitor their waitlist ranking themselves. Automated emails, texts, and phone calls kept everyone informed. The county eventually processed 275,000 vaccine requests.
The Results: Three Systems, One Platform, Zero Downtime
Public Transparency Built Trust
The county integrated Laserfiche data with their GIS system to create a public-facing dashboard. Residents could see case counts by city, hospitalization rates, and recovery numbers. That dashboard received over 500,000 views, becoming the community’s trusted source for COVID-19 information.
Judge reports shared information with cities, businesses, and community organizations. Local businesses and schools used accurate, timely data to make better decisions about operations and safety measures.
Automated Communication Freed Clinical Staff
The workflow monitored patient status automatically. Recovery documentation went out when appropriate. Return-to-work letters, quarantine release confirmations, and follow-up instructions all generated without manual intervention. This freed nursing staff to focus on patients who needed clinical attention rather than administrative paperwork.
Technology Skeptics Became Believers
The response proved something important to department heads across the county. Rapid automation was possible. Departments that had been hesitant about electronic forms saw what could be accomplished in days when the need was urgent. As L’Cena Parsons from the county noted, the experience changed how teams thought about their processes.
Three factors made the difference. Existing knowledge from previous Laserfiche training meant staff could design sophisticated workflows under pressure. Platform flexibility supported everything from simple approval forms to complex case management with GIS integration. One platform handled multiple crisis response needs without requiring additional procurement. Agile development support from MCCi allowed for rapid iteration. The team could deploy initial versions, gather feedback, and make adjustments as requirements changed.
Why Act Now: The Next Crisis Won't Wait
The next disruption won’t wait for lengthy procurement processes or extensive training. Whether another pandemic, a natural disaster, or sudden staffing changes, your agency will need to adapt quickly.
Consider your current situation. Could your team build a new workflow in two to four days if needed? Do staff across multiple departments know how to use your automation tools? Can you reassign personnel to new tasks without extensive training? Are your critical processes already digital, or would they collapse during remote work?
Counties and municipalities that handled COVID-19 best had already invested in flexible automation platforms and trained their staff. They weren’t scrambling to learn new technology during the crisis because they’d done that work earlier.
You don’t need to automate everything tomorrow. Start with high-volume processes that would be critical during disruptions. Public information requests. Permit applications. Internal approval workflows. Build your team’s skills on straightforward projects so they’re ready when something urgent hits.
Working with experienced Laserfiche solution providers who understand government operations means you’re not alone in this preparation. The right Laserfiche partner brings knowledge from dozens of similar agencies, understanding both the technical capabilities and the political realities of government IT.
Collin County’s story isn’t about unlimited resources or perfect timing. It’s about making smart investments before the crisis and being ready to move fast when it matters. The question isn’t whether another disruption is coming. It’s whether you’ll be ready when it does.
Laserfiche Features
Get more good days done with Laserfiche’s complete toolset for securing documents, automating repetitive tasks, and meeting compliance requirements.
Laserfiche Forms
Collin County had many public forms already in place, such as:
- Public Information Requests
- Power Provider Notifications
- Meter Approvals
- Permitting
Departments commented that through COVID-19 remote work, it was just like coming into the office given these processes were already automated.
Key Features:
- Required Fields
- Many Field Types
- Data Validation
- Approvals
- Automatic Notifications
GIS Integration
Integrating their GIS system with Laserfiche provided the ability to share necessary information with the public, such as the caseload per city. Laserfiche centralized the data with their GIS system to add the geographic component to these reports. Since launching this effort, the report has over 500,000 views. Laserfiche empowered Collin County to collect and monitor case information, understand patient needs, and keep the public informed.
Collin County serviced thousands of requests per hour in the first few days after the waitlist went live. They faced a surging number of requests from citizens inquiring about where they were in line. Their nimble team quickly served up the ability to search to the waitlist allowing citizens to monitor their waitlist ranking and communicate the most updated information via automated emails, texts, and phone calls.
Collin County serviced thousands of requests per hour in the first few days after the waitlist went live. They faced a surging number of requests from citizens inquiring about where they were in line. Their nimble team quickly served up the ability to search to the waitlist allowing citizens to monitor their waitlist ranking and communicate the most updated information via automated emails, texts, and phone calls.
The search results will either yield a “No Match Found” or the “Current Status” results with directions to take for next steps.
Since the vaccine process went live, the County processed 275,000 vaccine requests from citizens – and it continues to grow. Collin County continues to lead with innovation by working with private testing and vaccination providers to collaborate on the wait-listing, communication, and second-dosage needs.
Everything in one place, nothing gets lost.
Stop playing hide-and-seek with important documents. You know the drill—someone saved that contract in their personal folder, the updated policy is somewhere on a shared drive, and you can find the latest version of anything.
A centralized document repository means everyone knows exactly where to look, and you always get the right version. No more emailing files back and forth or wondering if you’re working with outdated information.
Keep records as long as you need them, then let them go
Tired of digging through filing cabinets or clicking through endless folders to find that one document? Keep everything organized in one place where your whole team can access it.
No more “I know it’s here somewhere” moments. Just quick, easy access to the files you need, with a complete record of who did what and when.
Just quick, easy access to the files you need, with a complete record of who did what and when.
Key Features:
- Retention Policies
- Lifecycle Management Automation
- Audit Trail
- Reporting
Stop worrying about whether your data is safe.
Built-in enterprise-grade security ensures your data is protected, so you can focus on your work instead of lying awake at night wondering if your files are safe.
Key Features:
- Role-based access permission controls
- Detailed audit trails of all system activity
- Document-level security
- Automated backups and recovery
