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Case Study: The City of Niagara Falls

By going paperless with InStream, the City of Niagara Falls Human Resources Department will save both time and money. There is no longer a need to call another office or go to another building to retrieve records and no more headaches searching for misfiled papers. They can now turn their focus to where it matters most: their employees.

THE PROBLEM

When InStream arrived, the City of Niagara Falls Human Resources Department was overloaded with paper records. The constant inflow of additional records wasn’t making things any better. The department’s paper records are crucial for their operations, yet the city struggled to organize and properly store them. The city archive building is located a half-mile away from the Human Resources Department, therefore anyone who needed to access an old file had to call the Records Manager Officer (RMO), complete a form requesting the record and wait at least an hour for the RMO to locate and retrieve the file. Misfiled papers were a common occurrence, resulting in long delays for acquiring important information.

THE SOLUTION

First, InStream tackled the existing paper problem by converting all the active records so employees could retrieve these records electronically. Unfortunately, the city’s existing infrastructure was not sufficient enough to handle the work we were doing. This was an unexpected problem, but certainly not something we couldn’t handle. InStream was able to centralize the City’s IT infrastructure, so it wouldn’t impede the system meant to speed up processes. Once completed, InStream went to the City Archives Building and retrieved all the human resources records, dating back to 1970. Once each document was carefully converted by InStream using our state-of-the-art production center, we successfully made all of Niagara Fall’s Human Resource records easily accessible. The final step was to eliminate any future paper documents by creating E-forms. InStream’s solution was to implement Formatta E-forms, as the software would provide the Niagara Falls Human Resources Department with the ability to streamline application and onboarding processes into a completely digital and paperless process. InStream worked onsite alongside staff to tailor a solution that fit their specific business needs. Being onsite gave us the opportunity to observe the day-to-day operations and let us talk with employees to learn about their unique roles within the department. Working onsite also allowed us to customize a solution to optimize their workflow. By using Formatta’s built-in workflow customizations, employees can now retrieve and send forms both easily and efficiently.

THE RESULTS

The City of Niagara Falls Human Resources Department previously had to spend an enormous amount of time retrieving paper documents. When asked how much time their department has saved as a result of the document conversion, we were pleased with their answer. Assuming records need to be accessed ten times a day (a very safe estimate) with an average of one hour to access each record, we saved them 50 hours per week. Now all records, whether they are active or inactive, are equally accessible. There is no longer a need to call another office or go to another building to retrieve records and no more headaches searching for misfiled papers. The City of Niagara Falls found InStream to be helpful and extremely willing to go onsite to resolve any issues with the system. By going paperless with InStream the City of Niagara Falls Human Resources Department will save both time and money. They can now turn their focus to where it matters most: their employees.

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