The Town of Okotoks Centralizes Enterprise Data Across 20 Locations
2 min read
The Town of Okotoks is the largest town in Alberta, Canada, and provides services to over 30,000 residents. The city operates 20 different business centers that are each responsible for their own document filing. Prior to using a document management system, the city battled isolated information gathering and collaboration, leading to delays in public service delivery and data entry errors.
“The town was looking for a more streamlined solution with a central filing location, easier searching capabilities for the employees and everybody on a broad spectrum,” says Sheila Andrew, HR/Corporate and Strategic Administrator for the Town of Okotoks.
Using Laserfiche’s combined electronic forms, workflow and records management capabilities, the city jump-started an enterprise-wide digital records initiative. One central document repository provided a single point of access for information across the city and standardized each department’s disparate document filing and archiving methods.
The system quickly evolved from just a document storage system. It’s now the town’s primary tool for improving future and ongoing operations. Using Laserfiche Forms, the municipality implemented over 150 forms-based processes for numerous activities, including:
- Waste management
- HR applications
- Permitting and inspection submission, review and approval
- Expense report submissions
- Records management for land transactions
- Digital records archiving
Using metadata, federated search and digital document access, employees across city departments can instantly find and collaborate on the information they need to deliver faster public services.
“We’ve gotten great feedback about how quickly approvals are happening now and the ease of access to forms,” says Andrew. “We only have one location to find forms, instead of lots of different places where people were saving PDFs or filing them.”
Benefits:
- The permitting department has saved, on average, two months of administrative staff work a year.
- Fire Department and Inspection teams can complete inspections and deliver permits in six to eight months instead of a full year.
- The city has increased transparency throughout the document life cycle.
- The city processes over 21,000 digital forms in one system.
Staff collaborates more quickly and in a more transparent manner on documents and requests.
