The Real Cold Case Files: ECM Makes a Difference

Two years ago, the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office in Florida was another local government agency with overflowing file cabinets and the inspiration (and budget) to do something about it. Laserfiche was at first intended to help with enterprise content management in departmental records, but was soon adapted to catalogue domestic violence cases and help create SORT, the county’s public database of sexual predators. “Being able to scan in domestic violence case reports is important because these cases are very time-sensitive as far as victims support services go,” says Commander Doug Waller. “Time is definitely not on our side.”

The importance of time is especially crucial to homicide cases. “We only see about 10-12 homicides a year and we generally stay on top of them,” says Lieutenant Bruce Barnett. “But the longer a case stays open, the more the paperwork piles up.”

Nowhere was this more evident than in the murder case of Charlotte “Amy” Gellert. One Sunday evening in March, 1994, the 21-year-old returned to her parents’ home, only to walk into a botched robbery attempt. The thief, who had tied up her parents, stabbed Gellert to death and fled the scene.

Over the past decade and a half, the case had gone cold, leaving a mountain of paperwork behind. Most homicides accumulate a box or two of paperwork, but the Gellert case had eight owing to its myriad suspects, reports, statements, testimony and evidence, all stored in what officers referred to as “the big room.”

Barnett saw the potential of using ECM for compiling and indexing the Gellert case along with the county’s other 46 cold case homicides. Some dated as far back as 1967. Almost all had long since seen their initial team of investigators transfer, retire or move on, which complicated the already-difficult task of locating information in decades-old paperwork. “In the past we’d had issues with misplaced files,” Barnett says.

Beginning late last year, the Sheriff’s office began a painstaking backlog conversion project beginning with the Gellert case. Staff often worked after hours to scan and organize files with information management software.

In the process, they’d possibly uncover a piece of the puzzle that could hopefully bring a resolution to crimes that have haunted victims’ families for decades. Barnett had realistic hopes for the new technology, pointing out that police departments are not as high-tech as Hollywood makes them out to be. “It’s frustrating when you’re in front of jurors who think we should be able to have a case solved in an hour because they’re so used to seeing Hollywood depict it that way. It’s not something we can do from our desktop yet,” Barnett adds.

But business process management software is a step in the right direction, especially for police departments with limited resources.

Disclaimer: This blog or article is for information purpose only, and should not be treated a professional advise or price protection guarantee. This blog is mainly used for search engine optimization and other commercial purposes and it is advised that readers seek professional consultation in the field of interest for more information

A True Document Management Partner

The economic climate hasn’t been looking so great and it has been estimated that companies will continue to layoff millions of workers until summer. As companies are forced to cut costs by downsizing administration, they look to technological advances in ECM to maintain efficiency.

Usually, the average cost of two or three administrators is around $30,000 - $40,000 each. So companies who have to keep labor costs within their budget, investing in Enterprise Document Management is a smart business decision. Business process management software increases efficiency by eliminating the paper chase and maximizes leverage for accelerated business processes. Many companies who have already integrated information management by Laserfiche can safely say that it is vital for any company that process large amounts of paperwork to invest in a paperless filing system which ensures your company that your documents are safely stored in a secured software.

ECM is also a great way to promote a green environment. It’s the key to achieve success, both now and in the future

Document management company provides the Petroleum Agency of South Africa with a big return on a comparatively small investment

With its Democratic government firmly in place, South Africa has become one of the African nations with promising oil and natural gas reserves that are safe for legitimate exploration. The country has an estimated tens of trillion cubic feet of natural gas underneath its wildernesses—a resource that, properly tapped, could assist in nation building.

So the Petroleum Agency of South Africa (PASA) went on a global sales trip of sorts last year, trying to interest outside oil companies in the country’s natural gas reserves. PASA representatives visited Johannesburg, London, Houston, TX, and Long Beach, CA, and now the agency has plenty of potential investors applying for exploration acreage. The problem, however, was managing all the associated paperwork. This is where document management software comes to the rescue.

“Before we undertook this project, we had 14 companies interested in exploring natural oil and gas deposits in our country, and now we have 60,” says PASA’s Sithembiso Ngubane. “We have to make sure they all play by the rules.”

Yet at the same time, PASA did not want to discourage interested applicants with burdensome paperwork, so it needed to make its application process as fast as it was thorough with information management.

In each application, performance bonds have to be signed and credit histories also must be documented. Each company permitted to drill must also donate $150,000 for educational programs aimed at educating South Africans in exploration-related sciences.

And any company that’s allowed to sink exploratory wells must provide a plan to clean-up and restore damaged areas, in the event of a disaster. Mineral rights and royalty agreements must also be secured in iron-clad contracts.

There are many documents in each application that, once filled out, need to be instantly accessible to make sure all those agreements are adhered to when the exploration starts, Ngubane says.

From the start, it was clear that an electronic document management system was needed to keep it all straight. Any such system had to have a workflow module capacity with Web-based portal software options and sufficient security features to enable the database to go online without allowing public access. The system that could deliver all that at a reasonable price tag, Ngubane says, was Laserfiche.

It took a year before South Africa’s official record keeping agency, the National Archive and Records Service, would sign off on PASA’s plan to digitize its documents and records.

Ngubane says ECM provided a secure database to manage PASA’s information assets, as well as streamline its processes. “Keeping all the contractual specifics in a friendly and secure electronic database will keep everybody aware of the agreements and commitments made,” he adds. “This way if there is a dispute over agreements, we can quickly pull the pertinent documents out of Laserfiche to settle it.”

With Laserfiche it is also more difficult for missed obligations to go unnoticed by PASA staff. When performance timelines are broken, Laserfiche notifies the system operator accordingly when the applicant’s file is opened, Ngubane says.

The system is still very much a work in progress. A GIS integration module is being developed that will tie spatial information into PASA’s current Laserfiche database. Once this takes place, PASA hopes to offer interested companies the ability to preliminarily explore South Africa’s oil and natural gas prospects online.

An electronic library of geology, hydrology, topography and myriad other data surveys that PASA scanned into Laserfiche will also be tied into the spatial information module, all of which will be made available to qualified prospectors through a secure Web-based portal. That will let tech savvy prospectors know early on if field exploration in South Africa is warranted.

Using Laserfiche, PASA will benefit from a much quicker turnaround time in responding to inquiries, another strong selling point for potential customers. And Laserfiche could eventually help cut millions off the cost of extracting natural oil and gas in South Africa, making the country even more attractive to prospectors—a big return on a comparatively small investment.

Disclaimer: This blog or article is for information purpose only, and should not be treated a professional advise or price protection guarantee. This blog is mainly used for search engine optimization and other commercial purposes and it is advised that readers seek professional consultation in the field of interest for more information.

Maximizing Minimal Resources

Upper Deerfield, NJ, is using Laserfiche to streamline operations and maximize limited resources

In order to minimize budgetary costs for taxpayers, local governments are forever searching for more creative and efficient ways to streamline operations. Toward that end, Upper Deerfield Township has turned to document management software to build a government database that’s turning its government paperwork into electronic images and its government staff into some of the most productive in New Jersey, according to one expert who knows a little about local government.

“Upper Deerfield’s document management system is bare bones yet staffers are getting everything out of it they can,” Babb says. “For a municipality with just over 7,500 residents, there’s minimal staff in Upper Deerfield’s government offices, far fewer than other municipalities I’ve seen.”

Upper Deerfield made a very important commitment two years ago when elected officials and municipal staff determined that municipal record keeping management needed to be streamlined. At that time town administrator/clerk Roy Spoltore asked for and received permission from the Township Committee to request proposals for the purchase of an information management software system. The Township Committee eventually awarded the purchase of a Laserfiche document management system.

“For my use, it’s easy to find anything in the database,” says administration clerk/typist Linda Martin. “I have people that come in looking for ordinances and resolutions and things from years past and I can go right to the database without the time-consuming search through books or filing cabinets. It takes just seconds to go to the computer, put in the key words, and its right there.”

Along with the storage and retrieval abilities of Upper Deerfield’s ECM system, another software program has been added to keep track of who accesses which documents in the database and when. Another software program being installed will automatically take internal working documents that staffers produce on their own computers and index and store them in the database without having to print and scan them first.

“I’d love to see Upper Deerfield someday take full advantage of all the additional technology,” Babb says. “Still, I’m amazed at what Upper Deerfield Township has accomplished with the small entry level system they invested in. They really went to town on Laserfiche and maximized those features available to them.”

Disclaimer: This blog or article is for information purpose only, and should not be treated a professional advise or price protection guarantee. This blog is mainly used for search engine optimization and other commercial purposes and it is advised that readers seek professional consultation in the field of interest for more information.

Document Management to the Rescue!

Jamestown, NY, Public Schools use document management to run smarter district-wide.

Located at the southern shores of Chautauqua Lake, Jamestown, NY, is the largest city in picturesque Chautauqua County. The Jamestown Public Schools serve approximately 5,000 students from pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade at six neighborhood elementary schools, three middle schools and one comprehensive high school.

In 2003, the Jamestown City School District’s human resources department began investigating document management as a possible solution to managing an ever increasing amount of paper. The department’s six employees were responsible for managing personnel records, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, employment applications and reports regarding civil rights, unemployment and workers’ compensation, as well as all files relating to negotiations, arbitrations, grievances and meeting minutes of the district’s seven unions.

HIPAA requirements mandated that employee medical records must be segregated so only the HIPAA officer and benefits manager could access them, which required keeping these documents in separate file cabinets. And worst of all, there was no disaster plan in place, so if documents were destroyed, they would be impossible to replace.

Once document management software was installed, staff began with a pilot project to scan all personnel files into document management, with plans to eventually expand the project to other administrative areas and school buildings as resources and time allowed. The need for multiple file cabinets was immediately eliminated: staff designed their file structure to include five sub-folders (personnel, payroll, training, insurance and medical) set up so they could place security tags on confidential files. “

And just as important is the peace of mind Briner-Peterson and her staff enjoy knowing Jamestown’s records are finally safe—come what may. “9/11 and Hurricane Katrina just proved the need to be able to continue running a business or government office immediately after a crisis,” she says. “Our largest concern was that we had no disaster plan in place. If water pipes broke or a fire started, we had no ability to recreate documents that could not be easily replaced.”

All of the district’s documents are retrievable through WebLink so that, in case of disaster, district maintenance employees, administrators and local police, fire and emergency personnel can immediately access information. In fact, Briner-Peterson is so confident in ECM that she’s begun moving original hardcopy personnel offsite to the district’s new records storage facility. “Information management is the foundation of our district disaster recovery plan.

“Once you’ve had successes in one department and can prove to others that the system is user-friendly, functional and dependable, you’ll have departments knocking on your door,” she offers. “In our estimation, the best—and most unexpected—benefit of document management has been that we’ve been able to use it for so many things that no one on our selection committee ever could have envisioned.”

Disclaimer: This blog or article is for information purpose only, and should not be treated a professional advise or price protection guarantee. This blog is mainly used for search engine optimization and other commercial purposes and it is advised that readers seek professional consultation in the field of interest for more information.