The Problem
Newton County, Georgia is one of the fastest growing counties in the nation and is home to over 95,000 residents. It is no surprise to hear that the Human Resources Department for the County was running out of space due to the increase in personnel files and paperwork in general. This, along with a goal to automate and improve the efficiency of managing records across County departments, was the major reason behind their need for a document management system.
With those goals in mind they set forth an investigation to find a solution that would improve the efficiency and effectiveness of document storage, retention, distribution and retrieval. An ideal system would do more than just eliminate paper, but also aid in the automation of the County’s document retention policies and procedures and allow multiple departments to access documents from one another.
“Several times a week the planning department called for minutes regarding zoning. Now they search in Laserfiche and retrieve records without assistance.”
The Solution
The County looked specifically for a company with previous experience in local governments and one who offered a time proven solution and supplemental services such as back file and bound book scanning. For them, MCCi was a logical choice for the undertaking of the County’s project, due to the experience they had in all these areas. The project would include an initial system implementation in the Human Resources department along with back file scanning – both onsite and offsite. In less than a year the County had researched and implemented Laserfiche and is now on the way to seeing the system being used County-wide.
Today, the Human Resources department has scanned in over 195,000 documents and continues to discover its benefits every day. One benefit that helped gain acceptance in the department is that Laserfiche allowed them to set up their folder structure to mirror their existing hard copy filing structure. Documents are indexed by last name, first name, social security, etc. This made finding documents much easier and faster than before. And with Laserfiche security features, they are able to limit access to confidential records to authorized employees only.
Other departments within the county have adopted the system as well. In the Probate Court and the County Clerks offices they had MCCi scan their back-file of records so they could focus on updating their records going forward. County Clerk, Jackie Smith, is now able to quickly and effortlessly fill document requests. “Several times a week the Planning Development call upon me for minutes regarding zoning. Now they can go directly into Laserfiche and retrieve them without my assistance. The same goes for a citizen who wants a copy of the ordinance; they are able to retrieve from the website.”
Jackie is straight forward when asked her thoughts on Laserfiche: “I strongly recommend Laserfiche for document management. I couldn’t be more pleased.” Moving forward it is likely that other departments within the County will reap the benefits that Laserfiche has to offer. In fact, the County is already anticipating expanding the System to the Water & Sewage and the Planning & Zoning departments.
