Improving document management for their local authority customers

Public Sector Partnership Services Ltd (PSPS) is a local authority trading company. It’s wholly owned by, and provides services to, East Lindsey, Boston and South Holland councils.

Their revenues and benefits team needed a powerful and flexible electronic document management system (EDMS) for their 172 users. 

The company’s head of revenues and benefits, Sharon Hammond, explains:

“We’d reached the point where our previous EDM was limiting our ambitions; reporting was hard, record disposal and retention was hard, and we just knew it wasn’t fit for the future.”

After a full competitive tender, the company chose NEC Document Management. Browser-based and easy to use on any device, the solution connects easily to a whole range of back office systems. 

Well-planned migration

PSPS went live with the new solution in January 2020, just 87 working days after contract signing. Staff were up and running almost immediately because it’s so intuitive, taking advantage of the improved workflow to automate key processes. 

Firstly, capturing documents is now easier with the drag and drop facility, and staff can save their favourite searches too. Users can also action multiple documents at the same time and see the work items they’ve been allocated in their personal ‘in-tray’.

In addition, removing the need for managers to manually allocate tasks makes the process fairer and faster. Work can also be automatically routed to match the level of experience or document type.

Simple reporting

For Sharon, one of the clearest benefits has been the reporting:

“NEC Document Management has vastly superior reporting functionality so that’s a huge benefit for us, particularly as we have multiple customers. We can review actions and numbers in one click, which saves us loads of time, and with live data we’ve always got an accurate view of workload.”

The success of the transition owed much to a well-planned programme. The company recognised that major migrations have to be managed with care if performance is to stay high. So key staff members were seconded to the delivery team and their work backfilled. To get off to the best start, they also took the opportunity to rationalise document types and improve their layout.

Planning for the future

Now the main system is up and running, the team is also looking to take advantage of new tools. For example record disposal/retention and advanced reporting. In addition, they’re planning to roll out Email Connect so they can automate the routing of emails into the back office and drive further efficiencies.