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Government agencies widely face the challenge of being tasked with securely delivering a wide variety of services to their constituents as efficiently as possible. But it’s no easy feat, especially with the outdated legacy systems they often rely on, stringent security and compliance requirements, and limited resources. This was the reality of the City of St. George, a city in southwestern Utah with a population of 102,519. By 2020, the City of St. George’s IT team decided it was time to look for a content services solution to help them solve these problems for good.
They ultimately landed on OnBase for City Government, a decision that was based on OnBase’s advanced workflow capabilities and strength in document retention. With Naviant as their partner, the City of St. George implemented a tailored solution that not only targeted their initial primary goals but also made an even broader impact.
After the City of St. George’s OnBase solution had already been implemented, Kylie Arnold came on as their Database Administrator and OnBase Administrator, inheriting the solution. She reflects, “’Inheritance’ aside, the more I learned about it, the more I realized how amazing and versatile the product is, and the more I loved it!” In the years since, Kylie has extended the solution’s impact by further optimizing and making plans to expand it in other areas of the City of St. George.
One of the most impactful and widely used components of the City of St. George’s OnBase solution is Unity Forms, which are attached to workflow and WorkView. Employees from the legal and HR departments use many Unity Forms and share them with appropriate recipients. The City has seen so much value in Unity Forms that they’ve rapidly expanded it. HR has used it the most, with 80% of the HR department’s forms having been converted to Unity forms.
The City of St. George’s legal department also has a case management solution. The solution has allowed the legal department to create a streamlined process that makes life easier for both their project managers and their attorneys. Above all, this impact has come from the process greatly reducing the need for attorneys and project managers to send information and requests back and forth. Instead, they can easily upload and access the information they need in one centralized location.
The City of St. George also uses advanced capture technology to process its structured forms. It can identify the form and automate document indexing as much as possible, which is a big goal for Kylie. The less document indexing employees need to do, the better.
Document processing has become far more efficient with OnBase. Documents that once took a week or more to process now take a maximum of 2-3 days. Kylie says, “With the increase in efficiency, we’ve been able to do more with the people we have and avoid hiring new people unnecessarily.”
The City of St. George’s Purchasing department also uses OnBase for purchase requisitions, and it’s streamlined the process significantly. Since implementing OnBase, the time to process the purchase requisition has been slashed to 1/3 of what it was. It now takes the team five minutes to approve an item, and it’s ready for signing.
The City of St. George’s expansive use of Unity Forms has allowed it to significantly cut down on its paper use. With 80% of HR’s forms being converted into forms alone, the impact has been wide.
One of Kylie’s favorite parts of OnBase is its versatility, which gives her the ability to serve a wide variety of needs across departments. She said, “As the OnBase Administrator, I am just impressed with the sheer flexibility and versatility of the software! I can build anything that my customers need. We can automate notifications, build applications, send copies of forms… It really is endless.”
Like with any technology implementation, Kylie has faced reluctance from some employees when it comes to using OnBase. Kylie said, “Most of the reason why people don’t immediately jump on it is because they just haven’t seen it in action yet.”
A solution she’s found to be very effective is offering training opportunities and reminding employees that they’re available. Once staff attend training sessions and begin to see how the solution can help them in real time, the pieces begin to come together, and they come to see OnBase’s value. She has also recorded “how-to” videos and posted them on the City of St. George’s YouTube channel, allowing users to get training at their convenience.
Currently, the City of St. George’s HR department relies on filing cabinets for their document storage, but Kylie is working to change that. She plans to ultimately use OnBase for document management across the department.
Another big push that’s currently in motion for the City of St. George is digitizing all city council documents. The City Manager established the goal of moving all relevant files into OnBase before the new City Hall building opens. Kylie sees this sense of urgency as a great thing, as it means that employees won’t need to find a way to relocate and make space for large masses of paper in the new building. But even more, it’s another big step that only encourages continued OnBase’s growth.