Colorado District Takes Documents Digital

• By Tim Sohn
• 09/12/11

Adams County District 50 in Westminster, CO has had all of its financial and human resources documents and student records converted to electronic documents, a move that the district said has already saved it more than $40,000.

The district generates more than 2,500 financial and human resources-related documents monthly and 10,000 student records annually.

Denver-based IT services provider Rocky Mountain Microfilm and Imaging scanned about 1 million images from 185,000 student records, dating back to the 1930s. They used ImageSilo, a cloud-based enterprise content management system created by Digitech Systems.

Features of ImageSilo include:

• Instant, online, secure access to records;
• Evidence of audit trails, security controls, user activity, document history and records retention policies;
• Automated data backups by sending encrypted copies of live information to any secure location;
• Scan2ImageSilo, free for ImageSilo clients, which lets companies scan and upload single or multi-page documents directly to online storage from any TWAIN-enabled scanner;
• Text search capabilities that support synonym, stemming, fuzzy logic, phonic, proximity, Boolean, natural language, and variable term weighting search options. Results are displayed in statistically ranked order;
• Security logs allow administrators to monitor activity;
• The ability to send an e-mail notification or require review prior to destruction of any document;
• PaperVision Message Manager imports, captures, and organizes e-mail messages; and
• Security, including: Live monitoring of all physical facilities 24 hours per day, including videotape recording of all activities and all external utility entry points; intrusion-detection technology monitors all system access and third-party penetration tests are routinely performed; Secure Sockets Layer encryption of all network communications; and company administrators can configure their own security policies, including encryption and records retention policies.

System requirements include Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher, or Mozilla Firefox 1.5 and up, and Microsoft Windows XP or higher.

According to Sandra McClure, district director of finance, about 30 employees have access to electronic documents online.

"I don't do any training for ImageSilo. I simply send them an e-mail with their login information and ask them to let me know if they have any questions. New employees are productive their first day on the job," said McClure. She added that previously it would take seven staff members a week to ready documents for student funding audits, but now the district saves one day of productivity, and $3,500 annually.

In addition, the district, according to McClure, saved about $40,000 in construction costs because it was able to reduce the size of the new Westminster High School by 2,000 square feet. The district also eliminated a temporary employee as a result.

"It enables us to do more with our current staff. If we had to keep paying for paper and temporary employees, we would have had to make cuts to our full-time staff," she said.

Adams County District 50 is comprised of one preschool, 12 elementary schools, three middle schools, two high schools, and one charter school. Enrollment is about 10,000, and the district has more than 1,000 employees. The district has a budget of $133 million.

For more information about Adams County District 50, visit adams50.org. For further information about the electronic document platform, visit the ImageSilo Web site.