By Lynn Allen, Records Manager, Brazos County, Texas

The most unexpected benefit of implementing Laserfiche was the excitement that began to spread from the end users as they were learning how to preserve their older records and work in immediate time with their current records.

Challenges: The largest document challenge that Brazos County faced was, in my opinion, the fact that no major destruction of the old records had occurred since the early 1900s in some areas I observed. The most frequent reason cited for this long term retention was because, "We didn't know what to do with it and was scared to throw it away." By January of 2009, an audit of the County records resulted in 32 tons of paper being sent to recycle and a large portion of the remainder on tap for scanning using Laserfiche. The biggest benefit here is the reduction of the real estate required to house all of the hard copy items In addition, accessibility to stored items was all done manually. One great example is with the Audit Department that would go to the Treasury Department, manually pull manila folders of various vendors, and thumb through the invoices and checks in order to then audit. Of course, then these items had to be re-filed once the audit process was done and, hopefully, everything made it back to its original home.

How LF Helped: The destruction of the old records was accomplished, mainly, because a commitment was made to use Laserfiche to scan any of those records that required retention. As the older records were audited, those items that required retention or were being saved for historical purposes were put into the scanning schedule. The biggest benefit here is the reduction of the real estate required to house all of the hard copy items as well as peace of mind knowing that the records were safe from fire, water, or vermin. With the Laserfiche scanning procedures that we implemented, Treasury Department allowed security access to those scanned records for viewing, copying, and printing so that all of the AP invoices could be accessed by the Auditors in seconds without even having to leave their office. In addition, Treasury employees could access the same files, extract a copy of a document and email it in response to both internal and external queries.

Benefits: The most unexpected benefit of implementing Laserfiche was the excitement that began to spread from the end users as they were learning how to preserve their older records and work in immediate time with their current records. To discover that they could have access to an item that was scanned as little as ten seconds previously by another department and perhaps even in another building elicited a huge response. Then people began to talk about the benefits and say things like, "Just send me a copy from Laserfiche." As that seed developed those that were not willing, at first, to use Laserfiche soon found themselves having to process their documents in hard copy and were anxious to change to electronic.

Advice: Don't be afraid...everything is fixable. These are the words that I try to use the most when introducing Laserfiche to new user or conducting training sessions to departments that have begun the conversion from hard copy to Laserfiche. During introduction and training, try to make sure that you don't over-complicate the new user with too much information at one time, keep it fun, and reassure them that they can't break it. On the possibilities of Laserfiche, I would say to stay flexible and let your imagination run away with you...

By Evelyn Boggess, Records Management Officer, Schertz, Texas

“from planning, to installation, to integration, training and support DynaSource has been a wonderful help… they are always available when we need them”

Here in Schertz, the Records Management Office oversees how all the city departments keep their records. Practices and retention schedules are mandated by the state of Texas. As a records manager, I find a lot to like about Laserfiche Records Management Edition (RME).

We’ve had Laserfiche in the city now for about five years. We originally went to document imaging to make searching easier and more efficient. Just last fall we converted to Laserfiche RME. Moving what we had over to the new program was simple—just drag and drop. But we’re taking some extra time to identify more efficient ways to use Laserfiche for records management. We’re making changes to take advantage of the records series features of RME.

The great thing about setting up a records series in RME is that the system is flexible enough to set up different criteria in different departments, according to what they need, but also meets our requirements from a records management perspective. For example, for financial records or ordinances, we set up folders by year. Currently we have 24 departmental folders, including the city secretary, the city manager, economic development and human resources. As new departments branch off from existing one, we can add folders for them, too.

We have one folder with information for all employees, such as the employee handbook, but not every employee has access to every folder. It’s easy to set it up so that employees have access only to what they need. For HR, only four people have access to the files. We’re narrowing the access in the police department, too. In one case, only the police chief, the deputy police chief, and the records management department would have access to that folder.

My favorite thing about RME is the ability to generate a report. I’m still learning, but I can already create a report that tells me who has been on the system, how many documents have been created and whether documents have been deleted. We haven’t reached the point yet where anything needs to be destroyed, but I can pull a report based on the retention schedule, too. And according to state law, we have to keep an index of the retention schedule and with RME, the schedule; the entry date and the destruction date are all established and attached to the primary folder. From the administrative side, that’s a big plus for a records manager because it’s all automated.

From the standpoint of a records manager, Laserfiche RME has a lot of features that make the job easier. It’s a great product.

By Principle Lorenz, Liberty HS Liberty, TX

"We feel we will now be in compliance with guidelines and will be protected against future calamities."

If El Niño, Global Warming, or just plain old Texas weather delivers on its promise of storms, floods, and other meteorological unpleasantness in the Southwest this year, one school district that won’t be too concerned about protecting precious records is the Liberty School District, facing the Trinity River in southeast Texas.

So, as our story goes Liberty High survived the 1994 flood. But, Mother Nature wasn’t through yet; a tornado grazed the school just a few months later, lashing the tennis court. That was enough for Mr. Lorenz and the school board. They decided that the next natural challenge might not be survived quite as well. They consulted Charles Beard, President of DynaSource, Inc. of nearby Beaumont, who since 1975 has made a specialty of counseling independent school districts on computer and archiving problems. He set up a small, self-contained Laserfiche Document Imaging system for the school, at a cost of less than $10,000 for the software plus the labor of converting nearly 80 years of paper records to storage on virtually-indestructible plastic disks.

After surviving two punishing floods and a near-miss by a tornado in four years, the district converted its record system from paper to weatherproof Laserfiche Document Imaging software. Now, instead of 16 fourdrawer file cabinets stuffed to bursting with aging paper and 5-by-7-inch index cards, fewer than 10 pocket-sized CD disks contain academic records going back to the 1920’s, with every recorded grade of every student available for instant call-up by a few key-taps.

School counselor Roberta Thornton says it was the floods of 1990 and 1994 that convinced the school board it was time to investigate the potential benefits of the paperless office. "The 1990 flood wasn’t so bad," she said, "Only a few neighborhoods were affected, and a few houses under water. After it was over, everybody said ‘well, that’ll never happen again.' "

But it did, in October 1994, and it was far worse. The Baptist Hospital (now Liberty-Dayton Hospital) across the river from the school was inundated, and its nursing home had to be evacuated. And Mrs. Thornton received a pre-dawn telephone call.

"It was four or five in the morning," she said, "They told me that the levee had broken and we had to get right up there to save the records. Well, when I arrived, the water was rising but it wasn’t up to the school yet. We went inside, the principal, Don Lorenz; the superintendent, Dr. Joseph Crane; and I. We went into the records office, where the big four-drawer file cabinets are. We took out all the bottom drawers of all those cabinets, and put them on top to give us a foot or so of leeway, in case the water came up that high. I want to tell you, a standard file cabinet drawer filled with paper is no light little thing. It’s HEAVY!

"And those files were dry. Can you imagine what the job would have been like if the water had risen higher and we’d had to pull them out soaking wet?"

It was still dark, but the river had reached the two-story building’s porch when Mrs. Thornton went home. The school auditorium and part of the gym, below ground level, were flooded, but she lifting a second tier of file drawers atop the cabinets, and by the time he left, he had to wade across the parking lot.

This meant replacing 16 large file cabinets with a package small enough to fit on a desktop. To find any student’s record, all a clerk needs to do now is slip a five-inch disk into a PC disk drive, and type a few letters and numbers: the required data leaps to the computer’s monitor screen.

The next time the Trinity River acts up, one person can carry the Liberty High School student records to safety with one hand. And if that person oversleeps, or doesn’t hear the telephone, there’ll be a backup set of disks higher and dryer in the school district’s main administration building, a few miles away. And Mrs. Thornton has reclaimed valuable office space, which the looming file cabinets had taken away from her.

The new system also gives Principal Lorenz a new feeling of security. "We feel we will now be in compliance with guidelines and will be protected against future calamities," he said.

By Nien-Ling Wacker President of Laserfiche

7th Annual Laserfiche Winners’ Circle Conference

Laserfiche Document Imaging Company creates elegant document management solutions that help organizations “run smarter”. A resource for over 21,000 organizations since 1987, Laserfiche solves the problems that impact government and business today.

Laserfiche, Founder and CEO Nien-Ling Wacker presented a special award tonight to Charles E. Beard, President of DynaSource, Inc. Beaumont, TX. Of the 1,000+ Laserfiche Value Added Resellers (VARs) DynaSource is one of only four (4) VARs to have been both a Laserfiche VAR for at least ten years and to have qualified for the Winners Circle each of the seven years since the inception of the Winners’ Circle program. Only 47 Laserfiche VARs qualified for the Winners Circle this year.

Charles E. Beard and DynaSource have been providing state of the art Records Management and Document Imaging solutions to governmental, educational, and industrial clients since 1975. DynaSource also provides document scanning and conversion services, as well as, turn-key records management solutions.

In addition to the Laserfiche award, DynaSource has recently been chosen as the recommended “sole source” provider for TCPN (The Cooperative Purchasing Network), an almost 1,000 member purchasing cooperative serving educational, local and state governmental agencies, and “not for profit” organizations in Texas and Arizona.

DynaSource invites anyone with records management issues or problems to contact them at: DynaSource, Inc.

By Joe Baviello

“As a starting point, the Scan Station 100 has been ideal. The interface and use is easy, and there’s almost no learning curve. Some other departments — such as finance and accounting — are starting to use it, and we’re considering purchasing another unit. So I’d say it’s all positive in terms of the size, convenience and quality of the images it provides.”

Although you might not guess it from their name that’s more likely to conjure up images of your old car breaking down along the interstate, Moran Towing is a major corporate provider of maritime towing and related services. These include ship docking, marine transportation of petroleum and dry bulk products, and assistance with liquid natural gas activities. Moran’s fleet of 96 tug boats and 30 barges serves the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts, Great Lakes, Gulf of Mexico, and inland waters of the eastern seaboard.

Corporate headquarters are in New Canaan, CT where 80 of the 500+ nationwide Moran employees work. Before updating their document imaging situation, Moran had some experience with scanning, utilizing a combination scanner/copier unit. “That unit was old and not located in a central area,” says Joe Baviello, Manager of IT, Network and Infrastructure for Moran. “It was down in the mail room. People didn’t especially enjoy making the trek and then having to wait if the copier was in use.” Despite the mailroom scanner, most of Moran’s document creation, filing and storage was paper based. Like many companies, they had amassed a significant collection of filing cabinets filled with paper over the years.

After exploring various options, Baviello decided on a Kodak Scan Station 100 supplied through the Concord, NH office of Biz Tech Solutions, Inc. Moran’s initial objectives were fairly simple: an easy scanning solution — accessible to several people in their Operations Group — to capture documents with high quality and dependability.

Once their Kodak Scan Station 100 was in place in July 2006, Moran’s main office began scanning invoices, print outs, packets of contracts and other business-related forms and documents. Today, documents are e-mailed to clients, scanned to folders on the desktop or network, and printed when needed.

Moran takes advantage of several features of the Scan Station 100. It works with existing office networks, so there is no additional hardware or software required. Users can scan to — • E-mail • Folders • Print • Portable USB “flash” drives

And scan in these formats — • Searchable PDF • PDF • TIFF • JPG

Ease of use is aided by an on-screen color preview for real-time confirmation of image capture and transfer. Kodak’s Perfect Page image processing is built in, delivering exceptional image quality automatically. Portable USB drive connectivity also allows for image storage and the creation of user configuration profiles.

“We’re really at the initial stages of exploring a more in-depth document management strategy and solution,” Baviello notes.

By Charles Beard & TCPN

"DynaSource, Inc. is a futuristic company operating on the cutting information edge, saving systems from extinction..."

Although the company name has occasionally caused people to confuse “DynaSource, Inc.” with someone who knows “dinosaurs,” DynaSource, Inc. is a futuristic company operating on the cutting information edge, saving systems from extinction. This new TCPN contract holder is a document management company that helps people manage, organize and access records.

Not only do they solve a records management problem, they save money for their clients. “The systems we put in pay for themselves out of the savings they generate,” said Charles (Chuck) E. Beard, DynaSource, Inc. president. “I’ve never seen a time when we couldn’t save them more than it costs to do business with us. The bottom line is if people can’t save more money than it costs to do business with us, we recommend they go somewhere else.”

DynaSource, Inc. provides hardware and software, installation, integration, training, and support. The system is very adaptable, with solutions ranging from something very basic and simple to a fully networked or Webenabled system. Systems are designed to grow as needed.

For the full story click hereTo download the TCPN Press Release PDF.

AIIM is offering a FREE, one-day seminar to learn about infrastructure and platform options and the role of SharePoint in your strategy; how to drive paper out of your core document-intensive processes; legal and e-discovery issues; information governance guidelines, and change management implications. The Houston seminar is March 25, 2010, with a location TBD. Visit AIIM Training for more information.

The 2010 AIIM Expo will be held at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, April 20-22. John Stenbit, Former CIO, United States Department of Defense, will be among the keynote speakers.
For more information, visit AIIM Expo.

The 2010 Laserfiche Institute Conference Recap available is online. Laserfiche Founder and President Nien-Ling Wacker pointed out in her Monday keynote address “Agile ECM: The Clear Winner in a New Decade,” 2009 may have been a tough year economically, but it’s at times like these that the Laserfiche Community really shines. (User attendance was up 54% from last year.) She also pointed out that the Center for Digital Government and Digital Communities magazine recently published its list of the nation’s most advanced digital cities – and 20 of them, including 3 out of 4 category leaders, are using Laserfiche. For more, visit: Laserfiche.com

DynaSource's client, Spindletop MHMR recently won the "Run Smarter" Award from LaserFiche. The "Run Smarter" Award is only granted to users demonstrating efficient and innovative document management strategies. Click here for more info!