It feels like you can wander a department store for hours and still not see everything there is to offer. Similarly, we didn’t get to all the US Government Departments that ImageSoft works with in Part 1 of this series. Welcome back for our second trip featuring new departments, new solutions, and new challenges to overcome!
As a refresher from Part 1, the US Government is divided into various departments in order to break down the workload and allow for specialization. Rather than expecting employees to know a little about everything, departments encourage each team to be experts at specific things. Of course, departments communicate and work together towards the common goal, but specific decisions are made internally, including solutions implemented!
Finance and Administration
As you would imagine, maintaining finances is critical for the Government to run smoothly. The Department of Finance and Administration promotes the financial integrity and operational efficiency of the federal government through exceptional accounting, financing, collections, payments, and shared services. Finance and Administration has plenty of challenges to overcome, many of which deal with computing, data entry, and repetitive tasks. Luckily, there are digital solutions ready to pick up the slack and help staff be more efficient.
- Accounts Payable/Receivable: OnBase by Hyland offers Accounts Payable/Receivable assistance to help the process move more quickly. OnBase assists in capturing and organizing documents, keying in and indexing data, reviewing invoices, sending approvals, and identifying problems/exceptions. Combined, these digital processes can save the Department of Finance and Administration hundreds or thousands of hours each year. For Accounts Payable/Receivable in particular, relying more heavily on automation is a great option. Specifically, when it comes to data entry or keying, a computer will almost always get the job done faster and more accurately than a human team member can. The information will have little to no errors, freeing up time spent troubleshooting to be better used on pressing matters. This type of automation, typically referred to as Robotic Process Automation, is becoming more popular each year, and it’s proving to be a valuable tool for back-office tasks that require accuracy and speed.
- Human Resources: Human Resources is often the powerhouse of any organization. Without them, you will not get new staff, payroll will fall behind, and your existing team is at risk of moving on. HR is the glue of a company or department, ensuring that each staff member is viewed and respected as an individual who contributes to the good of the business. Keeping people happy and growing the team are very tall tasks. OnBase specializes in Back Office/HR solutions that can take some of the burden off your team’s shoulders. OnBase handles a spectrum of tasks including recruitment, onboarding, management, and relations. Essentially, OnBase is HR’s right-hand-man throughout the lifecycle of an employee. It assists in finding and screening new candidates, training new hires, managing documentation, and reporting reviews/complaints. Essentially, it’s an assistant to your HR team, doing the tedious and time-consuming work so that they can focus on interviews, team building, and improving intracompany relationships.
- Agenda Management: Pulling together an agenda and the accompanying materials that need to make an appearance, from documents to spreadsheets, can keep your staff deskbound until the meeting’s come and gone. Using OnBase, you can automate the labor-intensive approval, assembly, and distribution of the agenda, freeing up your staff to focus on other important work. With just a few clicks, your team can create an up-to-date agenda packaged nicely with all accompanying documents, files, and notes. Not only will the agendas be neater and more accurate, but the team will have everything they need right in front of them in a convenient digital location.
- Public Records Management: Lastly, OnBase can be utilized to manage public-facing records that the Department of Finance and Administration is typically responsible for. A web-based request for access will be displayed on the request dashboard. The team can look over requests from a single dashboard, and make the next steps to approve or deny. Once approved, the request is automatically tracked and routed, reports are developed, and the requested record is emailed to the user. Think of the time you’ll save by avoiding performing all the middleman steps manually!
Public Health
We’re all more than aware that the Department of Public Health is vital to keeping US citizens protected. The pandemic has only emphasized the need for Government-assisted health aid, making this department’s job more important than ever. Of course, managing the public’s health is a big ask that involves juggling many tasks at once. OnBase answers the call and is your first defense against chaos. In addition to the in-platform features that aid the Public Health Department, OnBase’s integration capabilities take it to the next level. Integrate with new or existing business applications to make work flow seamlessly throughout the department. When everyone is on the same page and is notified of decisions as quickly as possible, decisions can be made and problems can be solved. Take a look at a few of the OnBase features best suited for the Department of Public Health:
- Generate Template Letters and Web Content
- Capture Data on Mobile Forms
- Capture Email Communication
- Implement Digital Workflow
- Digitize Case Management
- Capture Lab Test Information
- Report and Map Public Records
Public Services
Last but certainly not least, let’s take a look at Public Services. Public Services includes any service provided by the Government to assist or improve the lives of a certain population, jurisdiction, or community. Because the Government’s main role is to serve the public, it’s fair to say that this is one of the most important departments we have (but we don’t play favorites). Sometimes known as the Department of Public Works, this organization is responsible for improving the lives of US residents.
Beneath the Public Services umbrella sits Housing and Human Services, Licensing Boards, and City Planning. Each subset requires different solutions to help overcome challenges and streamline processes. Housing and Human Services tends to benefit from some specific features:
- Case Files: Use data from your core business systems to index documents and/or automatically classify and read the documents for information to be used for business processing. Link the data with case files to make it easy to store, pull up, and provide information on cases later. With this method, all authorized employees have equal access and can answer questions in real-time from the public.
- Case Management: Case files become immediately accessible and showcase real-time status updates when integrated with Section 8 software systems, Microsoft Office, Outlook, or any core system. Provide your team with the power to refer to cases as needed with just a few clicks. There’s even an automatic audit trail to keep people honest and responsible.
- Automated Workflows: Create an automated process comprised of various smaller tasks. Workflows can save your team countless hours every day, and they often reduce mistakes by eliminating the possibility of human error during the middle stages. Say ‘goodbye’ to manually transitioning from Point A all the way to Point F, and let OnBase handle it for you.
The other aspects of Public Services rely generally on OnBase as a whole. By mixing and matching capabilities, the department can customize solutions to solve unique problems. There are countless uses of OnBase in this sector because it requires a high level of organization, rapid turnaround, data management, and reliable sharing/communication. OnBase checks all of those boxes, making it a winning solution.
As you can see, ImageSoft is happy to support any department we can. The sectors discussed in this two-part series are some that we actively work with regularly, but we also work with other departments across the country! Visit https://imagesoftinc.com/government/ to learn more about our solutions and services, and feel free to contact us for additional information. Odds are, we can offer you digital solutions that will help you overcome your most frustrating challenges. Have a wonderful and productive week, and keep running your department like the expert you are!