High Profile Provincial Government Agency selects OpenText and DRC for end-to-end Content Management Solution

 

Changing information management paradigms is not easy. Moving from paper to digital and from legacy to integrated systems is challenging. Integrating businesses and moving office locations is downright scary.

 

Already bought in to the vision of content integration and management, the High Profile Provincial Government Agency looked to OpenText to help execute a most difficult transition effort including the moving of 4,500+ boxes of critical regulatory records, in less than one month, from its existing office space and the conversion of “core” files into digital format for ingestion into the corporate document management system (Content Server).

Faced with both a  move to a new building, space consolidation and adding of business lines, the customer required a solution which not only enabled the conversion of records to digital format, but also allowed the customer to carry on day-to-day business operations requiring access to records already removed from the office.

 

OpenText sub-contracted its Information Outsourcing Services (IOS) partner DRC to deliver a “bridge” solution enabling the client to accomplish all of its objectives. DRC de-located 4,500+ boxes from the client’s office to DRC’s secure storage facility leveraging DRC’s tight chain-of-custody procedures and interactive records inventory control systems. DRC’s Storage, Scanning and Active File Management service was deployed providing the client with a view of content for all lines of business stored at DRC.

Similar to the client’s own records requesting system, DRC imported metadata from various line of business systems into a standardized database format. Since the DRC solution was going to be used to store new day-forward documents, DRC set-up process for cataloging new documents, whether or not they were going to be scanned or filed and whether or not they were part of existing master files or additions to the file.

 

All the while upwards of 50 requests per day were coming into the information and records management department to service business needs. Users within Records logged into DRC’s Datatrac file inventory management and request portal to search for and request key files for return the next day or the same day in critical circumstances.

Once requests were processed, the file inventory database was automatically updated to reflect who requested the file and were it was located. Delivery receipts accompanied each set of returns in a tight chain-of-custody process. Daily, files were being returned to the client and files were being picked-up for return to DRC for refiling at DRC’s secure dedicated file storage facility.

 

Prior to the scanning portion of the project, DRC conducted an extensive review of quality requirements given the wide variation in content which included forms, large format drawings, stamps, colour and handwritten correspondence. DRC recommended that the client go with full 24 bit colour imaging delivering near photographic quality representation of the content.

Expressing potential concerns over file size, DRC added a level of post scanning compression to reduce file sizes to what would have been expected under the originally agreed upon method of black and white scanning with spot colour.

DRC normalized data coming from various systems to match the requirements of the customer’s new regulatory assurance system and for ingestion into the OpenText Content Server platform. Once ingested, critical components of the file will be available on-line to users with self-service and controlled access.

 

While file retrievals, scanning and active file management is taking place, the files are being prepared for eventual movement to the government records storage facility according to record retention rules. DRC’s Datatrac file inventory management system will be the source of updated file management information which will enable the orderly de-location of 4,500+boxes of records from DRC to the government records center.

DRC will generate the out-going manifests and prepare upwards of 7 skids (300 boxes) per day for pick-up the government records center trucks and personnel, and will provide for complete reconciliation reports at the end of the project.