Chinook’s Edge School Division Expands Outdoor Learning Opportunities with Process Automation

A short drive from the Rocky Mountains and some of Canada’s most postcard-worthy national parks sits Chinook’s Edge School Division. The largest rural school division in the province of Alberta, Chinook’s Edge has an established reputation for staff and student wellness, and is on a mission to engage every student in meaningful learning. Although temporarily put on hold during the COVID-19 pandemic, field trips to the mountains and beyond — with opportunities for world-class hiking, outdoor adventures and skiing — are an integral part of achieving that mission.

With 11,000 students and 43 schools in its division, Chinook’s Edge uses Laserfiche to streamline its field trip management processes, maintaining the integrity of its records as well as supporting its risk management for field trips.

School Division Goes Digital to Improve Risk Management

Parents and guardians voiced their frustrations with the overwhelming amount of paperwork required to provide consent every time a student participated in a field trip, which could be more than 10 times a year per child. The forms included a guardian consent form, medical consent form and health consent form — each of which required duplicate information, such as student name, address and guardian name.

For teachers, the internal request forms to create and plan a field trip were long and detailed. All field trip planning was performed manually, generated mountains of paperwork and required school staff to spend hours of time to coordinate a single trip.

Principals and members of the Chinook’s Edge School Division Board of Education were also concerned about legal liabilities due the rugged nature of numerous field trips and potential natural disasters, as well as a lack of conformity in parent sign-off processes. For example, if a form was forgotten, a guardian might write their consent on a napkin and hand it over to the school. Risk management became an increasing concern, exacerbated by skyrocketing insurance costs.

Chinook’s Edge looked to Laserfiche to automate field trip management, streamline approval processes and enhance the integrity of its records. Jeremy Regehr and his team at Inspiris, a Laserfiche solution provider, developed an end-to-end digital solution that would reduce the work required for parents, teachers and administrators while enabling improved transparency and accountability. All guardian and medical consent forms were consolidated into one user-friendly electronic form, which could be pre-filled for subsequent field trips for the same student. The solution was configured to integrate with Rycor, an online payments software, to simplify payment collection and processing, and PowerSchool, a student information system, to ensure student data is automatically updated.

Digital Transformation Expands Staff Capacity and Student Horizons

In the three-month initial rollout of the new field trip management process, more than 150 field trips had been completed — with over 11,000 students and 18,000 parents or guardians. By the end of the first year of implementation, a total of 758 field trips were processed. The digitized solution with Laserfiche produced 10,697 emails, saving 57,000 pieces of paper. With 70 cases of paper saved, Chinook’s Edge reduced 1,750 kilograms of carbon emissions in one school year.

With much of the workload now completed through an automated process, the division can monitor all trips with just three staff members, who are easily able to do so while fulfilling their other daily responsibilities.

“The new Laserfiche field trip program has been a huge asset to us in the school,” said Leanne Stickland, administrative support in finance for Innisfail Middle School. “It’s quick and easy for both the school and parents. And even better, we don’t have boxes of paper to store at the end of the year.”

“It’s just that easy,” added Susan Roy, FOIP coordinator and treasurer.

The time parents and teachers spend preparing for field trips has been reduced dramatically. What was once eight to 10 pages of paper per trip, per student is now completed via an automatically generated email link. The four hours teachers took to prep for each field trip now takes an average of 30 minutes, and what originally took 30 minutes for parents was reduced to just one minute. All in all, teachers across the division saved an estimated 3,250 total hours, equating to at least $100,000 in cost savings.

Centralizing all field trip information helped teachers identify opportunities to diversify outdoor learning experiences, as well as inspire ideas for new field trips. Laserfiche helps provide oversight for members of the Board of Education, and makes it easy for them to see approvals. On top of that, administrators and teachers use Laserfiche to verify whether all legal and logistical requirements are met and that consent forms are collected before students board the buses. If a natural emergency, such as a wildfire, were to occur, all field trip participant information would be available at a moment’s notice, so that all participants could be easily accounted for and safely evacuated.

Inspiris owner, Regehr, reiterates, “The ROI on the process was as close to instantaneous as you can get. The improvements to efficiency for all teachers and administrative staff was apparent the moment we helped roll out the process— and feedback confirmed that. When I heard the principals exclaim they could sleep at night because they understood the reduced liability, it was obvious to me that the process had already paid for itself.”

Making Honor Roll for Saving Time and Money

Even before Chinook’s Edge set out on the adventure to automate its field trip management process, the organization aimed to streamline processes across the division.

“The finance department had a process to collect eight different documents, twice a year from each of our 41 schools. It was a time-consuming task and often required a staff member to search through emails, open attachments, rename and save files,” says Paul Matsune, core services manager for Chinook’s Edge School Division Technology Services department. Now the forms are easily accessible online for staff division-wide.

The provincial government requires that student report cards are uploaded as individual files, with each student’s unique number. With over 11,000 students, this was a time-intensive undertaking to do several times a year. Laserfiche Forms and Quick Fields — a high-volume capture tool that automates document import, classification and indexing — helped save over 1,000 hours a year for administrative support staff on this task alone.

Other daunting administrative tasks for the Chinook’s Edge People Services team of two have nearly been eliminated thanks to Laserfiche, with automated processes created for personal leave, maternity leave and ID card requests, among others. A dashboard was created for payroll and HR to be notified of employee changes. If a coworker is sick, it’s easy for another staff member to see what tasks need to be done.

The centralization of administrative work hasn’t just saved time across the division, it has also made it easier to reallocate funding and minimize overtime worked. Like any organization on a digital transformation journey, Chinook’s Edge School Division is still seeking new ways to nurture efficiency. For instance, its accounts payable department aims to soon begin using Laserfiche to automate processes such as credit card reconciliation and expense claims.

Laserfiche has touched nearly every stakeholder at Chinook’s Edge, including teachers, staff members, students and families, principals and other division leaders. The optimized processes, improved access to information, reduced liability and increased satisfaction of parents all add up to support the school’s vision to help students achieve success as compassionate and innovative global citizens.

Explore more ways to increase staff productivity, automate processes district-wide and efficiently manage student records by visiting Laserfiche for K-12 Schools and Districts.

Jones College Provides One-Stop Student Services with Laserfiche Cloud

In the past year, Jones College began an initiative aimed at improving the student experience by bringing five previously separate departments (financial aid, admissions, records, recruiting and the student success center) under one umbrella. Using Laserfiche Cloud, the college centralized the five teams’ documents and processes, giving staff and students access to forms and information online, and streamlining key student services.

These digital transformation initiatives have enabled Jones College to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic and various government mandates, even as the college saw a 15% jump in enrollment during the summer of 2020 over summer 2019

Moving Enrollment Management to the Cloud

Jones College is a public community college in Ellisville, Mississippi, that was established in 1911.

“As a community college, the impact we have in our society is big — we offer high-quality education at a lower price,” said Paul Spell, vice president of enrollment management. “We’ve been here 100 years, and there have been a lot of changes through the years. We have to continue to show value to students and to our community, and to do that we have to think outside the box.”

As part of the organization’s commitment to providing the best possible experience to students, Jones College President Dr. Jesse Smith looked for opportunities for modernization and new efficiencies. In 2018, the college embarked on a mission to bring together five disparate teams — financial aid, admissions, records, recruiting and the student success center — under one department called enrollment management.

“The goal was to have students go to one admissions counselor who can get their paperwork processed and guide students through the enrollment process in a centralized way,” said Spell. Previously, staff and students had to physically walk paperwork across campus to get it to the right people, which was not only inconvenient and time-consuming, but also introduced the risk of information loss. “To centralize the experience, these five departments had to work together as a team, and Laserfiche really enabled that.”

The college turned to Information Consultants, a Laserfiche solution provider, to implement Laserfiche Cloud and help to map out the newly formed enrollment management department’s processes. Information Consultants was able to implement Laserfiche within a week, as a result of the cloud deployment.

“We chose to use Laserfiche Cloud because we wanted less of a hassle managing servers and software here on campus,” Spell explained. “We don’t have a lot of IT people, and we are always looking to be as efficient as possible. On top of that, we want our staff to be able to access documents from the office or home — or anywhere — easily.”

“The enrollment management department really took Laserfiche and ran with it,” added Pierre Smith, workflow specialist at Information Consultants (ICONS). “Jones College and its embrace of digital transformation using Laserfiche Cloud is proof that a 100-year-old institution can continue to innovate, and deliver a modern experience for staff and students.”

New Opportunities for Efficiency

Initially, the enrollment management department implemented Laserfiche as a digital filing cabinet, and began scanning paperwork into the Laserfiche repository. Staff quickly saw, however, that capturing information digitally from the beginning of the process would eliminate the need for paper and open up greater opportunity for transparency, efficiency and ongoing optimization through business process automation. The COVID-19 pandemic and stay-at-home orders further highlighted the need to transition to a more digital workplace.

“Everything was put on hold when COVID-19 hit,” Spell said. “When we were able to come back, we realized that paper processes were just inefficient. We decided to have a ‘digital day,’ essentially a deadline for us to go digital with everything. This was all during the pandemic, and we were able to go digital in about a week.”

Spell introduced Laserfiche Forms to the financial aid team. The team’s responsibilities, including managing processes related to grants, fee waivers, scholarships and other financial assistance programs, made it an ideal candidate for transitioning to Laserfiche electronic forms and automated workflows. Within two weeks, the financial aid team had created more than 30 online forms to replace their paper counterparts, including the form to validate students’ tax status, income verification and others needed to qualify for financial aid like FAFSA.

“For financial aid programs, we need to collect and verify a lot of information, which previously was done manually on paper and could take days to weeks,” said Jones College Director of Financial Aid Kari Dedwylder. “Now, students don’t have to come to the office in person. They can access the form they need and get it filled out in less than 10 minutes. We can also leverage electronic signatures which is helpful since a lot of people don’t have a printer, and verifying information electronically is so easy to get done while also meeting the needs of the college, the financial aid organizations and the federal department.”

The college is also working to digitize the graduation application, a long document which students previously had to fill out and physically take around campus for advisors to sign it. Another opportunity for automation is the process of accepting transcripts, which have traditionally come through the mail or brought in by hand. With a new, automated workflow in Laserfiche, the college can automatically email students to tell them whether they have been accepted.

“Communication with our students is huge, and something we’re always looking to enhance,” Spell said. “Through Laserfiche, we can effectively build communication into our processes without having to manually email each student.”

With Laserfiche helping to centralize information and standardize and automate processes, the enrollment management department now offers a more streamlined experience for students. Meanwhile, Laserfiche has improved accountability and trust among the five teams that were merged to form the department.

“Laserfiche not only helped with digitizing our paperwork and processes, but it’s also helped with our teamwork,” Spell said. “Now, we have processes we can see; we have better accountability.”

Spell estimates that the Jones College’s Laserfiche initiative has saved the institution about $30,000 to $40,000 in staff hours, or about three to four months of work for the department. Over the summer, enrollment was up 15% over the summer of the previous year and — during a pandemic and without adding additional staff — the enrollment management department was able to manage the larger workload due to their efforts to streamline processes using Laserfiche.

“When the pandemic hit, we were planning for lower enrollment,” Spell said. “We had transitioned learning to online, and administrative processes were online thanks to Laserfiche. Over the summer, though, enrollment was up while other community colleges have taken double-digit drops. People don’t know what’s going to happen, but the digital processes and automations have taken the burden off of our staff as we navigate these changes.”

Building on a Digital-First Approach for Student Success

The Jones College team continues to look for new opportunities to leverage Laserfiche for business process automation and improved efficiency.

“This is only our first year using Laserfiche, and all I can think about is how much more streamlined we’re going to make these processes,” Dedwylder added. “Right now, we still have some students who are used to the old processes but, being a two-year college, we’ll have new students who will be introduced to the digital forms right away. Our students are going to expect this digital experience.”

Spell already has plans to enhance existing forms with auto-fill functionality so that there is even less manual data entry for students, and to integrate Laserfiche with the college’s other applications including the student information system (SIS). Some future projects that are not student-facing include a Laserfiche form that keeps a log of all of the activities required for student admission, so that admissions counselors can quickly see what a student has completed and what paperwork has been submitted.

“As a community college, the services we offer are incredibly valuable,” Spell said. “Many students are from rural or underserved communities. The main part of our job is people — the technology solutions that can make us more efficient and improve our processes help to keep us focused on that.”

U.K. Law Firm Modernizes Legal Forms

SITUATION

• Paperwork after courtroom or police station visits took time away from client service
• Manual processes caused delays in billing and case completion
• Compliance and governance practices added time and burden of manual tasks on employees

RESULTS

• Less time spent on manual routing of information and data entry
• Faster, more responsive client service
• Increased accountability and transparency across the firm
• Reduction in administrative costs

A general practice law firm located in the United Kingdom offers a broad range of services across many types of U.K. law — such as crime, personal injury, property, and commercial — and needed a way to create clear accountability and support compliance for each litigator’s daily activities.

Helping Firm-wide Compliance

Prior to using Laserfiche, lawyers would fill out a 40-page form after courtroom or police station visits, creating a cumbersome and time-consuming process for both the lawyers and clients, as well as delays in billing and case completion.

“The compliance wasn’t there and the money wasn’t there,” said the firm’s operations manager. “The starting point for us was to deal with that particular issue of ensuring that when someone went to the police station, the paperwork actually got to us and got to us on time, instead of two weeks later.”

Laserfiche’s advanced electronic forms capabilities were an attractive solution for improving processing times and creating compliance controls. The company selected Laserfiche to bring information accessibility and accountability to the firm’s client and administrative processes.

Taking the Leg Work Out of Legal Work

The firm began by implementing mobile forms within its Crime and Litigation Department. With Laserfiche Forms, litigators can now use iPads to immediately capture and update client information at police stations or courtrooms, then instantly send the information to the firm’s administrative department for end-to-end processing. Forms-based workflow and analytics automatically track litigators’ court attendances and time reporting, simplifying accountability and providing more accurate data for billing.

“Laserfiche gave us a fantastic vehicle for that,” said the operations manager. “The Laserfiche system could capture information from the client, which is more and more important from a data protection point of view now. There was accountability. Things weren’t just going to disappear.”

Benefits include:
  • Solicitors can instantly and accurately capture client information on mobile devices.
  • Client paperwork is automatically sent from lawyers to administrative teams for processing.
  • Offline access to documents helps solicitors address client needs on the fly.
  • Police station visits, court attendances and litigator timecards are automatically tracked, creating more accurate and transparent reporting.
  • Administrative costs in the company’s Crime department were reduced.

“Laserfiche looks after all the typical elements of what a lawyer does,” added the operations manager. “That’s been the biggest breakthrough for us as a practice, and the most spectacular application of it for the firm as a whole.”

How Premium Packing Onboards Hundreds of Seasonal Workers with Laserfiche

Contributed By: Ronnie Alderete, General Manager and Yesenia Marquez, Human Resources Coordinator, Premium Packing

Premium Packing is headquartered in Salinas, California and has offices in Stockton and the Coachella Valley. The company provides contracted labor and all related human resources administration work for companies, primarily within the agricultural and construction industries.

Most of the labor force contracted by Premium Packing is seasonal. The organization processes an average of 900-950 full time returning employees annually. Along with two sister companies, Premium Packing generates 9,000 W2s every year.  The company had to deal with a lot of paper in order to onboard these employees at the beginning of the season and then to offboard them afterwards.

The first project that the organization tackled after implementing Laserfiche was automating this onboarding process. Premium Packing worked with their Laserfiche Solution Provider Appleby to automate this process with Laserfiche Forms and Workflow, resulting in processing time being cut in half.

“We should have automated this process sooner. Laserfiche Forms is so friendly to the person who is actually filling out the form. It is a product that both the employee and supervisor understand,” says Yesenia Marquez, Human Resources Coordinator.

The Previous Onboarding Packet Contained 14 Pages

Before automating the process with Laserfiche, any new employees hired by Premium Packing had to fill out a 14 page onboarding packet. This packet contained forms such as the I9, W4, DE4, as well as an employee handbook and various company policies and agreements. The employee had to sign and initial each page. This hiring would often take place in the field. The supervisor would bring the completed paperwork to the office where it would be reviewed for completion. Afterwards, the office clerk would enter all the information into the Famous ERP system and create a paper employee file. The I9 forms would be filed separately. One person was responsible for inputting information about all employees hired through all three office locations.

Every year, the company goes through internal audits. Every employee file had to be looked through and documents that were ready to be purged had to be shredded. This purging took specially hired staff to perform.

The New Onboarding Process is Completely Digital

Supervisors now carry IPads in the field. Any new employee fills out information in a Laserfiche form. If the employee is a returning employee, then some of the data in the form is prepopulated from the Famous database. This person filling out the form can switch from English to Spanish by clicking one button.
Onboarding is done by employees filling out an electronic form.

Once the form is submitted, it is sent to the human resources coordinator who checks it for completeness. After the review, Laserfiche Workflow populates a PDF template with all of the data submitted through the form.
Workflow populates a PDF document template with all the data submitted through the form.

This PDF packet is then sent to the employee for signatures using OneSpan.
Documents, such as the W4, are signed through OneSpan.

Once the employee signs the document, it is returned to Laserfiche and stored in an employee folder. The I9 is stored in a separate folder to make audits simpler. Access to each folder is customized so that only approved individuals can see the employee information.
All documents are stored in an employee’s folder in Laserfiche.

The information is then compiled in a special format for uploading into Famous.

Automating Onboarding Reduced Processing Time in Half

Automating the onboarding process reduced processing time in half. Since information is submitted through Forms, it is more complete and easy to read. The clerk does not have to re-enter everything into Famous, but can simply upload a file with all of the data included.

Audits have been simplified as documents are now easy to find. Automatic retention schedules have been applied to employee folders so that documents that are ready to be purged can be identified with one search.

First Choice Bank Leverages Technology to Be First in Speed, Service, and Solutions

While the community banking industry faces competitive pressures from larger institutions, First Choice Bank has found success in remaining true to its mission — to be “First in Speed, Service, and Solutions” for the communities it serves.

First Choice prides itself on its responsiveness, deep understanding of client needs and exceptional customer experience. These priorities have driven digital transformation across the organization, including the implementation of a Laserfiche electronic records management solution. Having used Laserfiche for almost six years, the bank has centralized and standardized records, preserved record integrity, and automated routine tasks such as classifying records so that employees can reclaim time for customer service. As a result, First Choice has seen greater efficiencies, a more modern, responsive customer and employee experience, and a stronger IT infrastructure upon which to build more automated business processes in order to support the bank’s strategic imperatives.

“In this ever-changing world, we’re given the opportunity to really open up people’s minds to the possibilities of leveraging technology — and what you can miss out on and what you lose without it,” said First Choice Bank EVP, Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Commercial Banking Lorraine Lee. “Change and technology are at the forefront of business progress, particularly in the increasingly competitive market in which community banks, like ours, operate — an industry that has not historically embraced technological change. We need to find the right solutions that work for our organization – solutions that will allow us to flexibly pivot as the world changes so that we can continue to effectively service our clients.”

Electronic Records Management: Accelerating Service Delivery and Simplifying Compliance

First Choice Bank, headquartered in Cerritos, California, has served its community since its founding in 2005. With a diverse client base of individuals and commercial clients, First Choice is a leading provider of commercial and industrial loans, loans to small businesses and other financial services that enable customers to grow, maintain strength and reach their financial goals.

As the bank grew, the First Choice team recognized the need for technology that would support staff to easily search and retrieve documents and information, while enabling the organization to set up safeguards and controls to protect client data and show compliance with regulatory requirements. First Choice worked with the Laserfiche team to implement a Laserfiche electronic records management system and build out robust processes that are scalable as needs change.

“Community banking runs on human interactions and communication, which require time and commitment,” Lee said. “We believe that technology can support us in what we need to do to serve our clients efficiently. It allows our talent to focus on more of the important things that require communication with our customers, rather than spending a lot of time performing tasks that technology can take care of.”

In addition to making client information easier to find and use, Laserfiche electronic records management system has enhanced information governance and facilitated seamless audits. In 2018, First Choice acquired another organization adding six branches with expanded geographic footprint and further realized the value of electronic records management in bringing new employees and departments into First Choice’s operations and processes.

“We get a lot of compliments from auditors and examiners about how well our files are organized — which is a huge testament to how the platform adds value to our business proposition. With the help of Laserfiche automated workflows, we are able to protect the integrity of the files — taking out any element of human error or inconsistency, so our staff can stay focused on our clients.”

—First Choice Bank EVP, Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Commercial Banking Lorraine Lee.

Keeping Business Moving

Most recently, First Choice saw the benefits of the Laserfiche initiative during the COVID-19 pandemic, during which about 70% of bank employees shifted to work from home. Using Laserfiche to access loan files and other documents has enabled the bank to continue operating with minimal disruption.

At the same time, the bank saw an influx of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan applications from business owners looking to keep employees on payroll despite revenue losses due to the pandemic. Having immediate access to client information in their time of need has been an invaluable benefit, according to Lee.

“You see on the news that people call larger banks and they can’t get a response,” Lee said. “At community banks, we gain business by leveraging our strong asset — relationship banking — by striving for a high level of responsiveness and personal attention. When a client asks for information, we can quickly retrieve it from Laserfiche and tell them what this may mean for them, what the terms are, and give them copies of documents they need. All our clients can talk to someone individually at the bank and have their concerns addressed. In a time of uncertainty, that is really important.”

Supporting a People-First Approach with Tech

First Choice is always exploring new ways to digitally transform the organization with the goal of creating the best possible experience for clients and employees. Driven by that commitment, the team attends the annual Laserfiche Empower Conference to learn about Laserfiche’s ever-evolving capabilities and how to best implement new features and solutions.

In the coming years, First Choice plans to expand its use of Laserfiche into areas such as compliance, loan processing and loan servicing — where Laserfiche electronic forms and business process automation will assist the bank in streamlining legacy processes that are currently driven by paper forms and manual tasks.

“We want to leverage technology as much as possible, and be as efficient as possible in service of our community,” Lee said. “As a community bank, we’re very much a people business. Laserfiche is empowering us to stay true to our values while delivering top-notch service to our clients.”

Simplify audits and reclaim time to for customer service: Learn more about digitizing, standardizing and automating your records management with our free eBook, “The Ultimate Guide to Electronic Records Management.”

Accounts Payable Transformation Supports Community Health Centers Mission to Provide High-Quality Care

As one of the region’s largest nonprofit healthcare and wellness services providers, Florida’s Community Health Centers (CHCFL) is committed to providing personalized, high-quality care to its community members at greatly reduced cost. Managing information efficiently, accurately and responsibly is core to achieving the organization’s mission, making digital transformation increasingly more important as CHCFL responds to the COVID-19 pandemic and growing patient needs.

The organization implemented Laserfiche to automate accounts payable (AP) processes, resulting in CHCFL cutting processing time by 50%. Through its digital leadership, the purchasing department’s role has transcended beyond a necessary part of operations and become a significant source of new efficiencies.

“If you can spend less time pushing paper around, that’s money saved,” said Dee Bradshaw, director of purchasing at Community Health Centers. “Every dollar we save goes into critical resources. We all benefit. That’s our goal — to make things more efficient, to save money without sacrificing quality.”

Eliminating Manual Data Entry and Automating Accounts Payable

Originally called the West Orange Farmworker Health Association, CHCFL was incorporated in 1972 as a nonprofit health organization “to be operated by and for its consumers.” Today, the organization has 16 physical locations across central Florida, providing pharmacy, on-site lab and comprehensive primary care services, in the areas of behavioral health, dentistry, family medicine, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, optometry and pediatrics.

“The breadth of our services is amazing,” said Bradshaw. “We see homeless people; we give flu shots to anyone who needs them; we deliver babies; we have optometry and mental health. We’re a medical hub. When somebody has to take two buses and a train to get here, we want to make sure that they get everything they need.”

As a nonprofit providing a wide array of services, CHCFL must procure everything needed for its patients’ care — including pharmaceuticals, medical supplies and equipment — at the highest quality for the lowest cost. Before implementing Laserfiche, the purchasing department used a product that was meant to automate AP processes and minimize data entry, but produced too many errors and didn’t work well with the CHCFL’s Abila MIP Fund Accounting system.

“Even with this other product, we ended up doing a lot of manual data entry, and it was so difficult to use,” Bradshaw said. She got in contact with Hemingway Solutions, a Laserfiche solution provider that focuses on community action partnerships, nonprofits and small businesses.

“Laserfiche was the perfect accounts payable automation software for Community Health Centers because it could accurately capture the necessary data and seamlessly integrate with the Abila MIP system. Plus, the staff found it very easy to use. Now, AP processes are hands-off. Staff is saving time and money, and can focus on providing care and essential services to patients.”

—Larry Phelps, sales and marketing manager at Hemingway Solutions

With the automated ordering process, staff submit a requisition form in the Abila MIP Fund Accounting system, where a PO is created for each vendor. The POs are moved into Laserfiche, which automatically routes them for approval and to the purchasing department to place the order. When the product arrives, staff check in the items against the packing slip and PO. Then the packing slip is scanned into Laserfiche. When the invoice arrives via email it is dropped into Laserfiche and workflow captures the relevant information — including vendor name, invoice number, invoice total, PO number and due date. Through the Abila integration, the automated process is able to look up information related to the purchase, including the vendor name, vendor code, general ledger (GL) code and the purchase order to make sure the invoice matches.

A workflow within the automated business process finds the PO and packing slip and attaches them to the invoice, which are then routed to the appropriate people for approval. Once approved, all data is written into Abila, eliminating manual data entry.

“Everything is automatically stored in a Laserfiche repository that we’ve set up to manage our records,” Bradshaw said. “Everything that’s closed is batched and put into our Abila system.”

Throughout the process, Laserfiche sends automatic notifications to the submitter so they are kept informed. CHCFL plans to give staff the ability to participate in processes via a mobile device, and reduce friction around tasks that can’t be automated.

As an organization that must process thousands of invoices per month and match them to corresponding purchase orders and packing slips, CHCFL has realized significant time and cost savings, reducing complexity for staff who have reclaimed hours previously spent on repetitive manual tasks.

“I cannot fathom processing the current volume of invoices ‘the old way,’” Bradshaw said. “Laserfiche has cut our processing time in half.”

Expanding Digital Transformation Enterprise-wide

Bradshaw and her team have championed digital transformation across CHCFL, and the finance department is now rolling out a Laserfiche solution to support the processing of direct pay invoices that are not PO-based. The organization is also planning to evolve its purchase requisition process with the goal of giving employees a convenient, intuitive Amazon-like experience. As the team has examined its business processes, CHCFL has found efficiencies by eliminating a number of individual software solutions and replacing them with Laserfiche.

“The more things I can do with one software, the less software I have to manage,” Bradshaw added.

CHCFL continues to work with Hemingway Solutions to identify more ways to automate and transform various activities, and create efficiency so that the staff can focus on serving its community with the highest quality care possible.

“Laserfiche is so user friendly — anybody can learn and get it set up quickly,” Bradshaw said. “And business and circumstances are always changing, especially today. You never know when you may need to change something in your system. With other systems I’ve used, making changes to fit your needs is just not intuitive. In Laserfiche, everything is at your fingertips; you’re not going to have to reinvent the wheel if you need to update your process or new needs come up.”

Learn more about Laserfiche AP automation and other core solutions to modernize your healthcare organization.

Automating Blotter Submissions and Supporting Compliance with Laserfiche

SITUATION

The firm saw an opportunity to automate and streamline core processes, such as the blotter process, to improve accuracy and compliance, while reducing the organization’s reliance on paper files.

SOLUTION

The firm implemented Laserfiche Forms, which enabled representatives to upload blotter forms digitally, importing and archiving files into the repository. The system sends automatic notifications to stakeholders, reducing the need to follow-up and improving accountability.

RESULTS

The firm substantially improved efficiency, enhanced the customer experience and fulfilled industry-specific regulatory compliance requirements.

A full-service broker-dealer with over 300 licensed financial advisors and team members around the country struggled with modernizing the way the organization handled advisor paperwork. All that changed when the COO joined the firm and attended the Laserfiche Empower Conference. “I happened to walk into a session where another customer was describing a simple workflow his organization had created, and the lightbulb came on,” he said. “I started madly texting back and forth with our AVP of advisor relations. We knew we could use Laserfiche to automate our entire operation across the U.S.”

Eliminating Lost Paperwork with Electronic Forms

“Our chief problem was that documents got misplaced,” the COO added. “When new client paperwork wasn’t filed properly, our back office wouldn’t see it, and couldn’t process it promptly. This caused frustration for both the home office and the advisors in the field.”

To address these pain points, the organization did a close examination of its existing processes and the steps that could be taken to improve them.

“The best decision we made was to do a whiteboarding session,” the COO said. “We sat down with representatives from every department to map out their processes and agree on the best automation plan.”

The AVP of advisor relations added, “I joke that our Laserfiche programmers are ‘business process therapists’ because they helped us look at what we were doing, what we needed to do and where we could add efficiencies and streamline processes.”

As a result of the whiteboarding session, the team implemented Laserfiche Forms. Advisors could then submit all their paperwork using a Laserfiche form, which ensured that advisors entered all the necessary information consistently, in the correct file format. Just a few of the processes that the organization automated in this way include:
  • New account onboarding
  • Asset movement
  • Money movement
  • Distributions
  • Check requests
  • Product approvals
  • Sales preapprovals
  • Advertising approvals
  • Electronic blotters

“Follow up with the representatives is all handled electronically,” the COO explained. “it also allows our reps to see the status of their documents at any time, helps compliance by tracking all the actions taken on any given document and increases visibility by automatically generating and circulating reports on compliance, process performance and the like.”

Making Blotter Submissions Easy for Field Representatives

The blotter submission process was one that dramatically approved through automation.

“Preparing blotters is not something our advisors are excited to be doing on a monthly basis,” the COO said. “In the past, blotter submission was a manual process that was not easily tracked or reportable for FINRA. It was difficult for us to gather the data to find out which offices were compliant.”

The firm completely digitized the blotter process with Laserfiche:
  • If an advisor hasn’t submitted their blotters via a Laserfiche form by a certain date, Laserfiche starts sending automated email reminders.
  • If the deadline passes and the blotter is still unaccounted for, the rep receives an email detailing the action that has been taken as a result (e.g., a commission hold).
  • Once the blotter is submitted, the reminders cease.
  • The COO’s team can run a report to see who has or hasn’t submitted their monthly blotters and send reports to the Office of Supervisory Jurisdiction (OSJ) and the compliance department.

“Before Laserfiche, we needed a wheelbarrow to give to regulators the documents they needed,” the COO explained. “Now, if FINRA or the SEC asks us to produce a report showing that we have specific pieces of information, we can quickly run a report and give them that information in an electronic format.”

The benefits of automating blotter submissions have been felt in both the home office and out in the field. “Our new process saves three people in the back office at least one full work day per month, of just having to track down blotters,” the COO said. “Plus, it has taken a process that was frustrating and difficult for our reps and made it much easier for them. Really, all they have to do now is scan a check or fill out a few fields on the form.”

medical sector can modernize and streamline data with LaserficheSIU also used Laserfiche to expedite the collection of patient information when a local healthcare provider retired. “There was a local practice where the provider retired, and all of their patients were transitioned into our practice,” Washburn explained. “We had to collect release of information notices, so we quickly deployed a Laserfiche form to streamline that process. Our clinical staff just had to enter the patient’s health record number. Our system integrates with our practice management system to pull everything automatically, which significantly reduced the time it would have taken manually.”

Montgomery County Hospital District Powers COVID-19 Response with Digital Data and Process Automation

The Montgomery County Hospital District (MCHD) is eliminating its reliance on paper forms and manual processes in order to keep employees and the public safe, protect information privacy and better enable remote work and communication in the midst of COVID-19.

When the novel coronavirus arrived in Texas, it changed almost everything about the hospital district’s operations, shifting many employees to work from home, and requiring new digital processes for information gathering and sharing. The hospital district had been using Laserfiche to create electronic forms and automate processes since 2019, but the pandemic would reveal new critical use cases for Laserfiche and accelerate digital transformation across the organization.

“Montgomery County Hospital District employees were using Laserfiche before COVID, but we’ve found that Laserfiche made it so much easier to work from home and maintain HIPAA compliance, and protect privacy for ambulance patients,” said Shawn Henners, Electronic Business Process Manager at the hospital district. “If COVID-19 had hit six months ago, we would have had to ramp up a lot faster, and things would have been a lot more chaotic. We’re grateful that we had begun our business process automation and electronic forms initiatives with Laserfiche at the time that we did.”

In the first few weeks of Montgomery County’s COVID-19 response, the hospital district rapidly rolled out a number of Laserfiche electronic forms and automated processes for exposure reporting, employee symptom tracking and case investigation.

Rapid Response: Automating Information Gathering with Exposure Reports

MCHD is responsible for providing indigent care, emergency medical services and public health to Montgomery County, Texas. As a publicly-funded organization, MCHD aims to provide quality care to the county while remaining a good steward of taxpayer dollars. In the past year, MCHD worked with Laserfiche Solution Provider DocuNav Solutions to unveil its first agency-wide online forms and automated workflows to increase access to services while improving efficiency.

“All healthcare organizations need to adjust to new ways of working, and technology is key to their ability to respond quickly to change,” said Cody Bettis Sr., CEO of DocuNav Solutions. “The team at Montgomery County Hospital District has really embraced a digital approach to operations, and their Laserfiche solutions are enabling them to rapidly deploy e-forms and automated workflows that meet changing needs.”

One form that was rolled out over the past year was for infection control. Initially created to report employee exposures to things like HIV or meningitis, the form and automated process behind it was used to report exposure to COVID-19 hit once the virus arrived in Texas.

“We used to use the exposure form once or twice a month,” said Henners. “In March, we had about 30 submissions due to the virus. Having those processes automated already made a huge difference for us.”

With the automated process, the infection control officer is able to document exposures and record them in Laserfiche without significant manual intervention. Information is automatically filed in a standardized manner in compliance with industry regulations, enabling authorized personnel to access the information when it’s needed.

“We were able to quickly give our employee health monitor access to the infection control form, so they can see what’s going on, stay in the loop, run reports and make sure that nothing is falling through the cracks,” Henners added.

The hospital district’s human resources team, which is working remotely, can also easily track processes, file workers compensation claims, and communicate with people in office as a result of Laserfiche forms and the repository.

The Front-line: Symptom Tracking for Safer Work Environments

In addition to tracking exposure, MCHD gathers data on employees’ temperature and symptoms to help protect the health and safety of its workforce — including doctors, nurses and EMTs — and those they serve.

“This has helped tremendously since we have employees spread over the county,” said Henners.

Employees who report to work take their own temperature at the beginning of their shift, and log it along with any symptoms they may be experiencing. They are required to do the screening every 12 hours, so if employees work for 12 hours, they would log the information at the beginning and end of their shifts. Those who work 24-hour shifts perform the screening three times.

If the employee becomes symptomatic, the system advises them on what steps to take next. The forms and workflow also enable dynamic case scenarios, so instructions may differ depending on the individual’s department or role. For instance, the protocol for an employee who reports symptoms in a care unit would look very different from the protocol for an employee in an administrative role.

The information collected provides MCHD insights such as the employee’s symptoms and temperature the day before, or two days ago. To protect employee privacy, only infection control officers have access to individual data, while incident command and executives have access to see totals and trends by unit.

“We connected that information on the backend with our scheduling software to look for people who missed their check-ins, so that supervisors can follow up with them,” said Henners. “We want to keep employees safe. Those who are in essential positions can’t work from home, and so we want to do everything we can in order to make sure we’re not exposing each other, and that employees feel safe when they come to work.”

The project took MCHD about a week to get up and running, and staff has been able to copy and paste from the Laserfiche workflow to repurpose it for other processes.

Case Investigation: Automating Information Gathering and Reporting

MCHD has also implemented a Laserfiche solution to automate case investigation, and the collection of data to inform county decisions about COVID-19. As a manual process, case investigation involved epidemiologists making phone calls twice a day to close contacts of people who had tested positive for COVID-19, to manually enter their symptoms into the system.

“On the public health side, they were monitoring hundreds of case contacts, and it was unsustainable,” said Henners. “We built an electronic form and automated workflows that take a huge burden off of the epidemiologists, who can now better focus on their jobs.”

MCHD rolled out the new electronic form and process which enables people to voluntarily self-report their symptoms every 12 hours. “For every positive case we get, we’ll do an investigation on it in the public health department and document our findings,” Henners said.

The information collected also enables MCHD to create reports in Laserfiche that provide critical insights into the health of the county, while protecting patient privacy in accordance with HIPAA. For example, MCHD staff can pull up reports on how many people are at home under monitoring or how many people have recovered. This aggregated data can be made available to county leaders who are making decisions about reopening, while details about individuals is only available to case investigators who need the information to follow up with patients.
Medical worker approaches car to administer COVID-19 test during the pandemic of COVID-19 disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.

The New Normal: Accelerating Digital Transformation

MCHD is in the planning stages of offering telemedicine through an app; as part of this process, a Laserfiche workflow will support the collection, centralization and protection of patient information, signed consent forms and medical charts in the Laserfiche repository.

“We want to make sure that we have continuity of care, and all of the patient’s information is saved in a central location,” said Henners. “We already have a Laserfiche repository set up for patient records with appropriate security settings in place, so we are able to build and adapt processes easily, while staying in compliance with HIPAA requirements.”

Henners and the team at MCHD continue to experience increased adoption of Laserfiche and digital initiatives across the organization as employees discover new ways to streamline manual, paper-driven processes.

“COVID-19 has forced every employee to use Laserfiche for something — whether it’s specifically about COVID or not,” said Henners. For example, MCHD has a Laserfiche Form embedded on the employee website, where employees can ask questions. “If someone doesn’t know who to direct the question to, they can still get a response. If they don’t want to provide an email address, their question will be addressed in our all-staff calls. That’s another way Laserfiche is improving communication.”

MCHD is working to roll out new, key processes such as travel expense reports and inventory checkoff sheets for ambulances. “In the midst of all of this, I’m still getting emails from EMS chiefs and others who have paper forms that they would rather have in Laserfiche,” added Henners. “We are still improving processes, building checks and balances into our system, and maintaining ease of use for everyone.”

Oneida County Enhances Communication and Collaboration During COVID-19 and Beyond

SITUATION

• Pandemic response required quick solutions to support staff and residents
• Needed a way to immediately provision devices and enable access to systems remotely to support work from home
• Channels for reaching out to residents and local businesses impacted by COVID-19 did not exist

RESULTS

• Enabled remote work using Laserfiche
• Provided a way for the health department to reach out to people with COVID-19 and prevent further spread
• Collected local business surveys to gain an understanding of the pandemic’s impact on the economy

Oneida County, New York, faced an unprecedented set of challenges from the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. As a provider of essential services, the county government took measures to protect the health and safety of employees — especially important in one of the states with the highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases. The county embraced digital transformation across its many departments long before the pandemic. County Executive Anthony J. Picente Jr. has prioritized the implementation of technology including Laserfiche to drive innovation and effective, efficient services for the county. This approach resulted in an easier transition to a remote workforce, and same-day turnaround time of Laserfiche processes related to the county’s COVID-19 response being accessible online.

Within the first 30 days of the pandemic in the U.S., the county transitioned over 60% of its workforce from in-office to work-from-home by using existing automated workflows in Laserfiche and other technologies. At the same time, the county rolled out three key automated processes using Laserfiche to assess employees’ abilities to work remotely; monitor and support constituents who have tested positive for COVID-19; and assess business impact in the wake of the pandemic.

“This pandemic has presented county governments with many challenges,” Picente said. “Early on in the crisis, Oneida County acted quickly and decisively to safeguard the public and those maneuvers put us in position to be one of the first places in the state to enter into phased reopening. Our use of technology has been a key factor in continuing operations, and enabling continuity of citizen services. We had been using Laserfiche in many different ways prior to this, and we were able to build on those solutions to develop new ones that fit our current needs.”

Springing Into Action: Enabling Work from Home

At the beginning of March, when many government organizations across the country were just starting to realize the impact the virus could have on day-to-day life, Oneida County used Laserfiche to create an electronic form that helped assess various factors that enable county employees to work from home.

Each employee was required to fill out the form confirming home internet access, whether or not they needed any county-issued devices to do their job properly (e.g., tablets, laptops, cellphones), the percentage of daily tasks that each individual worker could do with virtual access to the county network, and how long each employee estimated they could effectively work remotely.

“The form centralizes the overall transition process and standardizes the information collected from each employee, rather than leaving it up to various managers or individuals,” said Oneida County IT Director AnneMarie Ambrose.

County leadership knew, however, that in order to best serve citizens during an emergency, the county needed to go beyond transitioning its own employees to remote roles. The county needed to ensure better information sharing among departments that serve residents.

Monitoring and Supporting Citizens with COVID-19

As COVID-19 spread throughout the state of New York, local health departments were quickly taxed with determining what citizens may have had contact with the virus, who had been tested, the results of each test, and more. Oneida County staff realized immediately that the same Laserfiche technology the county had worked with since 2013 could be leveraged to assist the local health department.

Laserfiche electronic forms were rolled out to local healthcare providers across the county so that each practitioner could give the county’s health department information about people who had been tested for COVID-19, as well as their healthcare provider and physician’s information. This process now provides the county with basic information and the ability to reach out to people who have tested positive in order to make sure they have the proper isolation guidelines, follow up with them to see how their self-isolation is going, and prevent further spread.
Nurse using a laptop at the reception

Taking this a step further, the health department contacts those under monitoring each day, to track vital signs and give patients a channel to ask for additional assistance if needed. “Because there are hundreds and hundreds of people to contact on a daily basis, we decided to automate the process using Laserfiche,” Ambrose said.

The automated process enables patients to submit a consent form with their preferred method of contact (email, text or phone call) to the health department. Every day at 5 p.m., notifications are automatically sent to everyone in the database that needs to self-report, with a deadline of 11 a.m. the following day. The department also automatically receives a list of those who have not self-reported by 11 a.m., so they can be contacted by phone.

“During this challenging time in 2020, our technical staff quickly pivoted to help Oneida meet their needs with these digital forms and processes,” said Mike Rizzo, Laserfiche operations manager for ICC Community Development Solutions, the county’s Laserfiche solution provider. “Our team helped lighten the load of several county departments, especially the Health Department, in order for government operations to continue to function at the highest level during this unprecedented time.”

Outreach to Local Businesses and Planning for Post-Pandemic Life

Meanwhile, the team at Oneida County knew that local businesses were feeling the brunt of stay-at-home orders that were going into place in New York State and across the U.S. It was essential for county leaders to assess the economic impact on businesses as well as create a better avenue for communication between citizens and their local government.

The Oneida County Planning Department leveraged Laserfiche to automate the process of collecting business impact surveys aimed at local businesses. The goal was to enable businesses to digitally submit information that would help the county understand the current state of the local economy, and what impact the virus is having on local businesses. Business owners have been asked to fill out the form with information such as how many people they employed before COVID-19; how many people they employ currently during the crisis; what revenue was in 2019 in comparison to now; whether they have business interruption insurance that will cover current losses; and how they think business will be after the state of emergency is lifted.

While the county’s first priority is of course to keep citizens as safe and healthy as possible, it also realizes the importance of planning for life after the crisis. Thus far, over 300 submissions have been made. The county is making sure that local businesses are not alone in this crisis and working with local business leaders to plan for what resources local businesses will need once the area is ready to reopen the economy.

As a result of the business impact survey, the county has been able to assist employers that are required by the State of New York, under Executive Order 202.16, to provide their employees with personal protection equipment (PPE). The county formed a consortium to get a supply of masks at a fair price, a testament to the county’s commitment to keeping citizens safe and healthy.

Oneida County continues to work closely with its Laserfiche Solution Provider, General Code, and Laserfiche to assess additional areas where technology can be applied to streamline operations and to ensure continuity of citizen services. The county already plans to bring additional services online using Laserfiche to automate essential processes to enhance the citizen experience. In the meantime, Oneida County continues to use these tools to provide a better avenue for communication between its citizens and their local government. 

Download The Ultimate Guide to Business Continuity eBook to learn more about how to keep business moving when your employees, customers and constituents need it most.

For more on how Laserfiche can support your business continuity planning, visit the Business Continuity Planning (BCP) resource page.

Streamlining Contract Management to Put Clients First

As a stable, independent, family-managed business, Fiducia has supported mid-market firms to navigate change and seize business opportunities in China for over 37 years. Extensive local know-how and network, coupled with technical and international industry expertise has enabled Fiducia to provide a wide variety of advisory and outsourced services, including finance and accounting, trade and technology consultation, strategy advisory, executive search and tax advisory.

Fiducia’s dedication to high-quality, responsive client service recently led the firm to digitally transform key processes, integrating line of business technologies and introducing business process automation. Implementing Laserfiche as a core solution for contract management, Fiducia streamlined the quotation generation and contract approval processes, allowing for more transparency and efficient communication between key company stakeholders and clients. The initiative has also reclaimed time for employees, enabling them to focus more on supporting international clients seeking Fiducia’s business expertise in the region.

“Adopting Laserfiche has helped us streamline our approval process, improving accuracy and efficiency,” says Addison Kwok, Financial Manager at Fiducia. “The process has been centralized in one platform, representing a true digital transformation.”

Seamless Integration with Existing Applications
Service proposals at Fiducia previously required employees to manually input significant amounts of client and project information. Up to 30 different templates were used, and the template depended on the specific scope of the project. Internally-reviewed cost estimates were also completed manually and submitted to finance managers —  a process that required employees to perform their own calculations to determine whether submitted proposals were profitable. Keeping track of these documents also heavily relied on manual tasks performed by service managers, the managing director, finance managers and clients. The time-intensive process hindered productivity and growth, ultimately slowing project turnaround times and creating silos across the organization.

The firm identified a lack of a centralized repository and content management system as one key issue. Projects and documentation were spread across a number of different applications and file locations, resulting in misplaced documents and various copies of the same proposal stored in different staff members’ computer drives or inboxes.

In order to accelerate proposal generation and continue upholding the firm’s high standards of service, the Fiducia team knew they needed to standardize the way information was shared across the organization. A new system would also need the ability to integrate with existing applications that were key in managing client details and creating project proposals.

Fiducia implemented a Laserfiche enterprise content management system to centralize account information, integrating the platform with the firm’s Salesforce CRM to support seamless contract management. Laserfiche also enabled Fiducia to create an automated workflow to eliminate much of the manual tasks and data entry that was previously required to generate proposals and get them approved.

Service managers begin by loading client information from Salesforce via dropdown menus into a Laserfiche form, which automatically allocates Fiducia team members to respective projects. After submitting the necessary client details, Laserfiche generates an initial proposal and financial breakdown, which includes service scope and cost. The Laserfiche workflow then automatically routes the proposal to the managing director and an assigned financial manager for approval with a priority-based deadline within Fiducia’s Laserfiche repository.

Following internal and external approval, the contract signing process can be initiated: Using DocuSign, clients can either sign the proposal or reject it. If signed, the final project proposal is then delivered to both the service manager and managing director. If approved with signatures and initials by both parties, the project proposal and final approved copy are then appropriately labelled, indexed and archived in Laserfiche.

This approval process can be completed by the managing director and Fiducia members whether or not they are in the office, since the Laserfiche mobile app enables them to complete approvals remotely from any device.

Within a few months of implementation, Laserfiche has helped to streamline Fiducia’s initial quotation generation process, facilitating the creation of service contracts and financial forms.  Automating key steps in quotation creation and contract approval processes has also enabled more efficient collaboration between internal and external parties, representing a savings of around 150 hours per year.

Improving Staff and Client Experience
In addition to making key process improvements, Fiducia has used Laserfiche to modernize the way the firm manages documents with access controls that have improved information governance across the organization. Integration between Laserfiche and applications such as Docusign and Salesforce has resulted in an overall better experience for clients and employees, who can now better focus on navigating the business landscape.

Fiducia’s digital transformation has also contributed to business continuity and staff confidence in the wake of COVID-19. The ability to access documents and processes from home, and perform remote approvals has been especially beneficial during work-from-home arrangements resulting from the pandemic.

Following the streamlining of their quotation generation and approval processes, Fiducia has plans to deploy Laserfiche in supplier-focused processes as well — this project will pair Laserfiche and ABBYY, a third-party scanning solution, to capture and subsequently organize important company information and content. This project represents Fiducia’s continued commitment to process automation and digital transformation.