Productivity on a Budget
Bayham is a small-sized municipality in Southwestern Ontario. Similar to other municipalities—as well as many small to mid-sized businesses—the day-to-day administration of the municipality is managed by a small staff.
Bayham’s staff not only handle processes and tasks typical of any municipality such as records management, public notifications, and services, they also maintain information technology services for the Municipality.
When Paul arrived, he realized that for Bayham to function and excel in the 21st century, it needed to move away from paper across its various processes. He also realized Bayham was going to need an ECM system that was designed to support process automation and records management out-of-the-box. He immediately chose Laserfiche, and after checking references and meeting with ThinkDox president Frank MacDonald, he decided that ThinkDox was the right partner to help him not only with the implementation but throughout the life cycle of Bayham’s electronic document and records management system (EDRMS).
Based on his previous experience and the questions that ThinkDox was asking him, Paul knew he couldn’t just jump into setting up software and hope for the best.
“When I got to Bayham, the infrastructure was read for an upgrade. So while my priority was the ECM, I understood that to show value to Council and the other stakeholders, we needed to start with the infrastructure upgrade.”
With Paul’s background in municipal administration, he knew the system had to be right the first time. A busy clerk or treasury staff member would not use a system if it did not introduce any time savings compared to paper and email.
“The first thing I realized was that we needed to understand how paper moved through the entire municipality.”
Bayham undertook the first step of the EIM themselves, mapping processes and defining the format of the process inputs and outputs. Paul then took advantage of the technical expertise of ThinkDox to build the workflows as part of the implementation. This saved time and effort by ensuring that the classification, repository, and modules matched what Bayham needed to ensure the processes could be done as envisioned.
“The Bayham implementation is a model for how any client should use our services.”
Frank MacDonald, President of ThinkDox
Paul and Bayham continue to innovate on their Laserfiche platform and ThinkDox continues to support their efforts by providing deep expertise and suggesting strategic changes and plans that will keep Bayham ahead of the curve.
