Palo Alto Unified School District
District-Wide Digitizing Records is No Problem with Laserfiche!
The Palo Alto Unified School District (USD) is a home away from home to over 10,500 students in grades TK-12. It’s been awarded the #1 Unified School District in California by Niche and the #1 Best Place to Teach in the Bay Area by Niche. The district is home to hardworking teachers who care about student success and a bright student body that values art and music.
Spread between 18 schools and a large district administration office are 2,200 employees. To serve the large number of employees are 30 full Laserfiche Rio users and 5,000 Education Community Users across the Human Resources, Fiscal, Finance, Accounts Payables, Student Services and Technology departments.
Since 2016, Palo Alto USD has been increasing their Laserfiche usage, trimming down on the need for manual tasks across multiple departments and transitioning away from a physical paper process while leveraging these efficient Laserfiche tools:
- Workflow and Forms
- Forms portal with unlimited forms and submissions
- Import Agent
- Public Portal license with 25 Weblink concurrent Retrieval Connections
- QuickFields Core with automated QuickFields Agent
- Unlimited Repositories
- Advanced Audit Trail
- And Gold Priority Support with ECS Imaging
Human Resources Solutions
One of the largest usages of Laserfiche is found in their Human Resources department, where the new employee onboarding process has been significantly transformed to save time, resources, and money overall. The new hire is guided through the form to fill out their information just once and digitally signs, then the entire onboarding packet is populated and auto-filed into Laserfiche. By using Laserfiche Forms, employee information is easy to gather, electronically routed and processed based on the employee’s responses.
Student Records Management Solutions
In addition to employee files, permanent student records are now stored in a Laserfiche repository. This 5 year process to digitize cumulative folders has resulted in reclaimed office space in all schools, as well as improved access to information needed for school operations. Today they have a clear picture of what files are necessary to keep when it comes to student records, and, as more workflows are developed, that filing process becomes even easier. The USD will officially be 100% digital for active student records at 18 school sites come Summer 2022.
Although achieving 100% digital is a big milestone, the Palo Alto USD isn’t nearly complete with their Laserfiche journey. They plan to evolve their Laserfiche usage to meet whatever challenge they come across, making their departments as efficient as possible. Their next moves are to integrate Laserfiche deeper by further integrating Forms with the HR management system and Student Information Systems.
“The ECS Techs have been very helpful in their projects and Laserfiche’s annual updates have also made an impact. The Laserfiche Community forums have also been helpful,” says Derek Moore.
Wherever Palo Alto USD decides to go on their Laserfiche journey, ECS Imaging is proud to be there to help pave the way!
