Case Study: State Community Services Agency

State agency partnered with Ricoh to digitize thousands of paper records, advancing their digital transformation

About our Customer

Smiling mature male volunteer giving food to woman in community garden

A large state government in the U.S., with a community services agency responsible for delivering essential support services to residents, encountered challenges and the risk of potential fines and penalties due to its reliance on physical and manual records management. With an urgent need to address this issue within a tight timeline, Ricoh, a trusted partner of the state for over a decade, collaborated closely with the community services agency to identify a swift and cost-effective solution to digitize physical records, ensure compliance, and streamline access to critical citizen records.

This records management case study showcases Ricoh's effective partnership in addressing the challenges faced by the state government's community services agency.

“Ricoh’s exceptional service, expertise, and support in implementing Laserfiche have been invaluable to our agency, significantly enhancing our operational efficiency and productivity.”
‒ Director, Community Services

Challenge

Business woman reaching for a file in an office

Sensitive citizen records stored in tens of thousands of banker boxes
Reliance on manual records management resulted in legal action and penalties
Mandated by the court to migrate to an electronic records management system within a strict 20-day timeframe

The community services agency relied on paper records to manage its youth support program, which were stored in tens of thousands of banker boxes in a remote facility. Retrieving any file for review or processing typically took around two weeks, resulting in a slow and inefficient records access and retrieval system. This inefficiency led to negative outcomes for some of the youths, prompting them to take legal action against the state when they reached adulthood. Subsequently, the court ordered remediation and mandated the state to implement an electronic records management system, and to demonstrate a working system within a strict 20-day timeframe.

The court-ordered remediation paved the way for the Governor to authorize a special procurement for a Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) compliant electronic records management system. Furthermore, state law mandated that the outsourcing of backfile conversion of physical documents to digital formats must be carried out by a qualified rehabilitation facility within the state. This additional requirement further complicated the process and could potentially jeopardize meeting the tight deadline.

Solution

Implemented Laserfiche enterprise content services
Deployed Laserfiche in two phases
System and process integration with a qualified rehabilitation facility to accelerate implementation
Provide full-time application, infrastructure and cloud hosting management

Ricoh's long-standing and successful history with the state has provided a foundation of trust. This history prompted the state to seek Ricoh's guidance for a cost-effective and comprehensive solution that not only meets the state's requirements but also adheres to specific compliance standards, including DoD 5015.2 certification, CJIS 5.9.3 compliance, and Section 508 compliance.

Ricoh, one of the three vendors asked to propose solutions, demonstrated three potential electronic records management solutions, ultimately selecting Laserfiche as the optimal fit to address the state’s needs. Enterprise content management solutions like Laserfiche will allow the agency to digitize, classify, index and store their information and records in an easily searchable digital repository system. This enables the agency to maintain control over their critical citizen records while ensuring compliance and enhancing security.

To meet the 20-day timeframe, Ricoh efficiently implemented Laserfiche in two phases with the highest level of security and to ensure their compliance requirements were met. In the initial phase, Ricoh’s IT services set up the system’s servers through the state’s portal in Azure Government. The system was then integrated with a qualified rehabilitation facility, a third-party provider already working with the state who manually manages their physical records. As a state law requirement, Ricoh worked with this provider to handle the backfile conversion and submit the documents to Laserfiche for indexing, filing and archival.

As a result, Ricoh successfully designed, implemented, tested, and deployed the system in 19 days to begin the digitization process and efficiently monitor the volume. This swift action not only helped the agency avoid fines and penalties, but also significantly improved their services and ensured the secure management of citizen records.

Following the successful completion of phase one, phase two was initiated to implement the records management retention series and expand on the group access controls and various records supporting workflows.

Results

Over 55,000 banker boxes of records are being integrated into Laserfiche at a rate of around 30,000 pages per day
Demonstrated a working system within 19 days
Improved compliance and met all other regulatory requirements
Successful implementation and adoption of Laserfiche led to expansion to other departments
Ability to capture, manage and locate all inbound, through and outbound records within seconds instead of weeks

The successful implementation of Laserfiche brought about significant improvements, enhancing the ability to complete audit trails of information while securely meeting all compliance and regulatory requirements. With Ricoh’s guidance, the solution streamlined records management and workflows, facilitated efficient document access, simplified document and information management, and boosted data and information security. This example of information governance establishes and maintains ongoing information to ensure confidentiality, integrity, and easy, fast access.

Ricoh’s professional services teams also provided expert support, ensuring the solution met the specific records management needs of the organization. Notably, over 55,000 banker boxes of records are being integrated into Laserfiche, with an impressive upload rate of approximately 30,000 pages per day.

Now, critical citizen records are easily accessible in a centralized digital repository. Furthermore, employees can use their desktop scanners to scan and index documents into Laserfiche in real-time. This streamlined process fosters heightened awareness and accuracy in information input, optimizing daily case management.

The remarkable success of utilizing Laserfiche, combined with other Ricoh services and ongoing support, to digitize physical records for the agency's youth support program resulted in further expansion. This expansion involved replacing all legacy document management systems for all other programs and activities with Laserfiche — leading to the largest Laserfiche installation in North America. This substantial expansion signifies the pivotal role of Laserfiche's capabilities in revolutionizing records management and improving operational efficiency.

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