Nonprofit
Educational Alliance (EA), a 125 year-old New York City social services and educational institution, needed a more efficient and effective way to manage human resource (HR) files. With over 600 employees, many of them seasonal, storing and managing paper files was inefficient. EA knew they needed a digital solution to help them move forward. They turned to Digiscribe for document scanning services, cloud document management, and workflow automation software. The result; improved efficiency, greater effectiveness and a built-in business continuity plan.
Educational Alliance helps over 50,000 New Yorkers build better lives at over 18 locations throughout New York City with educational programs and social services. With over 600 employees, almost half of them seasonal, their HR documents were overflowing in file cabinets and boxes throughout the office. Onboarding new and returning employees was cumbersome, accessing paper files was time consuming and there was no remote access to critical documents during natural disasters, such as electrical outages
Due to the large number of youth programs, Educational Alliance faced many surprise and planned audits, sometimes occurring at the same time, and always requiring immediate attention. Paper-based files required an HR staff member to bring the requested documents to the auditors, sometimes remain with them, and bring the documents back and re-file. Educational Alliance wanted to minimize, if not eliminate, this time-consuming problem.
As a result of a forward-thinking COO joining the organization combined with an upcoming office renovation, EA knew they needed a digital solution to improve efficiency in the HR department. They researched several document scanning and document management providers and even considered scanning documents themselves before they chose to work with Digiscribe.
Digiscribe provided a combination of scanning services and document management software to solve EA’s efficiency challenges. Over 1,900 multi-page HR files were sent to Digiscribe’s facility for scanning and keying of first and last names. Additional index fields were automatically populated with data from EA’s ADP payroll system, which was pulled down by Digiscribe and matched to each employee’s file. EA’s staff was able to conduct more efficient document searches with the more fully indexed files.
The digitized files were uploaded to FileBound On-Demand cloud document management software, giving EA staff access to documents from any computer or mobile device at any time, from anywhere.
Within FileBound, e-forms were created for job applications to be completed at EA’s offices. Data sharing between FileBound and ADP allowed automatic recognition of a re-hire based on a social security and address match, at which point the remaining fields were automatically populated for review, approval and submission by the applicant. If there was no match, a new applicant completed the e-form specific to the position they were applying for and submitted it electronically for review. Once hired, the data was pushed into EA’s ADP system, eliminating the need for manual data entry. On a weekly basis, Digiscribe now downloads EA’s ADP data and pushes it to FileBound so that employee status is correctly identified in both software systems.
Once the HR files were digitized and the onboarding process streamlined, EA sent all of their mandatory and compliance papers to Digiscribe for scanning, indexing and uploading into FileBound, further leveraging their investment in the software.
Educational Alliance’s management was so happy with Digiscribe’s solution that they rolled it out throughout the agency. Digiscribe scanned and indexed the agency’s program, fund raising, donor, accounts payable and other files and uploaded them to FileBound, leveraging EA’s investment in the software. New paper documents are scanned by EA staff and uploaded to FileBound ensuring optimal efficiency throughout the organization.
