Palm Beach State College serves approximately 47,000 students in one of the largest counties in Florida. Composed of four campuses, Palm Beach State receives approximately 20,000 applications per year— usually between 12,000 and 15,000 during their main semester.

Like most colleges, Palm Beach State had concerns about disaster recovery. Indeed, the College had legitimate cause for anxiety. Palm Beach State is located within the Florida hurricane zone, and the 2005 hurricane season had been particularly destructive. In early 2006, after two failed attempts at implementing an electronic document management (EDM) system, all of the institution’s critical documents were still paper-based.

Chuck Zettler, Director of Information Technology Project Management at the college explains, "We were intent upon finding an EDM system that suited all of our needs. Disaster recovery was a driving factor, as was a need for space and for improved efficiency."

Palm Beach State hired a consultant and built a business plan. As part of that process, they discovered other pressing issues that could be improved with an EDM system. As Zettler describes, "Our infrastructure is an urban, multi-campus environment. Students must travel across different sites, and procedures were often constrained by the limitations of paper. Staff would have to make numerous phone calls and send faxes in order to verify student information. There was a need for staff to access information from Web browsers, and a need for simultaneous access to information.

"After evaluating our business processes, we determined that we also had a need for workflow. Students are our number one priority, and we wanted to implement measures to serve them more efficiently, with faster turnaround time. It can take up to an hour to travel from one campus to another; paper processes made work distribution extremely inefficient. Workflow would give us the ability to distribute work to staff across the multi-campus environment with the click of a mouse."

Successful implementation of an EDM system: The third time’s a charm

After evaluating and considering several EDM vendors through a competitive bid process, Palm Beach State chose Optical Image Technology, Inc. (OIT) for the strength of its DocFinity® software suite. Palm Beach State was impressed with the flexibility and robustness of the DocFinity workflow and document management tools. The software also offered the scalability for successful implementation both departmentally and enterprise-wide. OIT had experience and longevity, having been around for more than twenty years. In addition, the company had a professional services team that offered on-site support in order to ensure customer satisfaction. Palm Beach State bought the DocFinity suite in September 2006 and was able to go live with the EDM system seven months later.

Zettler explains the process. "Prior to implementation, we did a backfile conversion, outsourcing our old files to be scanned and indexed. That way, when we went live, everything was in digital format. Approximately 2 million records are currently being stored in the DocFinity system." The Student Services department, which includes Registration, Admissions, and Financial Aid, was the first to implement EDM. The Registrar’s office wanted to have the ability to take documents and scan them at the point of receipt. They were adamant that they did not want to use the new technology to mimic old processes.

Zettler says, "OIT’s professional services group listened to us and got to understand our business needs. They created a new module—QuickScan—that was based entirely on our specifications. Now, students can walk up to any counter, hand an ID to a staff member, and have it scanned and immediately returned. Information is automatically imported on site, significantly reducing the need for data entry. We have distributed scanning across all four campuses."

Palm Beach State uses 50 scanners, each of which has the ability to send scanned images to a workflow. The EDM system allows staff to access information from any Web browser. Most of the staff members who receive documents can scan them at the point of receipt. Previously, when the college received student information—such as mailed transcripts—it might have taken weeks for that information to be processed. Now, information can be scanned immediately, regardless of the location to which it is sent. Staff has instant access to information, and can provide immediate answers to student queries regarding the status of an application.

Zettler elaborates, "We’re extremely satisfied with our EDM implementation. It works very well for us. QuickScan has a scanning interface that is intuitive, requires minimal training, and is easy to use. The product is extremely reliable and stable."

Expediting the Financial Aid process

Zettler adds that the EDM system has been particularly valuable to the Financial Aid office. "One of the most labor intensive and cumbersome processes for students and staff of the Financial Aid office is Verification, which is a federal requirement to collect several pieces of financial and personal information from students and/or parents. Prior to our EDM implementation, the office did not have a system to accept the components of verification from students and required a complete packet to be submitted at one time. This increased the length of time students remained in an incomplete status and also created a sense of frustration for students attempting to complete the process."

"With the DocFinity system, documents are now scanned individually at any of the four offices and routed to the correct processor through the Workflow. With DocFinity reporting tools, we are able to monitor exactly how far along we are in this process. Previously, information was sitting on desks across multiple offices throughout multiple campuses."

With reporting tools, if one campus is behind in processing, another can help it to catch up. Palm Beach State is better able to gauge its level of productivity, and is able to respond by distributing work to be more productive. Zettler says, "Reporting tools are very useful from a management perspective. We know where the bottlenecks are and how the flow is progressing."

"DocFinity allows us to be more efficient and customer-focused. We are able to manage critical processes within Student Services by leveraging staff to meet the higher volumes during peak registration cycles and offer streamlined services for document intake for our students. Budget constraints limit our staff resources; consequently we need to be more efficient with the staff resources that we have. With DocFinity, we can better serve our students because we can process information more quickly."

Looking ahead

The next projected implementations will take place in the HR, Accounts Payable, and Contracts departments. By making information in Student Services available electronically, Palm Beach State was able to convert four file rooms (one per campus) into both office space and space for students. During the next phase, they anticipate having the ability to transition three to four more rooms. Zettler says, "The HR department is chomping at the bit at this prospect."

Overall impressions of the transition

Zettler further states, "Our staff loves the new system. DocFinity made their lives easier. They adapted very quickly. We wanted something easy to use, and OIT delivered it. There was minimal training and overwhelming acceptance." Zettler credits a cross-functional project team of business owners and IT staff as being instrumental in the project’s success. He also recognizes the necessity of planning a project well before it is executed. He says, "A well-developed project plan, a focused, committed project team, and engaged executive sponsorship were essential components. In addition, OIT’s professional services team really listened to our needs, and worked so well that we had no implementation problems. It was a smooth implementation."

"Since our core mission is to teach and educate and that is our number one focus, we have limited resources to support IT products. OIT was a perfect fit for us because of the capability and technical reliability of the DocFinity product. The company stands behind their products and is highly responsive."

He summarizes, "OIT gave us a business solution; not just a product."