Local governments have numerous obligations to the public in the context of document accessibility and storage. Your department might be required to provide certain web forms to the public at little or no cost. Getting legally enforceable signatures on those documents is yet another facet of online document management, to say nothing of the countless safe storage requirements placed upon your agency.
It’s worthwhile to consider agile government software solutions for these reasons alone, but an electronic workflow for your governmental department can have many benefits for your employees. No more trips to the data room to fetch physical files for something required to share due to the Freedom of Information Act or time spent on helping citizens fill out and sign legal documents.
The modern workplace—private or public—requires efficiency at every juncture, and the right software can help you achieve it. Keep reading for a generalized rundown of local government software solutions that may optimize your agency’s operations.
E-Sign Software with CDP
One of the most visible innovations involving legal documents and the internet is virtual signatures. Electronic signatures, or e-signatures, are becoming heavily used within the world of government contracts; you might have used one when signing things like apartment leases, mortgage documents, or medical release records.
With us, you can get effective e-signature software solutions without having to pay the high prices associated with some of the larger providers. CDP can give you lean, easy-to-use software for getting signatures from internal and external stakeholders in accordance with your department’s needs. We can help with purely electronic signatures and electronic wet signatures that we then upload for future use over the internet.
Using e-signatures can cut down on the time your employees spend servicing citizens’ needs in the office. It can also allow your agency or department to become much more environmentally friendly.
Webforms with CDP
Apart from gathering signatures, a much more efficient way of getting important information from citizens exists with CDP’s web forms. From anywhere with internet access, citizens in your jurisdiction can submit details about nearly anything your agency handles. Our staff can work with your employees to craft personalized web forms that meet every need and fulfill every government requirement.
For example, say someone is looking for a building permit from 1998. Right now, they would have to come into the office and fill out paperwork requesting the document. Then, someone working in the building would have to seek out the paperwork, which is perhaps filed in the same building, and hopefully stowed away in an organized manner, but sometimes, it requires days of searching.
With our solutions, the citizen could just request the document by filling out a form online. Because we digitized and organized all files, the software will identify the digital copy of the document and display it for the citizen.
After citizens (or whichever external stakeholders you interact with) submit a completed web form, our software can also check for user errors and alert users so they may make proper submissions. Once you have the information you need, our cybersecurity tools will keep sensitive and identifying details secure from hackers and other bad actors.
CDP’s Laserfiche—Electronic Content Management
You need an easily accessible location to store important documents. That used to be the big file room downstairs, but there’s a better way to do things now. Our Laserfiche content management software creates intuitive processes for inputting data and fetching that data when you need it. You can get clear, exhaustive reports for audits. In many cases, we can set up documents your team can collaborate on and edit as needed.
Do Free Software Solutions Exist for Local Governments?
Many local governments, including some of the largest agencies and departments in the world, have begun using free and open-source municipal software. This helps public entities show citizens they’re fiscally responsible and reduce physical waste.
Some options for your agency might include:
- Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, or Opera for internet browsers
- Evince or Foxit Reader for PDF-like documents
- OpenStreetMap, GeoServer, World Wind, Quantum GIS, or OpenLayers for geographic information
- A number of Linux or Linux-based operation systems
For more cost-effective software options, check out this report from the International City/County Management Association.
Save Time, Money, and Space with Electronic Document Management Software
You’ve likely been meaning to digitize some of your government agency’s operations for a while now, but a few barriers keep standing in the way. You might worry about the price tag or challenges associated with learning new programs. It might just seem like you don’t have the time to change things up right now.
CDP’s local government software solutions can significantly reduce or eliminate all of those potential pain points. Our team's main goal is flexibility; we can meet you where you are and get you where you need to go. Whether you need secure document and data storage, effective web forms, legally enforceable e-signature options, e-printing capabilities from any device, or something else that can help your office digitize and become more efficient, we want to help.
Thanks to our tireless customer service and concise training sessions, we can help your team hit the ground running with a new system. Request a demo to learn more.
