Santa Clara County Office of Education
Retaining Records Forever is no Problem with Laserfiche
When the Santa Clara County Office of Education (SCCOE) discovered Laserfiche and ECS Imaging, they were in dire need of a solution for housing all their paper records electronically. By law, they are required to keep certain records forever, which meant that storing physical paper was not going to work.
Located in Silicon Valley, SCCOE is surrounded by cutting edge technology, so they were no stranger to the benefits that a digital solution could bring. Due to their location, SCCOE saw a nearly 9% population growth from 2010 to 2020. The organization currently serves all 31 school districts in Santa Clara County, in addition to providing specialized learning opportunities through special education, State Preschool, alternative schools, Head Start, and more.
Aside from taking up massive amounts of space, over time, paper deteriorates; making it a risk for legal obligations. Additionally, if paper records are lost, there is no way to get them back, causing yet another risk. When needed, paper records can only be used by one person at a time, limiting what can be done and how quickly the task can be accomplished.
At the end of the day, SCCOE knew that they needed a better way to store and access records. Keeping a physical paper process is inherently inefficient in most scenarios, especially scenarios that require records be kept in perpetuity.
The goal? To, “implement a record system that is quick, easy to use, uses minimal physical space, allows for unlimited yet secure access, and is highly reliable and safe.” That’s why they turned to proven track records with ECS Imaging and Laserfiche.
The Laserfiche Solution: Beginning in 2008
When SCCOE started their digital transformation, they used a phased approach, starting with their Human Resources and Accounting Departments, before including all eight of their departments into the process. To begin their transformation to Laserfiche they initially invested in these components:
- Laserfiche Rio Server with 397 full users and an education block of 2,000 users
- Quick Fields with Zone OCR, Real Time Lookup, Pattern Matching
- Laserfiche Audit Trail (Starter)
- Laserfiche Web Access
- Import Agent
Once the necessary hardware and software was acquired, the implementation deployed with three sessions.
- Session 1 – Department or workgroup overview
- Session 2 – Review of documents, Indexing, File name, Folder structure
- Session 3 – Hands-on training
As the implementation was ongoing, SCCOE held weekly departmental meetings and monthly partner meetings to keep everyone on top of the progress that was being made. All in all, SCCOE were able to remove 20-30 filing cabinets, and empty several rooms packed with files.
What began in 2008 has set the Santa Clara County Office of Education on a path that has led them to be a wonderful example of digital transformation both locally and across the state.
The Laserfiche Solution: Now in 2023
Flash forward to today and SCCOE is still pleased with their decision to turn to Laserfiche, and their Laserfiche product suite has evolved quite a bit. Laserfiche is used for more than just document storage – it’s a tool that allows the SCCOE to save time and money by automating and streamlining their processes.
Today, their Laserfiche product suite contains:
- Laserfiche Rio with 400+ full users and 2,000 Forms Participant users
- Laserfiche Forms and Forms Portal
- Weblink Public Portal with unlimited retrieval users
- Quick Fields Server, Agent and Classify
- 5 Quick Fields Core workstations
- Import Agent
All of these products have allowed SCCOE to streamline and automate many of their processes. Some of which include purchase orders, DBAS, AP COPY warrants, third party software documents, and HR online pre-boarding.
Here are snapshots of how each of these automatons and processes work:
As you can see, Laserfiche has been instrumental in both meeting legal compliance and enhancing the day-to-day operations of the Santa Clara Office of Education.
