Seamless Data Conversion Expands Access to Millions of Documents

Business Needs

In 2009, a city of nearly half a million people implemented a hosted solution to better manage millions of documents needed to serve its citizens.

However, four years later, the system was not meeting expectations. Users couldn’t always find the documents in the system and sometimes the entire hosted site went down, completely preventing access to documents needed to do their jobs.

It was clear the city needed a better solution, but it also needed a partner that could transfer the tens of millions of documents that had been scanned into the old system to a more robust one. Because the previous system lacked reporting capabilities and there were questions about data integrity, the transition would require extra diligence to ensure no vital public records were lost. And the city needed the switch to happen as quickly as possible to avoid having to pay hosting fees to two providers.

The Solution

The city worked with solution provider On-Line Imaging to replace the previous unreliable system with FileBound and transition more than 20 million documents to ensure public records would be readily available to employees and constituents.

Benefits

• FileBound’s ability to deliver secure public access has improved constituent service by ensuring the availability of public records while reducing wait times at city offices.
• Despite poor data integrity in the original system, between 20 and 30 million documents, ranging from 3 to 400 pages in length, were transitioned into the FileBound system within 30 days with no disruption to staff.
• FileBound’s reporting and data integrity tools have virtually eliminated lost documents, and employees no longer experience widespread system outages because of the uptime delivered by FileBound’s robust data center.

No user disruption during transition

Throughout the process, On-Line Imaging stayed in close contact with the city to provide updates and ensure that the potentially sensitive documents were properly catalogued in the new FileBound system. They were also careful not to delete anything during the process to ensure it could be recovered if a problem occurred.

Online access improves service

In just over a month, On-Line Imaging had successfully moved between 20 and 30 million pages of government and land records, deeds, court documents and more to the new FileBound system. Employees with appropriate access rights now have reliable access to these documents, which range from 3 pages to 400 pages. Lost documents and system downtime have been virtually eliminated. “Every corner we turned during the conversion demonstrated why they (the city) switched to FileBound,” noted Johnson.

In addition, the city is also able to eliminate wait times at city offices and collect fees to cover services. For instance, there are subscription services via the city portal that allow specific constituents to search for specific kinds of documents, such as deeds or arrest records, without leaving their offices and waiting in line.

As the technology matures, many organizations need to replace or consolidate their document management solutions, creating a need for conversion projects like this one. Johnson advises that organizations planning a conversion project be sure to include time and resources for cleaning the data.