How Broomfield made "workflow" part of its vocabulary

Challenge

For many years, the City and County of Broomfield were limited by confusing, obsolete software that ran on aging hardware and software. Storing and searching for documents was a nightmare and the maintenance was increasingly complicated and at risk of permanent failure. As they evaluated options, there was a clear need for a solution that would help them be more organized and responsive to the needs of their community while remaining compliant with regulations. First and foremost, they needed a system where they could easily store, search, and retrieve their secure files.

As they evaluated requirements, having the ability to track and manage the flow of documents was a priority, however, the value of this capability would be a significant change for the organization. The word, “workflow,” wasn’t even in their vocabulary. For example, reviewing a contract was a time-consuming process.

First, documents were printed and passed on, in person, from one department to another until it reached the mayor for final approval. This process became even more complex when contracts had to be sent abroad, costing the City and County valuable time and money. These processes, like many others that the City and County were using, also made it nearly impossible to properly track files. If employees felt that a document was stuck somewhere in the process, they had to search around the office for it.

Story

Finding a solution that would address the time consuming manual processes, and transform their storage and retrieval capabilities from a struggle to an enhancement became more and more important for Broomfield. It was equally important that the costs and long-term maintenance of a solution could easily be absorbed by the lean organization. As a first step, they decided to move to Google Workspace to store their documents.

The City and County of Broomfield officially aggressively adopted Google as its public cloud platform in 2015 allowing them to move over 35 terabytes of files into the Cloud. Google Workspace’s user-friendly interface and security features were a huge improvement over their old document repository. It quickly helped solve the issues related to finding and storing files and allowed them to simplify their approval processes by retiring the existing system that had used physical documents.

However, employees still had a hard time tracking documents throughout the process and often found themselves needing to chase them down. It was at this point that Broomfield realized that Google Workspace alone was not enough. They needed a document management system that would allow them to automate and better secure these processes.

Since Broomfield was already a Google customer, they wanted a document management system that could leverage the features of Google Workspace. They considered several products and even partially implemented one before determining that a more mature solution that was tightly integrated with Google Workspace was essential. That’s when Broomfield decided to try AODocs. The results were dramatically different, particularly when it came to implementation flexibility and user adoption.

With AODocs, the word, “workflow”’ became meaningful and is now part of the common vernacular across the City and County. Now, three of their most important processes, council memos, construction contracts and agreements, and budget requests, have been completely revolutionized.

Results

After less than a year of using AODocs, the City and County of Broomfield now has more than 300 employees using the solution as part of their regular work. Even better, hundreds of hours of work have been saved thanks to custom, automated workflows. With more time, the county has been able to expand its services and take on more projects to help improve the lives of its residents.

Broomfield also saved thousands of dollars a year by retiring their expensive server infrastructure and have reduced the maintenance load for the IT staff.

Unlike the old system, users are actually happy to use AODocs. Ernesto Chavez, IT Director at Broomfield County, has told us that he keeps getting more and more requests and use cases for AODocs and intends to continue working to maximize the value of their investment in this technology. The most common feedback he hears from his team is:

It’s so much easier. I can find stuff!