Township of King

Challenge

• Modernize, digitize, and centralize documents

• Drive efficiency through a central system and hierarchy

• Improve information security and governance for employee access

Previously, the Township of King had assessed its digital infrastructure to ensure employees have access to necessary information, break down department siloes, and improve efficiency.

A few years back, the township built a new municipal center, prompting a large-scale initiative to digitize and centralize content that was previously stored in filing cabinets, banker boxes, and across individual and department network drives. In this content management system case study, we share how the township is using technology to overcome its data management challenges.

• Centralized content across departments with Laserfiche

• Integrated Laserfiche with other technology

• Created a new filing structure for scalability and efficiency

With the support and expertise of Ricoh, the Township of King implemented Laserfiche, a leading enterprise content management system for many government institutions, as its central digital repository. This allowed staff to reclaim time previously spent physically searching for information and enabled departments to transition from network drives while simultaneously strengthening the municipality’s information governance program.

“Implementing Laserfiche really allowed us to look at our filing methodology and structure from a corporate perspective,” said Denny Timm, Manager of Legislative Services and Deputy Clerk. “It’s like building a house — you need to build a solid foundation, organize and plan what goes in the rooms, and assign the proper access to those rooms. With Laserfiche, we have one corporate folder structure as our foundation, filled with subfolders and documents, and appropriately assigned access privileges and controls. We now have greater integrity and confidence in our information management system. We know staff are accessing what they need to access while elevating the protection of personal and confidential information.”

As the Township of King saw the benefits of digitizing and centralizing content, they began to learn more about taking their digital transformation to the next level. This included working with Ricoh to integrate Laserfiche with other core technologies as well as automating key business processes using government enterprise content management and electronic forms.

“We saw that Laserfiche was more than just a place to put files,” said Timm. “That’s when we started to view tutorials, speak with our team at Ricoh, and understand that there’s way more capability within the system than we initially thought.”

• Electronic forms and process automation enabled greater accessibility for residents

• Empowered a secured, seamless hybrid work environment

• Immediate cost-savings from paperless digitization and administrative work

• Automated routing, approvals, and billing processes, expediting service delivery

• Ability to garner insights from data analytics

This government enterprise content management project was a for the team to reimagine how they could use digital information in their mission to accelerate service delivery to citizens, maximize efficiency, and ensure employees are well-equipped to respond to customer needs. Using electronic forms and business process automation enabled the township to increase access to information and public services.

“We were fortunate to have had departments adopt Laserfiche before COVID-19 arrived,” Timm said. “Staff had access to all the information they needed in a central resource that they could securely access remotely. Departments also saw the immediate savings in administrative work, no longer needing to file paper copies, and now being able to easily search and retrieve information.”

The township is actively replacing paper forms with electronic forms to make more public services available online. They also launched a new website where constituents can access applications, permit forms, and other essential items with an integrated payment system, including:

• Building permit payments

• Bulky item pickup and garbage bag tags

• Pet and service animal licenses

• Fire permits

• Freedom of information requests

• Marriage service payments

• Road occupancy permits

• Property information requests

• Tax certificate requests

• eBilling registration for property and water bills

• Temporary sign permits

In addition to increasing access to these forms, the staff leveraged business process automation for information routing and approvals. Now, when a resident submits an electronic form through the township’s website, the information is automatically sent to the relevant departments and approving parties for review and approval. The automated processes streamline the flow of information, expedite service delivery, and increase transparency with reporting and analytics.

“We are excited to see our public forms integrate with our repository, too,” said Timm. “Now, forms and information are automatically filed in the right spot, and our approval process moves to the digital realm — and we’re able to track and start looking at the data analytics.”

The IT team has plans to further centralize its government enterprise content management and processes by using Laserfiche to replace unnecessary niche software that individual departments may have acquired or are looking to acquire.

“Laserfiche doesn’t make digital transformation seem overly complicated because the tools are all there — we are equipped to easily automate processes without having to acquire and learn multiple small, specific pieces of software,” Callisto explained. “For example, we just successfully launched and leveraged Laserfiche forms and its business process capabilities to automate our entire Performance Development and Recognition Program (PDRP). By expanding our in-house knowledge of the system, we are beginning to build more complex and corporate-wide implementations. These new electronic and automated processes streamline core critical corporate processes, making them easy and accessible to staff.”

The IT division is now aiming to create a self-service model. “The goal is to have each department build their own digital forms and publish them online,” Callisto said. “The subject matter experts in the individual departments are going to know the processes the best, and with Laserfiche’s ease of use, we know staff are eager to build and implement!”

Looking to the future, the Township of King plans to further leverage insights from the process dashboard to analyze information such as the number of permits, applications, and licenses received, what time of year is the busiest, and more. “We’re really excited to dive into the data and analytics and look at them in terms of usage and output,” Timm said. “It’s going to give us a whole new area that we haven’t explored before.”