Saving time in Jacksonville

The city of Jacksonville, Fla., has cut the time it takes to process forms from weeks to days. Its new digital document solution combines Xerox DocuShare 4.0 enterprise content management software with Verity LiquidOffice Web-based process automation solution.

"The initial use of the software was to transform business travel and expense reporting," says Dave Lauer, Jacksonville's chief information officer. "We recognized the need to make the approval process uniform across all city departments, with common nomenclature and procedures. The old paper-based method sometimes took up to six weeks to complete. With the new system, a travel and lodging request form can be processed in days. Everyone involved immediately saw the implementation as a major process improvement for Jacksonville's city government efficiency."

As an area that experienced four hurricanes in the space of a few months, Jacksonville wanted to reduce paper documents that are vulnerable to such natural disasters. The city also wanted to lower the office real estate costs associated with having rooms of file cabinets.

LiquidOffice provides the power and flexibility to handle complex or simple tasks with ease and reliability, Verity reports in a recent press release. DocuShare allows city personnel to perform full-text search and access information from a central repository, providing content retrieval and reuse in real time.

Because of the success of the travel and lodging request form, the IT team is looking into rolling out the solution to other city departments and processes.