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For the past 15 plus years, Bizquip has been working with Laserfiche to provide clients with Enterprise Content Management solutions and was recently featured in The Council Journal. 

Laserfiche is a software development company that creates enterprise content management, business process automation, workflow, records management, document imaging and web form software.

What is ECM?

Enterprise Content Management (ECM) enables organisations to save time and money by efficiently managing documents and information. It is a system for capturing, preserving, managing, and delivering content and documents. ECM also secures content digitally in compliance with policies and allows for these records to be retrievable and shareable. Content can be transferred with minimal risk to the document’s security. Enterprise content management systems ensure that users can easily access up to date documents but also include version control features so that old versions of documents can be recovered as needed. Businesses use ECM systems to reduce organisational risk and automate document-driven processes, allowing the right people to access the right information at the right time.

What Can Laserfiche Do for You?

Laserfiche is based on 6 key processes:

1. Digital Capture – Hard Copy Files/ Emails/ Electronic Digital Forms
2. Approval -By Teams/ Manager/ Supervisor
3. Store – Laserfiche Secure Repository
4. Easy Retrieval & Powerful Search
5. Business Process Automation – Utilising Workflow
6. Security – By Group/ User/ Role/ Security tokens

When combined, these processes ensure that your organisation will save time and money by securely managing documents and information – ultimately improving efficiency and minimising overheads.

Benefits of Laserfiche:

1. Centralised secure document repository
2. Leverage the power of workflow automation and digital forms
3. Records management
4. Streamline your business processes
5. ECM integrations with third party applications like iHouse
6. Management Reporting
7. Reduce operating costs
8. Improve Operating Efficiencies
9. Streamline Customer Service
10. Version control and audit trails
11. Ability for the public to submit forms, for example Covid Grants
12. Enable digital transformation

This robust technology allows structured information to be easily defined and securely shared across multiple departments or teams.

What is Workflow Automation? 

When an organisation has many steps in one business process, it can be difficult to eliminate bottlenecks, miscommunications and even mishandling of information.

Workflow automation aids in removing human error, speeding up review and approval and providing insight into ways to improve business processes across the organisation.

What Types of Workflows Can Be Automated?

Any workflow that requires multiple, manual steps may be a strong candidate for automation.

A few examples of processes that can benefit from automation include:

• Filing, renaming or making changes to a document
• Expense Claims
• Housing Repair Request
• Housing Grants – HAP, HOP, MAG, RAS
• Planning Applications
• Executive Orders
• Playpark Inspections
• SSWP
• Reviewing and approving document changes
• Notifying others when a change to a document has occurred
• Onboarding new employees
• Accounts payable processing
• Managing records retention and storage
• Managing and making changes to vendor contracts

Each of these workflows can be automated to eliminate bottlenecks, improve process visibility via reporting and analytics and improve communication channels amongst users, clients and business partners alike.

Listen to The Podcast Here: 

Case Study – Laois County Council 

Laois County Council wanted a business process management system which would provide the ability to create forms and workflows to digitally automate internal processes.

The aim of the Council in implementing a Business Process Management system was to provide the following:

• To support more efficient service provision.
• To digitise and automate back-end business processes.
• To support the digitisation of the Housing Maintenance and Housing Inspection processes through forms and workflows, including interactions with third party contractors and mobile council staff
• To provide an electronic record of customer service requests and outcomes
• To provide data to assist in process measurement and future planning.
• To allow the Council to develop online forms for staff to record, monitor and automate services requests and applications.
• Provide an intuitive, easy to use dashboard for staff to deal with the cases assigned to them via web or mobile app.
• Provide the ability to interface with existing software currently in use such as the Housing (iHouse) and Finance (Agresso) systems.
• A system which allows for remote connectivity.

The Council wanted to start with the complicated Housing Maintenance Process as it contained many pain points, these included:

• Management Reporting,
• Communications,
• Workload Management
• Complicated FilingStructure
• Task Management

With the implementation of Laserfiche by Bizquip, the Housing Maintenance Process will be digitised, streamlined and optimised and will result in all key stakeholders having visibility of any open repairs on the system.

A key factor in developing the system design and Automation was at the requirements gathering stage. Working in partnership, Bizquip and the Laois Project Team explored and documented all the existing paper-based processes which in turn enabled Bizquip to define and design an automated workflow which will result in:

• Reduced bottlenecks caused by uneven distribution of work assigned to craft workers
• Instant visibility of where each repair is in the process and who is working on it.
• Automated email notifications to let individuals and teams know when there is something that requires their attention.
• Redefined folder structure which ensures consistency for the filing of documents.
• Gives administrators the ability to better manage access and security around their files.
• By digitising paper use, real estate is freed and operating costs are reduced.
• Less time spent manually writing and sending email notifications or walking around the office to deliver or file forms.
• Response time for customer support is reduced as there is visibility to where the status of a repair request.
• Increased business efficiencies
• Increase in customer satisfaction

Workflow Automation is easily underestimated or considered to be over complicated when in fact, it is designed to standardise and automate repetitive tasks in the business.

Workflow Automation will provide County Councils with the peace of mind that their documents are being secured in the safest way, thus giving them a Robust, Secure, Scalable, Cost Effective Enterprise Content Management System.

Laserfiche will provide Management Reporting, drive business efficiencies, Reduce Costs, increase customer satisfaction and free up staff to concentrate on essential tasks.

Laois County Council Testimonial

“When tendering for software to enable us to digitise elements of our business processes, we looked deeply into products that were adaptable to our needs, that would grow with our requirements and would be easily integrated into our existing platforms.  It became very clear to us that working with Bizquip and Laserfiche meant we could do that and so much more. From the outset, the team in Bizquip understood what we wanted to achieve and worked closely with us in terms of scoping our requirements.”

“Their experience in working with other Local Authorities was invaluable as we knew they understood our business and challenges. “

“By collectively documenting our existing manual processes, Bizquip designed an automated workflow which will deliver many benefits including the reduction of time-wasting bottlenecks, enhanced visibility and accountability, automated email notifications and notably a reduction in operating costs at many junctures. The collaborative approach of Bizquip ensured the best outcome for staff in the design and build of our digitised processes and dashboard.” 

“Our roll out of Laserfiche is the beginning of a very successful journey for us using this software. “

Monaghan County Council Testimonial

Having Laserfiche during the lockdown enabled our staff to continue working and collaborating remotely with no disruption, ensuring continuity of business. The Laserfiche Forms Portal component provided us the flexibility to design and launch public facing forms such as The Business Support Grant in a very timely manner which resulted in these grants being processed with great efficiency.

We are working closely with Bizquip, who are continuing to help roll out Laserfiche to all the departments within the Council. Implementing Laserfiche has allowed us to optimise our processes, digitise our workflows and increase productivity throughout the council.

– Carmel O’Hare, Head of Information Systems and Innovation Monaghan County Council

Read this article on The Council Journal Website here 

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