ITEM:

CONSENT CALENDAR

 

7.

CONSIDER APPROVAL TO ENTER INTO AGREEMENT WITH KBA DOCUSYS FOR PURCHASE AND IMPLEMNTATION OF DOCUWARE SOFTWARE

 

Meeting Date:

May 18, 2015

Budgeted: 

Yes

 

From:

David J. Stoldt,

Program/

Fixed Assets

 

General Manager

Line Item No. 

9160 Computer Equip & Programs

 

Prepared By:

Suresh Prasad

Cost Estimate

$57,000

 

General Counsel Review:  Yes

Committee Recommendation:  The Administrative Committee reviewed this item on May 11, 2015 and recommended approval.

CEQA Compliance:  N/A

 

SUMMARY:  In recognition of the fact that the District currently does not have a document management software, staff budgeted $60,000 in fiscal year 2014-2015 to fund the purchase of a new document management software.  Staff has evaluated different software’s that will meet the District’s needs for document management and recommends that the Board enter into an agreement with KBA Docusys for purchase and implementation of DocuWare document management software.  The justification for selecting DocuWare is provided in the background section of this report.

 

Since the District currently does not have document management software, it requires the District to maintain its documents in hard copy format and store at offsite storage units.  The District currently occupies two offsite storage units that are almost full and will require the District to get an additional storage unit in the very near future.  Purchasing of the recommended document management software will avoid the District from getting additional storage units, and in future reduce the use of existing storage units from two to one.  

 

RECOMMENDATION:  District staff recommends authorizing the General Manager to enter into an agreement with KBA Docusys to provide DocuWare document management software and implementation services for an amount not to exceed $57,000.  This amount includes $2,000 in related travel costs for the onsite trainers.   

 

BACKGROUND:    

 

Since its inception, the District has been accumulating hard copies of documents and storing these documents at its offsite storage units.  The accumulation of these documents has been extended to two offsite storage units which are near its full capacity.  If conditions remain the same, the District will have a need to rent additional storage units to accommodate the hard copy documents.  Staff is recommending purchase of document management software to start retaining documents in electronic format and avoid use of additional physical storage space.     

Since the current proposed document storage software is scalable, it will be implemented for accounting services and later rolled out to other divisions within the District.  The goal will be to automate the accounting process making it into a paperless accounting system.

 

For example, the Accounts Payable process will be automated from receiving the invoice to its final step of making payments.  The invoices will be electronically routed for approvals, checked against the financial database for purchase order and other validation, and finally routed to accounting for payment. After payment has been made, the invoice and all other documents relating to the invoice will be archived electronically in accordance with District’s retention policy.

 

The benefits for retaining documents electronically will be reduction in real estate space for storing documents, significant savings of staff time when searching for documents, better flow management of documents between divisions, ease of use during audit process, and many other benefits.

 

Staff has evaluated different document management software and feels that DocuWare will meet the District’s need for document management.

 

Staff recommends DocuWare document management software for the following reasons:

·         Internet server – enables controlled access to documents stored in DocuWare from a web browser on the Internet or Intranet from anywhere in the world

·         Scalability – rolled out from single user to small networks, and extending out to enterprise clustering

·         Auto index capability – allows to import information from other applications, such as financial accounting programs, and send it to file cabinet as indexing and search terms for documents.

·         Link capability – allows the full integration of archived documents in existing programs

·         Security – offers high degree of security against unauthorized data access

·         Auditing – keeps an audit trail of all users and activities within the system

·         Mobility – use of mobile devices to complete work flow and to access documents remotely

 

EXHIBITS

7-A      DocuWare Product Info

7-B      KBA Docusys Proposal

 

 

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