Success story
Red Deer CountyIndustry• GovernmentSolutions• OpenText™ Content Suite• OpenText™ Enterprise Connect• OpenText™ Tempo™ Box• OpenText™ Physical Objects

Partner Support• Cadence Solutions

Results
Eases accessand collaboration
Meets user needs forhigher adoption
Extends protected accessto external users
Fulfills compliance andretention requirements for
digital and physical records

Red Deer County establishes
foundation for digital governance

Alberta municipality integrates content management where employees ‘liveand breathe,’ extends protected access through OpenText ECM technologies“With OpenText, we are able to position the county as anopen government by creating greater transparency andaccountability through open data and open information thatis accessible and publicly available.”
Emily Speight

Records and Information Management Coordinator
Red Deer County

Red Deer County establishes foundation for digital governance

Red Deer County needed easier access to historical and active files.
It wanted a content management system that can grow with themunicipality as it modernizes services. OpenText™ Content Suite
offers the County an integrated ECM solution to build the foundation
for its digital transformation.

Complicated content management

In the heart of central Alberta, Red Deer County combines country livingwith the convenience of city amenities. As the third largest municipality inthe province, the County serves a population of close to 20,000 citizens.
For 100 County employees, managing information used to involve
cumbersome, orphaned methods for document control. “There reallywasn’t ownership of the shared drive or email management,” explains
Emily Speight, records and information management coordinator for
Red Deer County.
While installed to scan files as digital records, the county’s previous enterprise content management (ECM) system proved costly and difficult to use.
“People didn’t realize how big a project it is to digitize,” Speight says.
“You don’t just drop (a document) in… and hit the green button.”
The system stayed limited to a repository for historical documents, withno connection to the business processes in place to keep the county
running effectively. Though Speight worked to add active records,
adoption rates remained low since users were unfamiliar with thesystem and it was a different environment than what they were used
to working in. Additionally, it did not provide a way to manage physicalrecords without a workaround.
“When assessors are doing their site inspections, we get requests
for a large number of files. The Records staff manually typed
document and employee information into a Microsoft® Excel®

spreadsheet,” Speight recalls. “During the assessor’s busy time, wehad to devote a lot of staff time to circulation. It was really time
consuming. The spreadsheet got so large… you’d go get a coffee
before the thing would open.”

Surprise solutions

Due to the challenges, demand for an electronic document and recordsmanagement system at the County waned and digital transformation
stalled. In fact, the County was not looking for an ECM system when a newdoor opened. “We were looking strictly at systems that barcoded andmanaged our paper records,” Speight says.
One of Speight’s colleagues had recently left an organization that used
OpenText ECM solutions. “She was telling me how much she missed
OpenText,” Speight says. “She was pining for it.” Speight and others
were intrigued, then impressed upon seeing an OpenText demonstration.
“There are functionalities OpenText has that we love that we didn’t
realize we were missing before.”

Intuitive, integrated experience

Based on OpenText reputation and capabilities, Red Deer County recognized the opportunity to move towards digital governance with efficiencies
that support employee productivity and service to citizens. Employees
can more effectively manage and share information. “With OpenText,
we are able to position the county as an open government by
creating greater transparency and accountability through open
data and open information that is accessible and publicly available,”notes Speight.
Easy, secure access to information improves the way users create andconsume information and work more productively.

“Processing a box offiles for storage could
take half a day, now it
is done in less than anhour… it’s been goodfor productivity.”
Emily Speight

Records and Information
Management Coordinator
Red Deer County

Red Deer County establishes foundation for digital governance“There are certainly features in OpenText that make it a lot easierfor our end users,” says Speight. “Unlike our previous ECM system,with Content Suite, categories are inherited down in the folder,ensuring consistent metadata for later access. Our Records staff
were extremely excited about this feature because it saves us asignificant amount of data entry, removes data entry burdens fromour users and ensures more accurate searching.”

Intuitive control

Red Deer County introduced employees to the Smart Views user interface in Content Suite 16. Refined and customizable, the Smart UI allows
county professionals to work within their roles while accessing the mostrecent documents and connecting with co-workers through embedded
collaboration. With responsive design for mobile and desktop access,the Smart UI is also seamlessly extensible to other applications.
Most County employees use OpenText™ Enterprise Connect, an alternate
desktop interface that enables them to interact with Content Suite directlyfrom Microsoft® Office or other Microsoft applications. Enterprise Connect
is “extremely helpful for user adoption,” according to Speight. “We havea diverse group of users. We’ve found that with desktop integration
we’ve been able to satisfy all people and meet their needs.”
Since all Red Deer County employees rely on Content Suite for document
access, some users—and one in particular—appreciate the ability tosend links rather than attachments for document sharing. “He has beenvery vocal about how much he loves this feature,” Speight says. “Iwouldn’t dare send him a document attached to an email, because
I’d be told, ‘Send me a link!’ ” As a manager, this user is a champion
for the new system, which is beneficial for change management anduser adoption.”

External accessThrough OpenText™ Tempo ™ Box, convenient, protected access todocuments in Content Suite is extended to external contractors andothers for a simple, secure way to share, file sync, access and manage
information. For instance, the Safety Codes group assigns permit inspections to a third party. Construction plans and applications are
saved in Content Suite and accessible to the contract inspection staff.
Rather than forwarding the inspection documents to administrators toupload, the contract inspection staff can save the inspection documents
directly to Content Suite in real-time via Tempo Box.
“When we told them we can get your records into our system in realtime, you do not need to be on the network, you just need an internet
connection, that was well-received,” Speight notes.
County committee records are made available to members using
Tempo Box. Chairpersons can then check an audit trail of who hasreviewed the material.
Speight says Tempo Box is also useful for sharing large documents, suchas files requested through the Freedom of Information and Protectionof Privacy Act. “It has been very handy because in the past, we had
issues when trying to send emails if the attachment was too big. We
have government information… I don’t think it is good practice to send
the files in Dropbox. Tempo Box provides us a secure, professional
platform for sharing.”

One-stop records management

Overall, an integrated ECM system with robust search capabilities
provides Red Deer County employees with reliable access to thedocuments they need, when they need them. “You just do one searchand you get everything you need to make the appropriate decision,”“Having a system like
OpenText in placeallows us to say withconfidence that we dida thorough search andprovided all the records
without having to run
from office to office.”
Emily Speight

Records and Information
Management Coordinator
Red Deer CountyRed Deer County establishes foundation for digital governanceSpeight says. For meeting compliance guidelines, “having a system
like OpenText in place allows us to say with confidence that we did athorough search and provided all the records without having to run
from office to office.”
To fulfill retention requirements, county employees previously
entered—by hand—the contents of file boxes into a database. Now,
Red Deer County takes advantage of the OpenText™ Physical Objects
module, which supports barcode label, warehouse and circulation management. Thus far, the County has processed close to 700 boxes in its
on-site storage. “It’s a beautiful thing,” Speight says. “Processing abox could take half a day, now it is done in less than an hour… it’s
been good for productivity.”

Securing an ECM foundation

Red Deer County worked with OpenText partner, Cadence Solutions,to implement the integrated system. As an organizational initiative, anECM strategy benefits from establishing policies and procedures andworking with providers that are trained and competent, according toSpeight. Focused efforts then foster senior management support, amust-have for change management. “Having the right consultantmade all the difference for us,” she notes.
Now that the County stands on a solid ECM foundation, it looks forward
to adding other OpenText technologies for supporting digital governance.
OpenText™ Email Management for Microsoft® Exchange is next, then on

to OpenText™ Capture Center for classifying and extracting data frommunicipal forms. Speight and her team are also evaluating OpenText™
Brava!™, which enables users to manage any file, on any device within
business rules. Document management via workflows will increase
as county employees recognize the power of process automation.
“We have an HR professional who is forward-thinking and who isscreaming for workflow,” Speight notes. “She has 101 different ways
we can use it.”
Unlike other ECM systems Speight investigated, OpenText offers thecapability and capacity to support Red Deer County at all points along its
path to an information governance program. “We can add capabilities
down the road,” she says. “We’re not going to outgrow the system.”

About Cadence Solutions

Cadence Solutions works exclusively as an OpenText Partner implementing Content Suite. Cadence has guided organizations all the wayfrom business case development through to the implementation of thesolution. Cadence’s industry-leading expertise has been built throughmultiple engagements with the Energy, Utility, Engineering, Membership,
Technology, Not for Profit, Pharmaceutical and Public Sector industries.
cadencesolutions.ca

About OpenText

OpenText, The Information Company,
enables organizations to gain insight
through market leading information
management solutions, on-premises orin the cloud. For more information aboutOpenText (NASDAQ: OTEX, TSX: OTEX)
visit opentext.com.
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