SICANGU Village – Managing Homes… Managing Paper with Efalia ECM

 

Working with our partner Active Data Systems (ADS), the Rosebud Sioux Tribe Housing Authority has transformed its document management by adopting the Efalia ECM solution. By digitizing over 200,000 tenant documents, they were able to free up time to better serve their residents, optimize space utilization and prepare for future growth. Find out how this initiative not only improved efficiency, but also ensured the security and longevity of essential information.

 

 

Rosebud Sioux Tribe Housing Authority manages over 1,200 home units. Utilizing the Efalia ECM Document Management System, they have digitized over 200,000 tenant documents, which has allowed them more time to serve tenants, better space utilization, and provided room to grow.

In the 1990s, the Rosebud Sioux Tribal Council created S.W.A. Corporation as the Tribal Designated Housing Entity to develop and support self-sustaining, desirable, and affordable residential housing and communities near the Rosebud Reservation for individuals and families who want or need to live there. Currently, SWA Corporation manages over 1,200 home units.

As with any program, the need to document all activities is both essential and substantial.

Said Amos Prue, SWA Corporation’s CEO, “I’d have to say over the history of the organization, every file that has been produced as a result of tenancy has been maintained. We do have a lot of files. We do have a lot of paper.”

In an effort to provide better management of their ever-growing document problem, SWA Corporation purchased and installed Efalia ECM digital document management system from Active Data Systems in Sioux Falls. Efalia ECM has the most flexible and comprehensive document capture features available. Paper and electronic documents, whatever their format or source, are easily captured and organized. However, having a system and making one work are two different things. Catching up on hundreds of thousands of documents in the SWA filing cabinets created a hurdle that needed to be overcome.

“It turned out the company just didn’t have the manpower to complete the task,” said Cole McClung, account representative for Active Data Systems. He added, “So instead of abandoning the whole project, we decided to have Active Data Systems’ Service Bureau take care of the scanning to get them caught up, and then the SWA employees would take over and do the scanning from there.”

 

More Time To Serve Tenants…

More than 200,000 documents have been scanned, and the digitized document data of occupancy information has been returned to SWA Corporation. Says Amos Prue, “Well, I mean it’s allowed us to free up our staff’s time for dealing more directly with tenants’ needs instead of spending their time chasing all this paper.”

Better Space Utilization…

The elimination of space-hogging filing cabinets provided SWA with an opportunity to put that space to better use: office and tenant consultation areas.

 

Documents Safe & Secure…

For SWA Corporation, protection of information is vital. Efalia ECM’s comprehensive security settings ensure that only those with the proper usernames and passwords have access to tenants’ information and assures that once information is in the system, it’s there to stay.

 

Room To Grow…

Efalia ECM is a modular system that allows a company to effectively tailor its own solution as document management needs grow. With Efalia ECM, SWA Corporation is confident its document management system will fully adapt to meet future require-ments.

Said Prue, “We have eight departments, and now that we have nearly completed the document imaging for our Occupancy area, our plan is that eventually all of our departments would transition into document imaging.”