5 Ways Digital Transformation can Benefit your School
Anyone working in education soon finds outs that it is a very document-heavy business.
Masses of paperwork is generated, including applications, records and invoices. On top of that, there are the documents created and required by the faculty, staff and school suppliers.
From the smallest primary school up to the biggest university, schools are often overloaded with documents.
Poor management of these documents can cause numerous headaches for schools who simply want to focus on what they set out to do – educate the leaders of tomorrow. However, that becomes a difficult task when they are bogged down by clerical errors, inefficient legacy systems and a struggle to remain compliant in an increasingly privacy-conscious world.
Staying on top of all this is time-consuming and costly. In addition, while the amount of paperwork is rising, school budgets are staying flat or even declining.
The question is, how can your school do more with less?
The good news is a modern Document Management Systems such as the one Docuworx provides are here to help.
As Australia’s only Platinum Partner of industry-leading DocuWare, we are ideally placed to help your school overcome these challenges and more. Read on to find out 5 ways digital transformation can benefit your school today.
#1 Improve communication
Daviess County Public Schools (DCPS) is a school district that manages the public schools in Daviess Country, Kentucky.
In the past, DCPS collected and exchanged information with parents via paper forms. But with 18 schools and over 11,000 students, this was a time-consuming, inefficient and clunky process.
Following the implementation of DocuWare, the school was able to email parents links to webforms that they completed online at their convenience.
Thanks to the increased speed and ease of use of electronic forms, parents were able to respond quicker and engagement rose.
In addition, DocuWare Forms use conditional logic, a feature which allows for additional instructions based on a particular response. In practical terms, this means that parents only receive forms that pertained to them. For example, only parents of children who play sports received athletic permission forms, and so on.
After the electronic forms are submitted, they are automatically indexed and stored by DocuWare, further streamlining the entire process.
#2 Save time
Tompkins Cortland Community College (TCCC) serves 3,000 students and is part of the State University of New York.
TCCC had previously digitised all 40,000 of its students’ permanent record cards going back to 1997, but the legacy system was outdated and no longer adequate for the college’s needs.
The college chose DocuWare because it is a flexible solution that allows TCCC to store all its documents digitally, providing access to all staff members in a seamless process.
Today, TCCC has setup four scanning stations and has over 100 staff members using the solution. All information is now digitised as it is received and old permanent records have been migrated to the new system.
As a result of this implementation, staff now have instant access to the information they need, enhance both the student and staff experience. With DocuWare, the retrieval time for documents has been reduced from 10-15 minutes to just seconds.
#3 Enhance efficiency
Propel is a not-for-profit organization that operates 13 charter schools delivering high-performance educational options to 4,000 students in western Pennsylvania.
Although each school in the group ordered and received their own supplies, approvals are handled by a central business office.
The process was inefficient because documentation had to be sent between the schools and central office for approvals.
Propel now uses DocuWare to fully automate the invoice approval workflow. Staff at each school can scan their documents into DocuWare, giving the Accounting Department instant access to the approved invoices.
Staff no longer waste time tracking down lost invoices and the process is more transparent, with all supporting documents viewable online.
Propel has used DocuWare to not only eliminate a mountain of paperwork, but also reduce the time to process an invoice from four hours down to minutes.
#4 Improve compliance
Roberts Wesleyan College is a Christian liberal arts college with almost 2,000 students located near Rochester, New York.
Prior to adopting DocuWare, the college’s documents were stored in filing cabinets located in the main office. The college was running out of space and sharing information between departments was difficult. What’s more, the cabinets weren’t incredibly secure and easily accessible by anyone.
Digitising the documents allowed the college to increase the security of these documents while also reduce printing and storage costs.
Using DocuWare, the college is now able to meet privacy compliance requirements outlined in the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) by limiting information access to certain documents automatically.
#5 Accelerate hiring
Independent School District 196 is a state and nationally recognized K-12 public school district serving more than 28,000 students across 31 campuses.
District 196’s human resources staff used to spend hours sorting through the paperwork of potential employees during the hiring process.
By implementing DocuWare, District 196 has eliminated paper applicant files and the associated inefficiencies they cause.
The HR team can also use DocuWare’s online search capabilities to review applicant files from their offices or at home using DocuWare’s mobile app.
DocuWare allows more than one HR supervisor to look at the same applicants simultaneously, allowing for quicker reviews and candidate selection.
Thanks to DocuWare’s applicant database, District 196’s HR team operates more efficiently and can focus on the high-value task of selecting the right candidates, rather than spending hours on tedious filing.
And more…
As you can see, digital transformation has a myriad of benefits to schools and with DocuWare, you will be using the world’s most flexible and powerful platform for your school’s Digital Transformation.
To learn more about how Docuworx can assist your organization book a free trial