Clients - Case Studies
City of Mississauga
Records management in record time--City
of Mississauga gets customized solution to complex high-volume record management,
on time and on budget. |
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"In
1999, we looked at several
systems. I attended various
ARMA events and visited many
booths. While others were
offering a records management
product,
I found that the OmniRIM
staff were very knowledgeable
about
the details of records management
business processes.
OmniRIM
offered a simple product
— one that was easy for users
to
learn. I was impressed
by the seamless way OmniRIM
'married'
the active records and the management of the
records centre boxes & shelves."
— Joan Rockall, Supervisor,
Corporate
Records,
City
of Mississauga
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The City of Mississauga, located west of Toronto, is Canada's sixth
largest city with a current population of 630,000. The city has
more than 20,000 businesses and 52 Fortune 500 corporations have
their head offices in Mississauga.
THE SITUATION:
The City of Mississauga needed a flexible, comprehensive, and easy
to use records management system. This included administering many
active records rooms within departmental divisions, an in-house
records center, a small secure vault, and an off-site facility.
Additionally, records are stored at a commercial records center
for vital records and disaster recovery purposes.
The City of Mississauga has complex and challenging records management
requirements. The City has approximately 40 dedicated records staff,
in 5 different departments in various locations who use the system
on a daily basis. Over 600 users are able to search and request
retrieval online, although many staff use the services of dedicated
records staff. The City of Mississauga has a classification system
comprised of 16 primary and over 400 secondary groups - with some
records having tertiary and quaternary levels of classification.
In 1999, the existing complex legacy system needed to be replaced
due to Y2K compliance concerns. The City had a very tight time frame
for implementation, and required customization of several specific
operational functions.
THE SOLUTION:
The City initially purchased the OmniRIM®
32-bit Windows version for Oracle®
software package and, as part of the OmniCARE Premium Support Package.
This year, OmniRIM Solutions provided an upgrade to the OmniRIM
Enterprise Windows Web-Based Edition, free of charge.
The supervisor of corporate records and her team selected OmniRIM
for the following reasons:
- Cost Savings. A major factor for the City was the lower
site licence costs of implementing OmniRIM's record management
solution. In 1999, the other products the City considered were
significantly more expensive due to the 'per seat' costs.
- Ease of implementation and vendor support for implementation.
OmniRIM Solutions was able to deliver the new system in just three
months - meeting the City's tight timeline for Y2K compliance.
OmniRIM customized the system to meet the City's specifications.
The City of Mississauga was able to implement the new system with
just two employees, the IT Project Manager and the Records Supervisor,
and with very minimal disruption to normal operations.
- Ease of legacy data migration. One of the key reasons
the City of Mississauga chose OmniRIM was because it operated
similarly to their old system, which had been developed in-house
in 1986. This meant that staff did not have to change their processes.
Staff imported the records into the new system easily and OmniRIM
provided support by tweaking the software to ensure the retrieval
and re-filing of records went efficiently.
- Ease of use. City staff quickly became comfortable with
the new system due to its similar configuration. There were no
major changes to operational processes and this was a major benefit
in reducing training time. While the old system operated similarly,
the new OmniRIM system was much more effective - offering greater
flexibility, greater search capabilities, as well as allowing
staff to implement more advanced processes. For example, the destruction
of old records used to involve searching manually for the records
and producing an ad hoc report. OmniRIM offers various reports
with a higher level of accuracy and it is easy to find anything
that has been missed.
- Responsive and effective technical assistance with support
issues. During development and implementation, any problems
affecting operations were resolved quickly. OmniRIM Solutions
sent updates and fixes by email and these were easily applied
by the City's IT staff. Most importantly, OmniRIM Solutions took
the time to understand the issues facing the City and offer solutions
that worked.
THE RESULT:
The City of Mississauga now has a user friendly records management
system that effectively and efficiently manages its records.
Key results include the following:
- Improved accessibility to information and easy retrieval for
professional/technical staff
- Improved management of active and inactive records, in one seamless
system
- Expanded search capabilities, due to space available for information
related to records
- Variety of search methods and easy request function for retrieval
- Improved operations and management of Active Records areas and
Records Centre locations, due to the flexibility of OmniRIM
- Time savings and high degree of accuracy due to bar code reader
technology for processing of records
- User friendly, easy to learn system reduces training requirements
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