Case Study: City of Rochester, MN | EO Johnson

The Challenge

Access to information, and the ability to efficiently share it, is essential to government operations. To improve accessibility and streamline workflows, the City of Rochester, MN, invested in a document management system to digitize and manage all new (day-forward) documents across multiple departments. However, a significant challenge remained - decades’ worth of accumulated paper records.

Digitizing this backlog was a key initiative. Each department had its own reasons for converting paper files. For example, Building Safety, the City Clerk, and Administration departments needed to free up physical space for staff expansion or renovation - space currently occupied by paper archives. Meanwhile, departments like Public Works and Human Resources frequently accessed their records, often by multiple users, making digital access a critical need for improving efficiency and reducing costs.

Over the years, additional challenges emerged. When departments such as Building Safety were relocated to new facilities, they faced difficult decisions about what to do with more than one million standard-size and large-format documents that couldn’t be accommodated in the move. With each department managing its own unique record types and requirements, a tailored approach to digitization became essential.
The Solution

The City of Rochester’s IT Department began by building out the structure within the document management software for each department, enabling day-forward scanning to begin. The strategy was to first stop the creation of new paper records before tackling the backlog - maximizing the impact of the funds allocated for scanning.

The Building Safety Department Leader noted, “EO Johnson worked with us to identify areas that didn’t need scanning, which brought greater savings.” Since each department had unique record types and workflows, close collaboration was essential to not only meet expectations, but also to uncover opportunities for automation.

Where possible, database files generated from core systems were leveraged to reduce or eliminate manual data entry. Departments were given flexibility in quality control, with multiple options that allowed them to prioritize records needing the most attention.

Secure delivery of completed digital seamless integration with the document management system was a top priority. Extensive testing was conducted for each project, and a standardized output format and secure delivery process were established. This helped streamline implementation and minimized the time the IT Department needed to spend handling completed files.

Standardized Record-Keeping

Records from multiple departments were now digitized and organized in one standardized document management system.
Employee Efficiency

Information is accessed more efficiently and can be shared both internally and with the public.
Document Retention & Security

Historical records and large format documents are protected from natural disasters like fires or floods.
Space Availability

Office space once occupied by these records has now been reallocated to fulfill other needs.

“We have a productive and communicative working relationship with EO Johnson. They are business partners rather than a contracted vendor. Our data is now more usable, saving us time and effort. I am confident we chose the best company to meet our highly complex needs enabling us to effectively retain decades of information we would not have been able to manage on our own.”

Building Safety Department Leader
City of Rochester