Case Study: The benefits of customised forms

The Town of Okotoks, Alberta is the largest town in Alberta and one of the largest growing communities in Canada. As such, it faces some of the problems which are common to growing communities. Okotoks previously had problems with records management, as storage space was becoming increasingly costly as with more people came more documents. Okotoks worked with Ricoh and their current records were then easier to access. However, the town kept on growing and more records needed to be created each day. Creating these records through existing forms was leading to issues.

• Forms were limited to a set template for all departments, though different departments had vastly different needs.
• Departments had to conform with the template conventions even if they didn’t make sense for their unique requirements.
• Legacy forms contained outdated or impertinent information.

Problems like these can increase stress which can fester and hamper the proper functioning of government. Fortunately, the town already had experience with how Ricoh could solve problems like this and they contacted us. Ricoh analyzed the situation and created a customized solution.

The Solution

• Multiple form templates for various needs.
• A sophisticated template designer through which departments can create their own forms.
• A collaborative notification-based business process which proceeds as follows:
  
  1. An employee submits a form template.
  2. The department head is automatically alerted and approves the form.
  3. The IT department is notified and does quality control to ensure that the form works as expected and complies with style guidelines.
  4. If the form is public facing the Freedom of Information and Privacy coordinator is alerted so that they can review compliance.
  5. A log is created which details when the form was created and the tests it went through.
  6. Relevant staff members are notified about how to access and use the form.

This solution led to many benefits for Okotoks, such as a:

• Review of existing forms and deletion of outdated information.
• Much quicker response time to requests.
• Guarantee that all forms were compliant and approved by department heads.
• Streamlined process for dissemination information about new forms.
• Happier and more informed constituency, as requesters were automatically notified about the status of their requests.

The town of Okotoks is still growing rapidly and its population is projected to more than double in the coming decades. However, by utilizing Ricoh’s solutions, the town is ready to face the challenges of a growing population head on.